Building a new career around your kids can sound both testing and trying. Trying to manage everyone’s expectations while trying to push forwards can be difficult – even for the most experienced and seasoned mom. Starting and building a career around a role that you wish to thrive in is important. After all, you deserve to push forwards with your own dreams and goals (as well as being a mom).
Give Yourself Time
Time can be cruel. However, sometimes you can find that it can be on your side and considerate too. As a mom, you will often find that there are simply not enough hours in the day. When there is not enough time, you struggle to achieve everything that you want to. Of course, this then leaves you feeling frustrated and possibly a little angry too. Learning to give yourself time to build and push your new career is important. Without time, you will find that you will not be able to focus on the things that matter to you. This may then have a knock-on effect, and ultimately it may mean that you end up getting stuck in a dead-end job instead of thriving in a career that you will love and enjoy.
What is Going to Make You Happy
With a new career on the cards, you can find yourself experiencing a lot of mixed emotions. Feeling nervous, apprehensive, and possibly even stressed too is all-natural. When you are a parent, you can sometimes overlook your emotions. However, you have to remember that being happy is just as important as anybody else being happy. If you are looking at building a new career around your kids, then focus on your happiness as much as theirs. Do what you love and enjoy, and keep smiling because it will make the journey just that little bit more enjoyable.
Focus on What Career You Want
After giving yourself time and doing what makes you happy, you then have to get serious. To get truly serious, you must now start focusing on the career that you want, even if it is very dissimilar to the role you find yourself in at the moment. Even when your life is hectic and chaotic, you will still find clarity and focus (especially when you get to grips with the career that you want). It can be hard to focus when you have kids, but if you don’t, you could be left feeling dejected and passionless, and of course, this is not what you need or want.
Map Out Your Future
You are busy running a family, maintaining a home (no doubt), and keeping up with the other 101 commitments you have within your daily life. To be sure that you can build a new career with success, you must focus on mapping out your future. When you have a map or a plan of action to follow, then you will know what you need to complete and do – and by when. Mapping out your future can bring your clarity, but it can also bring you much-needed direction. When you are juggling lots of things, you will find that you will need clear-cut plans to follow, just to make your life that little bit easier. Within a plan or map of the future, you should look at what your aim goal is, and then you should look at breaking this down into smaller and more manageable targets. Once targets are written down, you can then begin to assign deadlines to them, and then, of course, you can start fulfilling them!
Build a Support Network
You can do a lot on your own, and this is great. However, if you can build a support network around you, then it would be beneficial. If you are studying to boost your education for your new career, or you are simply seeking support and assistance with childcare – you will find that a strong support network will come in handy. A support network for you may consist of family, friends, and even work colleagues. As support can come in many ways, it is important to realize that it is not just physical support that is needed. Sometimes, you can find that emotional support is also needed. Being able to reach out to others and being able to then focus on what you need to do to move forwards is important. To build a strong support network, you could look at meeting other parents, as well as meeting other professionals. You may find that you can utilize your networks and connections in a way that suits you and your family perfectly.
Invest in Yourself
You are incredible, and you deserve the best for your career and for your kids too. So, with this in mind – are you currently investing in yourself? Or are you missing key elements, or perhaps even holding back from fully investing? When you invest in yourself, you give yourself a much-needed confidence boost. To successfully give yourself what you need, you will need to look at enhancing your education – as well as improving your skill set. As you are an asset to your kids and to your new career, you just be sure to nurture yourself. To do this, you must regularly self-evaluate what you are doing and why. If you just keep pushing ahead with things but expect change and growth – then you will be left disappointed.
Separate Work and Play
Work and play are two areas that often get blurred. When this happens, you can find that there is no separation between work and home life, and this is often when the most problems will happen. To avoid this completely, you need to learn to separate work, play, and family time. So, when you are at home, stop constantly checking work or college emails, and when you are at work or studying, stop thinking about family, kids, activities, and life. If you do not get a healthy balance and learn to separate the two, you will find that you will be left feeling overwhelmed. Feeling overwhelmed will then lead to you feeling stressed and anxious.
Utilize Technology
You have a busy life to run and maintain, and you will need to utilize technology wherever you can. When you are pushing forwards with your career, you will find that technology will help you to split your time. It will also help to make you just that little bit more effective and efficient. If you are not prepared to integrate technology fully, then you may well find that you will be left behind. If you need some more reassurance about why you should be embracing technology, then look at how it has impacted jobs such as the work of counselors or look at how it has evolved and altered processes within roles and jobs. If you are not going to utilize or embrace technology within your career, then you will struggle to keep up with your counterparts.
Make Time For Kids and Crafts
If your kids are younger, then spend important time with them doing arts and crafts. When you are building your new career, you can forget that even the smallest of things matter to younger kids. The smaller things such as working on an art project or making colorful artwork on canvases. It is time spent together that your children will love and appreciate. So, do not be tempted to replace your time with your kids for anything else, as you may end up bitterly disappointed. If your kids are older and crafts and art no longer interest them, then try and spend some time together with them – just doing what they love and enjoy. For example, if they love playing video games, then try and do this with them. Or, if they have a favorite show – just try and relax with them. Sometimes, you will find that spending time with your kids can also help you to gain all-important clarity and focus on your career- and on the direction that you want to go in.
Carefully Split Your Time
When you are pursuing a new career, you need to give it 100% of your attention and time, but this can sometimes mean that compromises with your kids and family have to be made. To ensure that this doesn’t affect anyone too much, you are going to have to create (and stick to) a timetable. A timetable will allow you to see where you should be focusing your efforts, when, and for how long. When you are juggling multiple areas of your life, including a family, you need to know where your precious time is being spent. It may take a little bit of trial and error at first, and your kids may struggle to share you with your new career. However, over time these feelings and emotions will subside, and you will be able to find a happy balance.
