Tag: feeling accomplished

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Fulfillment

Loving any minute of it

If you’re in Utah, don’t forget to enter the Thanksgiving Point Giveaway! Today is the last day!

It seems like, if we’re happy, we’re supposed to love every minute of our lives. If we enjoy motherhood, we should love every minute of it. And some people really do love every minute of being a mom—so if we don’t, there must be something wrong with us.

I don’t believe that’s true (and I sincerely hope it’s not!).

I say this because sometimes I struggle to love any minute of motherhood, for weeks at a time. Sure, there’s the occasional 30 seconds of bliss as I snuggle a finally-asleep-again-baby, and the flush of pride when Rachel starts crawling at six months or Rebecca successfully counts to 12(!) at <two and a half, and the smiles at Hayden’s first realistic full-body drawing:

Hayden has drawn Rachel. The spots on her tummy show where her diaper leaked.

But those tiny pleasures are so easily forgotten after hours of diapers, whining, crying, screaming, bickering, punishments, refereeing, and motherhood in general—hours where it feels like these tiny tyrants need everything you have to give and more.

When I dare to admit that feeling, I often get comments telling me I should go back to work. Give up, essentially. Focus on what will make you happiest (“giddy with delight”) immediately.

I do still think that what I’m doing as a stay-at-home mom is important. But sometimes, I’m so unhappy on a daily basis that I struggle to feel that what I’m doing is best for me and for the kids.

I do still think that what I said a year ago is true:

Choosing to be happy does not mean that we will automatically be happy all the time. It doesn’t mean we always choose whatever might make us happy right this second.

Choosing happiness means we choose the things we know are most important for our long term happiness.

But I think I need to put more effort into making better choices on a day-to-day basis. I don’t believe we’ll be “giddy with delight” every minute, no matter what we’re doing, but we can try to focus on the things that do make us feel good about motherhood. And it’s about time I recommit to doing that.

When I was good about working on Feeling Fulfilled Fridays, that’s what I was trying to do: focus on those things that I can do to affect the way I feel and we all function. Maybe it’s about time I work on those things again.

I stopped posting about it for several reasons: struggling with these feelings, being too busy, and the deafening lack of response and enthusiasm from 99% of my readership. However, I think that focusing on fulfillment again—refocusing—can help with the first two, since I think they’re really symptoms of the problem instead of side-effects.

The last one . . . well, that one’s up to you. Is there anything I can do to help encourage you to participate in Feeling Fulfilled Fridays?

As a reminder, for FFF we create a list of things that help us feel accomplished, work on a few of those things during the week, and report on Fridays.

What can you do to enjoy your time as a mother more?

And oh yeah, Rachel really is crawling:

Manic smiley photo by Astrid Phillips

Categories
Fulfillment

Feeling Fulfilled Fridays 11

It’s feeling fulfilled Friday on MamaBlogga! Here’s how it works:

  1. Make a list of things that make you feel accomplished (but aren’t so huge that they take more than a day or a week)
  2. During the week, try to focus on those things that help us feel accomplished
  3. Report on feeling fulfilled Friday and enter the GWP to win an Amazon gift card!

Ugh. I’m flattened by a rough cold.

But we’ve had some good days this week. I’ve done pretty well on making healthy dinners (until tonight), and when my in-laws were here, we watched almost no TV (and they made me take a nap because I was sick, woot!). And I read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and Catching Fire this week—two good books. AND I worked on school stuff with the kids at least a little.

AND I need to go lay back down.

How has your week been? How is your list coming?

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Fulfillment

Feeling Fulfilled Fridays 10

Woot! It’s feeling fulfilled Friday on MamaBlogga, part of the October Group Writing Project! Here’s how it works:

  1. Make a list of things that make you feel accomplished (but aren’t so huge that they take more than a day or a week)
  2. During the week, try to focus on those things that help us feel accomplished
  3. Report on feeling fulfilled Friday
  4. Post on your blog and submit on the form for a chance to win an Amazon gift card in the GWP this month!

My week: this week we started a home-preschool co-op with a couple other families in our neighborhood. Rebecca’s still a little young for the class, but we’ve been working on the lessons at home. In fact, there’s even a curriculum for Rachel (who turned four months on Tuesday!). Her curriculum involves reading her a story, scriptures and a poem, listening to Mozart, playing games (this week, little piggies) and nursery rhymes.

For Rebecca and Hayden, they learn letters, numbers, shapes, colors and a little vocabulary. Hayden is excelling so far—for the first time, he’s really eager to write the letter A all by himself. Rebecca, on the other hand, enjoys spending time together, but of course a lot of the lessons don’t “stick.” She’s only two, though; I don’t expect her to learn everything.

Teaching the kids something new is on my accomplishment list—but, notably, their learning something is not. When I made my list, I thought of a lot more things than what I put on there. It’s hard not to feel accomplished when the kids are angels, do whatever I want, and prove that they are the geniuses I’m convinced they are. And of course it’s okay to have those things on your list—it’s your list. For me, though,those things are out of my control, and feeling accomplished—and fulfilled—is too important to leave up to the mercy of my children’s whims.

What do you think? Would/did you include things that are out of your control on your accomplishment list?

And don’t forget: Post about your FFF and enter to win!

Categories
Fulfillment

My accomplishment list

The foundation of Feeling Fulfilled Fridays is focusing on what makes us feel accomplished, as inspired by a post on Seagull Fountain. I thought about things that make me feel accomplished (mostly as a mother but also a person), things that I can do in a relatively short amount of time, Feeling Fulfilled Fridays badgeperhaps daily.

