7 tips for ambitious moms driven by the mission to ‘have it all’, including balance

How does an ambitious mother balance family life and the missions she feels compelled to accomplish? What ambitious mommy doesn’t struggle with this? It’s quite a balancing act managing all the missions of an ambitious mom! These 7 tips, from someone in the know, should help even the most ambitious of us ‘have it all’…and in the most satisfying way!

1- LOOK AT THE PRIORITIES. Family is the most important. To support raising a family, try to schedule everything else around family. Patience helps with this! When mission-driven projects take up a lot of time—time that isn’t available in your schedule—stay focused and patiently wait for (or create) the right opportunity to work on the longer, more demanding parts of your mission outside of home.

2- ONE THING AT A TIME: If you are like me, you have many plates spinning at the same time. I learned a long time ago while fostering that those who do more can do more. The more projects I do, the more ability I have to do more projects and not get stressed. Don’t get me completely wrong, there are still some stressful moments.

The trick to keeping all these plates is to spin only one at a time. If I put worrying about a clean house on my mind while I’m trying to get ready to go to a speaking engagement, I’ll explode. So, I just focus on getting ready, for the speaking engagement, and I save the house dish for when I get home.

If I tell myself to only turn one plate at a time, I feel much more comfortable. I always choose the most immediate dish; the one about to fall

3- ADJUST TO TIME BLOCKS: Give yourself a certain amount of time in a day to dedicate to doing your business or other cause-driven projects, this includes answering emails or blogs, and returning calls. Then when the time is up, stop. Don’t overdo it. Spend the time you have and then have faith that if it really is your purpose and mission, then God will make up the difference or make it all work. We often stress when we should just have faith. You won’t be given opportunities to do things you can’t do, so trust that.

4-DREAM. When I get ready to teach a class, etc., I know that a good night’s rest is far more important to my performance than reviewing my notes until three in the morning. I learned this the hard way.

5- SAY NO TO COMPLEXES: I come up with tons of ideas all the time for the different classes or groups I’m in charge of, but that doesn’t mean I have to do all those ideas. Building relationships and connecting with people will ALWAYS be more important than any craft you make or any cute display. If you give of yourself, that is enough. If it’s not enough, you’re probably targeting the wrong type of impact.

I have so much time and family MUST come first for me. If they’re not the first, what am I really doing? All other quests should strengthen your family to some degree.

6- TAKE A DAY ONCE IN A WHILE: If you never have time to work on that other mission, make arrangements with your spouse to take a day every month or two to work on it. My spouse knows that I will always be happy if I am also fulfilling my other mission.

7-RHYTHM: If you focus on your family mission and your other mission, you will grow enormously, you will never be the same again. This is something that can’t really be measured until after the fact, but trust me. This is only if you have embarked on your mission at the right time of course. Let a higher power help dictate your pace.

There is no magic formula to do everything you feel you must do to be a mother and fulfill the mission you are so passionate about. But, if you truly KNOW that now is the time for you to do it, then you must have faith in your ability, patience with possible slow progress, and also stay focused while always putting culture and your family’s happiness first.

Does that make any sense? I hope so. Bedtime.