planning – Your New Wings

30 Jan

Is your youngest child starting school? What is next for you?

With school beginning in Australia this week, even though we now live in the UK, I am reminded of when Thane and Ardyn started primary school. Both of these occasions were intense, exciting, emotional times for us all. I found it particularly confronting personally when Ardyn, my youngest started school.

There where of course the practical and emotional things I wanted to be certain to have in place to ensure Ardyn had as easy a transition as possible. (This post from Mumsnet, ‘Starting primary school’ might be helpful for those of you with children starting primary school for the first time. You have probably thought of most of these items already, but it can’t hurt to check everything is in place). But the less talked about and bigger unknown was my changing role.

I find it interesting that this is the mumsnet advice around this point of how we feel as mums is …

“It can feel horribly empty if your child has always been around for some of the day and then they’re gone for all of it. Well, you can get a hobby, go for tea with other mothers, shave your legs again, get a job or work more hours. And there’s always the holidays.”

I feel this is a big gap. It’s really not that simple, at least I didn’t find it that simple – which is why I work with mums (and dads) to help with their decisions about what is next for them moving into new phases of family life.

For me, to this point, my entire existence for the past 7 years had revolved around our two sons… who was I now? I was a different person, and it was time to start a new phase in my own life now that the intense baby / toddler years had come to an end. It was an enormous opportunity to reinvent myself, of course I had been thinking of this often over the years and in fact I was enrolled to start a masters of teaching (which I had deferred the year before because my Dad got cancer) but it still didn’t feel like quite the right thing to be doing…I felt the pressure of needing to make the ‘right’ choice now…

The prospect of a few child-free hours a day can be very exciting, especially if it is your youngest child starting school. But it can also be daunting, as you deal with all the expectations both you and other people have of what you will ‘do’ now, (as if running a household with young children isn’t enough). Many of my clients use this time to really look hard at what they want do next in their own life.

This is a fantastic opportunity to start something new for yourself – but it is often difficult to decide what that will be, as it needs to fit around the family. Give yourself time and space to deeply contemplate this. A coach can be incredibly useful right now, as we can often get stuck with so many options and our fears around each of them (I know I did!) The most important thing is not to rush it and jump into the first thing that comes along… you may feel pressured to ‘fill the void’, to be seen to doing something useful, but I encourage you to give yourself time to really consider the bigger picture. What is the right direction for you and your family right now? What is the right direction considering that the children will eventually leave home? Take this chance to really create the life you want to be living for the next 50 years!

For those of you in the Northern hemisphere it is a good time to start preparing for September…

If you would like to explore how coaching may help. Please contact me; I would love to show you what is possible. Many of my clients are from far afield, as coaching over the telephone or via Skype is very common, and amazingly effective!

UPDATE on 7th of February: Today we have launched the Online version of The Revitalise Programme – this is a fantastic opportunity to work with other mums I encourage you to check it out, it may be just what you need right now!

Yours in juggling

Tina

06 Jan

A New Year – a new page… or could that be a new book?

The aspirations leading up to a new year, a new beginning, thoughts about how we would like to change our life for the better give us great insight into what our ideal self would look like. This is both exciting and daunting at the same time…there is so much to be gained by making statements about how we want to improve our lives. The problem is the gap in the middle; the space between where we are now and where we want to be… it’s like looking over a pond to the other side and all that is in between is water. What happens if we put stepping-stones in the water? The first stepping-stone is in a place that we can easily and comfortably jump to on our way across the pond? How does that change our perception of what is possible?

So I am suggesting that we can break our year-page into a book with each page dealing with a smaller amount of time… how would that feel?

Overall goals for the year are great (getting to the other side of the pond), but the planning, the breaking it down into strategies and actions needs to be done over a shorter timeframe, for each stepping-stone.

There is a new trend in business planning called the 90-day year (initiated by Todd Herman), which advocates not annual planning, but 3 monthly planning. I think there is something here to be learnt for our own personal planning. One year is a long time, a lot happens, things change. It feels much more flexible and free to look at a smaller timeframe. We can assess what is working and what is not and change things around. For those of us with school aged children the gaps between school holidays can be a useful segmentation. If you are anything like me you struggle to get things done for yourself (or your business/work/study) when you have the children at home for the holidays, so why not plan for the gaps and allow yourself the reward of letting go of some expectations while they are at home?

So what is on the first page of your 2017 book? What do you what to achieve by the time you have the kids home for school holidays at Easter?

There is no right way to plan, no ultimate way to get our heads around how to move forward. Something what works for others may not work for us. Give yourself permission to do it your way. If you work better by not writing things down and just doing what comes to you in any given day, week, month – then go with that. Experimentation is the key – if it isn’t working try something new, but if it is working, don’t compare yourself to the people around you who have a different way of doing things. You may not have a page, a book or spreadsheet. Do what works for you, and if you are struggling – be open to explore what others find useful.

