Having kids is no reason to give up on personal goals. It’s important that you do things for yourself for the sake of your mental wellbeing. Pursuing personal goals can also have a healthy impact on your kids, helping to inspire them to chase their own goals. The difficulty is often finding the time and energy to pursue these goals whilst juggling the responsibilities of parenthood (not to mention household chores and work too). To help you chase your personal goals as a parent, here are a few tips.
Set clear targets and deadlines
If your goals are too vague, you won’t be motivated to pursue them. Start giving yourself clear targets and deadlines in order to spur yourself on. For example, if you want to start losing weight, set yourself a target weight and date for which you want to reach this size. You could even aim to get into a certain size pair of jeans or focus on a sporting goal in the hope that you lose weight whilst chasing this challenge. Be realistic with your targets and deadlines, otherwise, you similarly won’t want to work towards them.
Schedule time to work on your goals
Many parents struggle to find time as it comes. Scheduling weekly slots to focus on your goal keeps you committed and makes it easier to arrange babysitters if you need to. Goals that can benefit from scheduling time include reaching exercise goals, learning a musical instrument, learning a new language, undergoing a craft project or studying for a new qualification.
Record your progress
Recording your progress can help you to stay on target by allowing you to see far you have to go and how far you’ve been. This could include using the scales every week and recording your weight or learning a language and recording the new words you’ve learned each day. You could use a diary for recording this progress or you could start a blog documenting your progress from week to week. There may even be apps on the market related to your niche goal that you can download to record your progress and offer tips.
Do some motivational reading
It’s important to surround yourself with motivational material. This could be anything from a daily horoscope online to an entire self-help book. Given that parenthood takes up so much energy, this extra motivation is needed to help you when you’re feeling drained.
Get to know other parents that are chasing the same goal
Knowing fellow parents that are also chasing the same goals can be important for motivation as it gives you someone to talk out your problems with. You may not find you can have the same conversations with non-parents who are pursuing the same goal. For example, if you’ve decided to study a degree, you may find that fellow mature students with kids are easier to talk to about study techniques. If you can’t find anyone local to you to meet up with, joining an online parent forum could always be the next best option.
Realise that you can chase some goals with your kids
It’s possible to chase some goals with your kids by your side. Many people give up on dreams of traveling when having kids, but there’s no reason why you can’t still plan travels with your kids. Yes, you may not be able to take the same risks, but it’s likely you’ll still be able to visit the same counties and do much of the same activities. As for exercise goals, there are plenty of ways to get fit with your kids. For example, you could join a family club involving a sport such as a tennis club or a martial arts club. Meanwhile, if your child is an infant and you need to stay active, you could always invest in an infant carrier and do your own workouts (or even visit a baby exercise club).