Have you ever felt so overwhelmed that when you wake up in the morning you’re already tired? Do you want to know how to stop feeling overwhelmed on a daily basis?
Moms are juggling demanding schedules and shifting between different priorities daily. More than most people, moms often feel overwhelmed by everything they need and want to do each day.
But what if you could stop feeling overwhelmed and instead feel satisfied and successful? What if there was a productivity hack that could help you focus on what’s most important, so that you can live your most productive life?
We are here to help you with that Momma.
Tonya Dalton, a CEO and productivity expert who wrote the book: THE JOY OF MISSING OUT: LIVE MORE BY DOING LESS. In this book, she “gives you actionable strategies to help you discover your purpose, clarify your priorities, simplify your life, and achieve true harmony by embracing the ‘unbalance’ that is inherent in our lives.”
The first step Dalton recommends in overcoming and eliminating the overwhelm in your life is to define your life’s purpose.
Your Purpose
Defining your life’s purpose can seem overwhelming and daunting in itself. But knowing and understanding your life’s purpose will bring you greater clarity and focus. This clarity will help you when making all of your decisions, both big and small.
Do you sometimes feel lost and unsure what to do when faced with an important decision? Maybe you are just following in the paths of others?
We make many decisions every single day, especially as moms. But few of us ask ourselves what exactly is guiding our decision-making.
Having a clear and defined purpose is crucial for making better decisions. While defining your purpose might seem daunting at first, it’s more than worth the effort.
Seasonal Purpose
The earth moves through seasons and cycles. We experience Spring, Summer, Winter, and Fall each year. We have daily cycles too, of morning, afternoon, evening, and night.
It’s the same in our lives. We move through temporary seasons and cycles. Which may be why trying to define a “lifelong” purpose can feel especially overwhelming. Instead, you may want to think in terms of a temporary or “seasonal” purpose.
Hopefully this can help you to relax and know that there are no right or wrong answers when defining what is important to you right now. What your purpose is right now, may not necessarily be what your purpose is in a few years.
Although, what you focus your energy and time on right now, will have an impact on your future. So defining what you want your future to look like can help you determine what is important to focus on here in the present.
How Do You Define Your Purpose?
But exactly how do you go about defining your purpose? Tony Dalton’s book, THE JOY OF MISSING OUT helps with this question too.
Dalton says your purpose is a combination of your mission, vision, and core values. Let’s look at how to define each of these elements.
Mission Statement:
The first step in defining your purpose is to identify your mission. Your mission is all about WHY. Why do you do the things you do?
To get a better idea of your mission, try this exercise known as the ABC Brain Dump. First, write down the letters of the alphabet on a sheet of paper. Spend a couple of minutes thinking about why you do the things you do. Working from letter A to Z. Write down whatever comes to mind. Once that’s done, you’ll have a list of 26 different things. Look for recurring themes and words that pop out, and use them to guide your mission statement.
Your mission statement should be short and easy to memorize. Take Nike for example – their mission statement is, “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.”
See how their mission statement doesn’t talk about WHAT Nike does. Instead, it focuses on WHY they do what they do.
If you need an idea for a “Mother’s Mission Statement”, the first line in Brene Brown’s Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto could be a good place to start. It says, “Above all else, I want you to know that you are loved and loveable. You will learn this from my words and actions – the lessons on love are in how I treat you and how I treat myself.”
Vision Statement:
Next, let’s make a Vision Statement. Your Vision Statement is all about where you hope to be in the future.
Try to keep your Vision Statement as one sentence.
To create your Vision Statement, try using a vision board. Cut out inspiring images and words from magazines, and stick them on a poster board.
While doing this, ask yourself a couple questions: How can I make what I’m doing now even better? How do I want to evolve and grow?
Use these questions along with the inspiring texts and images on your Vision Board to imagine the best possible future. Now turn this into a short, memorable statement.
Core Values:
Core Values are what guide our behavior and shape our actions.
One of the best ways to discover what your Core Values are is to write down words that you would like others to use to describe you when you’re not present.
Ideally, your Core Values should be six words or fewer. If you have more than six worlds, try and cluster similar themes together and then choose one word that captures the full idea.
It may take you a while to define your Mission, Vision, and Core Values – but once you have these three elements, you’ll have outlined your Purpose.
How Will Knowing My Purpose Help Me?
By identifying your Purpose you will be able to know what is a priority to you and where to focus your time, energy, and resources. Which will help you to stop feeling so stressed out and overwhelmed all of the time.
You’ll know if something doesn’t align with your purpose and be able to say, “No thank you. I’m going to pass on that.” Which will free up your time to focus on the things that are truly important to you.
Knowing your purpose will make it easier for you to make difficult decisions. You’ll be able to weigh the options and understand which choice more closely aligns with your Purpose, Vision, and Core Values. Which will help you avoid unnecessary anxiety, and help save you valuable time and emotional energy.