I am off to work on my planning, good luck with yours!

xx Tina

24 Nov

Time Management: Part 2

Key time management tip for busy mums

I had the honour of working with some wonderful mums over the past 2 weeks who were brave enough to add one more thing to their to-do- list and come along to my free workshops.

These workshops were designed to delve into what time management is for each of us. Everyone’s situation is unique, but there are some common threads that run though all our lives can hold the key to dealing with time management. In preparing for this workshop I reflected on my work with mums over the past 4 years and pieced together these threads to identify what we all, as mums tend to struggle with.

What I have discovered is that as mums we…

Try to CONTROL the UNPREDICTABLE
Are on duty 24/7 – it is RELENTLESS, we don’t often get a break
Place enormous EXPECTATIONS on ourselves
Never feel like we are doing ENOUGH because there is always more to do
Often don’t see our SELFCARE as a priority
Are EXHAUSTED from all the decisions – big and small
Feel GUILTY that whatever we are doing it is not the right thing
If we are not making MONEY we don’t feel like we should spend money on ourselves

In line with these threads and in wanting to bring you an acronym to help you remember my tips (I still recall the order of the planets and the colours of the rainbow thanks to my school learnt acronyms!) I offer the following tips…

STRUCTURE – Seek structure that works for you

SUPPORT – You are not alone – work as a family team

PRIORITISE – Self-care is not selfish

PLAN & DREAM – Work out your medium & long-term goals

OBSERVE – Notice how doing things makes you feel

REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS – It doesn’t always need to be perfect!

TRUST – Trust yourself! You are doing an awesome job

So my key time management tip for busy mums is to seek internal and external support.

1) Seek internal support by looking inwardly as summarised above, doing our own internal work, which is totally within our control.

2) Seek external support, as shown in my diagram above. To seek external support from those around us who support us not only in our day-to-day endeavors, but also help us to understand what is going on within us.

The truth is that time is finite, we can’t make any more of it. So it is what we choose to do with our time that is important

I realise that these tips are not just about time management, but also about life in general. Remove time from the equation and it boils down to what is important to us and ultimately who we want to be…

I feel that this post is inadequate in that I have not provided the stories and reasoning behind the ‘tips’ as I did in my presentation. I am endeavouring to work out how to record my free workshop presentation which would allow you a deeper experience… so stay tuned as I get that to work… (I am feeling a little technologically challenged right now… but I keep telling myself doesn’t need to be perfect!)

Yours in support

Tina

03 Nov

Time Management: Part 1

Why is time management particularly tricky for parents?

Our free workshop this month is all about Time Management Tips for Busy Mums. We are running two workshops in Warwickshire and would love to see you there if you get the chance. Register here. As the lead up to Christmas has begun we all find ourselves in an even more time poor state than usual during this busy time of year!

Time Management will be the topic of my next 3 blog posts. In each one we will look at different aspects of time management and the last one will include a free worksheet. If this post looks familiar that might be because you saw a condensed version of it in the latest Warwickshire Families Magazine…

There are no easy answers or quick fixes when it comes to time management. For most of us being a parent often means operating while overwhelmed. Our time management is particularly complex with lots of variables! So what makes it particularly tricky for us? Everyone’s situation is unique but here are a few thoughts…

Unpredictability – The needs of the family are constantly changing. Different phases require different strategies. Humans are programmed to look for patterns so it’s a problem when there is often no pattern, or just as one begins to emerge – something changes! Try to relax into the chaos, know that you are doing the best that you can and that everyone else is dealing with this too!

Contaminated time– sometimes also called fragmented time. This is mental pollution that comes from having to deal with so many things at once, (for example – while writing this article I am also cooking dinner, baking a birthday cake, monitoring homework and writing the shopping list) and making it difficult to focus on one thing and feel like you are doing it well or even finishing it! Accept that occasionally it is important to isolate yourself, take time to recharge and allow yourself the luxury of focusing on one thing until it is done.

Expectations – We all have expectations of what we should be able to achieve. Our expectations combined with what we believe others think we should achieve can create stress and anxiety. Look closely at where should is showing up in your life and ask yourself why you think you should.

Proactive vs. Reactive – We hardly ever get a chance to take a step back and determine what we want and consciously aim for it – instead we are reacting to each crisis as it comes along. Setting aside time to plan (monthly, weekly or daily – your choice) can help with this.

Hang in there. You are doing a better job than you think. Only about 10% of our thoughts are conscious, so no wonder we feel like we are often on autopilot, because we are! Parents are constantly juggling priorities, making decisions big and small. Add things like a bit of sleep deprivation, a house move or a sick loved one to the list and it is no wonder we often feel overwhelmed.

Yours in overwhelm!

Tina