This week I get real with you, mamas! I know it life can be draining, and you can often feel like you’re helping everyone but yourself. But I truly believe that before you can help others, you first need to invest in yourself.

I share what lead me to the realization that investing in yourself is the key to peace, strength, and purpose. As mamas, it’s easy to lose sight of ourselves as we care for our babies. Lady, you gotta give to yourself just as much as you give to others!

There are six practices that I’ve found have helped me find myself and my strength. I speak to these things and uncover why they’ve helped me and how these small changes shift your mindset and help you invest in yourself every day.  Remember to be mindful of how you treat yourself and be intentional with your time so that you’re able to carve out time for you to invest in growing and giving yourself grace.

Mamas, once you begin investing in yourself, don’t forget to reflect and take note of how you’re feeling. I encourage you to be conscientious of your progress and your mindset as you choose to invest in yourself each day.

xo,

Stephanie

FULL TRANSCRIPTION BELOW

Hey there. I am about to share an episode that I just recorded, but I wanted to start off by telling you that it is once again, raw and real, because that’s what I’m going to do here. There are going to be mistakes made. There is going to be tears and clearing of the throat and silent space and I purposely left it that way. I could have edited some of that out, but then it just didn’t feel right because I’m here to be real. I’m here to give you myself. So be warned that I get emotional, that you will hear technical issues that I probably should have fixed, but I’m doing this last minute and I really didn’t want to waste the time on that because that’s not important. The message is important. Me being here to serve you is important to me. So here we go.

Hey there, welcome to episode four. And this might be kind of a bonus episode, I guess, because I actually thought I was just going to wait until next week to start my new schedule. I don’t know. I did, this was just laid on my heart as something I needed to talk about. It’s something I’m passionate about and while this is going to be a business minded podcast, there are steps you need to take as a mama to get to that business minded spot. And there are things you need to do to invest in yourself before I really think you can run a successful business. So as I mentioned, I actually thought my next episode would be where we just dive some simple beginning steps of business but I felt this tug to talk about this. So investing in yourself, as I mentioned earlier, investing in yourself, this is so important to me and I’m going to start off with why it is so important.

Mom, if you are listening and I made up this story in my child mind, let me know. But even if I did make this up, I’m not going to feel bad about it because it has led me to where I am today. It has given me the drive that I have as a child. I recall multiple times hearing my mom mentioned that she couldn’t do something. She couldn’t buy something. She couldn’t get her hair done. She couldn’t go to this place because she needed to do something for us or purchase something for us. And that’s where their funds were going to go. And I am thankful for that. So thank you, mom. I am not here shaming those decisions. I’m not here saying that she made the wrong call, but I remember those moments from a child and that has instilled in me this passion and drive to make sure that I don’t lose sight of myself and my wants as a mother, you know?

Um, whew, I might get emotional. Mom, thank you again. I’m watching my mom now. You’re probably going to tell me that I’m crazy, but I feel that my mom now in her fifties is trying to find herself because she gave her all to us and I respect that. I think it’s amazing, but I think she missed out on the lot and I want to make sure that I am fully giving to myself and to my family. I didn’t know I’d have as much emotion today for you. So I think it’s so important to be able to do both. And while I’m not perfect at it yet, I am working so hard towards that. And there are so many things you can do. And so today, all I really want to do is give you a few basic, simple things you can do to start this process of investing in yourself.

Some of them require money. Some of them do not. They all require time. You have to give yourself some time. You can start off small. You can start off with 30 minutes a week, one hour a week. You can move that into 30 minutes to take one hour a day, whatever you can do start somewhere. And then as time goes on, give yourself more, make sure to stay true to yourself so that when you, your kids are gone, you don’t have to pick up the pieces and figure out what you want to do with your time now or what you want to do with your life or what your passions are. Take the time now it’s okay, your kids will thank you for it. They will respect it. And they may not in that moment. They are kids, but when they look back, they will see that is so awesome that my mom was able to take time for herself and give us this amazing life.

Now that I think I’m composed, let’s break this down into five simple and small things that you can do to invest in yourself. As a mother, as a wife, as a woman, number one, get ready, get dressed, put on a little makeup, do your hair, whatever, getting ready to you is. And I’m not saying you have to do this every day. There are plenty of days that I slicked back my greasy hair and throw on my leggings and a tee shirt and call it good. But what I do know is when I take the time to get ready and put myself together, I feel so good. It is amazing how much I can perk up what it does to myself esteem. When I just do something and I don’t put on a full face of makeup, just a light amount, or I might throw a few curls in my hair, nothing glamorous today.

I’m wearing a tee shirt dress, but I got ready and I feel good. It was simple. I threw it on probably more simple than squeezing into my leggings if I’m being honest. So pick one day to start off with one day a week, get yourself ready. If that means you have to wake up a few minutes early, do it. If that means you don’t get ready until nap time. That’s okay too. You know, you’ll still get half a day where you can sort of feel amped up and good about yourself. Whatever’s gonna work with you, work for your schedule. Try it out. I think you’ll be amazed at how good you feel. Okay. Number two, take a little time to reflect, or maybe you already know, but pick a passion or a hobby. Something that you can do, whether it be just to do, to do, to do, to maybe make money a little bit of money or to do, to make it into a business, whatever that may be, figure out what that is for you and give yourself one hour a week to do that.