I hope that as I focus on these simple things, I’ll be able to build on that sense of accomplishment and at the end of the day, I’ll be able to look back and see that I did something.

So here’s my list!

  • Read scriptures with the kids.
  • Exercise.
  • Make a healthy dinner and serve it before 7 PM.
  • Play with the kids.
  • Remain patient.
  • Recording precious moments.
  • Do laundry promptly.
  • Teach the kids something new.
  • Finish a good book.
  • Reach other stories to the kids.
  • Have a clean house.
  • Enforce rules (or chores).
  • Publish a good blog post.
  • Go out with the kids, especially for something fun for them.
  • Defuse or anticipate tantrums.

What makes you feel super accomplished? Blog your list for an entry in the October Group Writing Project!

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Fulfillment Contests

Feeling Fulfilled Fridays 9

It’s feeling fulfilled Friday on MamaBlogga! Here’s how it works:

  1. Make a list of things that make you feel accomplished (but aren’t so huge that they take more than a day or a week)
  2. During the week, try to focus on those things that help us feel accomplished
  3. Report on feeling fulfilled Friday

And it’s time for a Group Writing Project!

My week: All things considered, it’s been a pretty good week. Although I seem to be pathologically incapable of getting in bed before midnight, and Rachel pathologically incapable of sleeping past six all of a sudden, I knew I was going to have to make an extra effort to remain sane this week. And of course, sometimes when you strive to be everything you can for your kids, all they can do is demand more. But hey, sometimes when you make the extra effort, it actually works!

Group Writing Project!
It’s been over a year since the last Group Writing Project on MamaBlogga. As a quick refresher, a GWP is when we all write on the same topic, to see lots of different peoples’ perspective on a topic. This time, the details will be a little different. Instead of one entry a piece submitted over a week, we’re going to have lots of possible entries per person, over the course of the month!

How to enter:
During the month of October, participate in Feeling Fulfilled Fridays. You can enter blog posts on things that make you feel accomplished (especially as a mother), your “feeling accomplished” list, and of course, a Feeling Fulfilled Friday report.

Blog entries must be new, posted in October 2010, and you must use the form to submit each entry (it’s too easy for me to miss them otherwise!).

Other ways to enter: spread the word about the Feeling Fulfilled Friday GWP on Twitter, Facebook or another social network. (But I must be able to see your post—if your Tweets are protected or your Facebook privacy so high that I can’t see the posts, I can’t count them!) Again, use the form to let me know.

What you win
Yes, seriously. There’s a prize. Maybe more than one—depending on how many entries we get.

At least one post, chosen at random, will receive a gift card to Amazon.com! Woot! Fill up your Kindle—or make a downpayment on one!

Get the GWP badge

<a href="http://www.mamablogga.com/feeling-fulfilled-fridays-9/"><img src="http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z41/MamaBlogga/gwp.jpg" alt="MamaBlogga Group Writing Project" title="MamaBlogga Group Writing Project" /></a>

Get the FFF badge

<a href="http://www.mamablogga.com/feeling-fulfilled-fridays-9/" title="Feeling Fulfilled Fridays" style="text-decoration: none;"><img src="http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z41/MamaBlogga/FFF.png" style="border: 1px solid #4c2400;" alt="Feeling Fulfilled Fridays badge" /><br />feel fulfilled in motherhood with MamaBlogga</a>

Or smaller:

<a href="http://www.mamablogga.com/feeling-fulfilled-fridays-9/" title="Feeling Fulfilled Fridays" style="text-decoration: none;"><img src="http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z41/MamaBlogga/FFFsmall.png" style="border: 1px solid #4c2400;" alt="Feeling Fulfilled Fridays badge" /><br />feel fulfilled in motherhood with MamaBlogga</a>

Previous Group Writing Projects:

Categories
Fulfillment

Feeling Fulfilled Fridays 7 & 8

It’s feeling fulfilled Friday on MamaBlogga! Here’s how it works:

  1. Make a list of things that make you feel accomplished (but aren’t so huge that they take more than a day or a week)
  2. During the week, try to focus on those things that help us feel accomplished
  3. Report on feeling fulfilled Friday

Man. I just realized that I’d worked so hard on last week’s post—but never pushed Publish. Arg!

This week: I’m adding something new to my list of things that feel accomplished. Even though I’m an introvert (or possibly because I’m an introvert), taking the kids out for errands and/or something fun makes me feel accomplished.

Monday, I wanted to pick up some new conditioner and milk and eggs (conveniently forgetting the fact that Ryan bought a fresh dozen on Saturday). There was also a pet store and a book store that often has inexpensive kids’ books and activities, so I added those to our trip. And yesterday, I took the kids to play in one of the play areas of the mall.

Taking the kids out also guarantees that we’ll all get dressed and we’ll get away from the computer and the television. (I swear those things have tractor beams!)

Last week:
This week has had some of my highest recent moments of motherhood—and my lowest moments ever.

This week, a family member took me aside to praise me on how well I’m working with Hayden. He’s a pretty typical four-year-old, I hope. He throws several tantrums a day and the most common response to not getting what he wants the second he wants it is to fly off the handle.

(Ahem. No idea where he gets it.)

And every once in a while, I can look like I’m handling it well. Now that makes me feel accomplished!

What’s made you feel accomplished this week?