How To Do It All
I get asked all the time, “How do you do it all? You must be supermom”. (For the record, I hate being called supermom. )
My first response when people ask me that is to laugh. . . then I realize they are being serious and that I have to come up with some sort of answer.
My answer is always, “I don’t”.
It’s easy to look at someone else’s accomplishments and wonder how they get it all done. What you don’t see is their equally long list of failures. I’m always shocked when someone is impressed by the things I do because they don’t see all the things I don’t do.
They don’t see the pile of laundry that has been sitting in my hallway for a week waiting to be put away. They don’t see my kids left to entertain themselves while I park myself down in front of my computer to get caught up on my ridiculously out of control work to-do list. They don’t see that more often than not I buy pre-made birthday cakes.
No one does it all. Some people are just better at making it look like they do. We have to remember too, that “Doing it all” looks different for different people. Someone may look at us and think we are absolutely perfect because we succeed in something they put importance on. Most of us aren’t walking around thinking that we ARE doing it all.
When I get discouraged, I remind myself of something. I can do anything I want but I can not do everything. I’m confident in my abilities most of the time. I’ve realized that there’s very little I can’t do when I set my mind to it.
I used to think my options were more limited. I have friends who grew up to become doctors, professional singers, and best selling authors. I’d look at them and think, there’s no way I could do that. I understand things differently now. I realize that I could have done those things . . . but I could not do those things AND raise my family. I could not do those things AND do the things that I choose to do instead.
We have to make choices in life and more often than not, we don’t get to choose both.
Right now I do a lot of things that keep me busy. I have 4 kids. I am a homeschooling mom. I work from home. That looks like a lot to people. Actually, that looks like a lot to me, which probably explains why I’m usually so overwhelmed.
But there’s a lot of things I don’t do. I’m not making gourmet meals every night. I’m not finishing DIY projects around the house. I’m not going back to school to get my master’s degree. I’m not writing that book I always said I would write.
And that’s okay. Because I’m doing what I need to do for this season in my life. There really is a season for everything in our life. There may be a time in my life when I have time for those things. There may not.
But still, I’m never going to be able to do it all. And that’s okay.
Do you worry about trying to do it all? How to you bring yourself back to reality?