Now, if it’s, you know, crocheting, and maybe you need to only do five minutes a day or something, that’s okay. Um, or give yourself one hour to do it. Uh, or if it’s, uh, reading a book, give yourself time to read a book. If it’s singing, go into your car and start singing or sing for your children, um, whatever your passion is or whatever hobby you may have, give yourself time to enjoy that. You never know where it’s going to lead. Maybe it’s always a hobby, but maybe it’s a business. I don’t know. You don’t know. Just give yourself time to do something that you love to do. You don’t have to give up your time as a mother to do this. Like I said before, wake up a little early. If you need to do it during that time, tell your husband that when the kids go to bed, you want to take one hour to do the thing that you love, work together.

As a team, you guys can figure this out just because you take that hour. Doesn’t mean you’re going to drop the ball on everything else you need this time, put it into your calendar, work it out as a family, but find something you’re passionate about and dive in. All right. Number three. I love community. I love friendship. So number three is set up a coffee date or a happy hour with a friend. How awesome is that? One hour, two hours away from the house with a friend where you just get to be, you talk about whatever you want to talk about your kids. If you want to, you don’t have to completely pull away from your family, your kids. You’re a mama, that’s you, but have that moment to communicate and connect with somebody else. You guys will be each other’s support. You will need that as a mother, you will need that to be successful in your motherhood journey.

So whether that be once a week or once a month, make sure you take some time away from your family to connect with another mama or a friend or a family member. Just have that alone time away from the house, connecting and building your community. Number four, your health, your health is so important. I have my on moments and I have my off moments. So don’t seek perfection here, seek a lifestyle. It’s okay to ebb and flow, but keeping it in the back of your mind, keeping it at your like core of your needs, your health workout. Find the time to work out. You only have to do this a couple times a week. Don’t feel like you need to do it every day. Set a goal. My goal is three times a week now, and this quarantines alive has that happened? Absolutely not. I’m not feeling ashamed about it, but I am looking forward to the day where I can get that back into my routine because I know it makes me feel so good about myself eating right, eating right.

As hard as a mother, you’re so busy, your kids don’t want to eat, right? So then you feel like you have to make all these different meals. You don’t have to. My kids often don’t eat because they don’t like the broccoli that I’m serving or the carrots or the whatever asparagus they don’t like it. And that’s okay. They’re going to learn to like it someday or at least some of it I did. I was a super picky eater as a kid. Don’t let that bring you down. Don’t make that stop you from eating healthy. Don’t feel like you have to eat their frozen pizza or chicken nuggets for your meal. It’s okay. Sometimes in fact, we’re having Chick-fil-A tomorrow. That’s the plan. It’s our drive through fun day and that’s okay. I can do that sometimes, but I think it’s important to make sure you can eat right.

Most of the time, I will tell you from my experience that I feel so much different and better when I’m working out and when I’m eating, right. It’s crazy. It’s so crazy that I know how that feels yet. I might still go have a Snickers bar here in an hour. It’s crazy how your mindset works. But like I said, don’t seek perfection in this right now. Unless it’s something you’re super passionate about, make that your passion, make that your goal, give yourself grace, because it doesn’t need to be perfect. But like I said, I know that I feel a million times better when I’m working out and eating, right? So give it a try. But when you do fall off of that schedule and that routine be okay with it, try again the next day or the next meal. That’s what I do. And that is 100%.

Okay. Step number five, choose happiness. You guys. We get to decide if we’re happy. Isn’t that awesome? Nobody else can decide that for us. If we are not in a happy situation, figure out how to change it. You get to choose happiness. And your perspective on life will flow to your children, to your husband, to your extended family, to your community. You get to make that decision. You get to choose happiness. And when you do, you will start to see it everywhere else. I too am working on this. I’m happy, but I have my moments. But when I’m in those moments, I try to pause and remember, Oh yeah, this doesn’t matter. This will not define my happiness. So let’s move on. Keep seeking happiness. Like I said, you get to decide that only you number six, which is really sort of a bonus. And one that I thought maybe I should just leave it out of this specific podcast because I’m pretty sure that down the line, I will dive deeper into this.

But this one is for the business minded mama in particular. And when it comes to your business, you also have to invest in yourself. Now this one may take some financial investment, but it doesn’t have to be big. At first. It can be super small, as long as you’re willing to move forward by investing in yourself and in your business, you will reap great rewards. Like I said, I’m not telling you to go spend thousands of dollars to start your business. Now, some may require that if you’re trying to open a brick and mortar or something like that, but if you are just starting an at home business, be willing to invest $10 a month into that software. You need, it can be small guys, but you have to have the mindset and the willingness to invest in yourself. All right, guys, I hope you found these helpful maybe a little bit overwhelming. I’m not sure these were meant to be small things you can do to invest in yourself as a mother, as a wife, as a woman. So what I want you to do is either pick one of them, pick a couple of them, do all of them, whatever you think you can handle. Think about what that is this week and either tomorrow, or set a goal for the beginning of next week. Work at least one of those into your schedule. Please give time to yourself. Don’t lose sight of yourself. You are important.