I once had the wonderful privilege of interviewing more than one hundred working mothers from seventeen countries around the world. I discovered that it doesn’t matter what background, culture, history or baggage we may or may not carry with us based on what our parents told us was or was not appropriate. As working moms, we’re all struggling. This is where Seasonal Purpose comes in.
Discovering our Seasonal Purpose is the key to making the best possible choices for ourselves and our families during the various seasons of our lives.
When our mothers finished university they could become secretaries, nurses or teachers. When we went into university we had opportunities available to us that our mothers and their mothers before them could only ever dream of.
We are pioneers. The very first of our sex who truly have every possible opportunity available to us. This is a wonderful privilege, but it’s also a heavy load to bear. We expect that, if we choose to, we can have a husband, a family, a beautiful home and Pinterest worthy parties where we hand make the cakes. We can have all that and also be a lawyer, a CEO, an entrepreneur and a world-changing career woman.
But can we have it all? Should we even try?
My readers find the concept of Seasonal Purpose extremely helpful as we seek to navigate these choices together.
Seasonal Purpose is the one thing you are called to do in this season that no-one else can.
You may have seasons when you have two or three kids under three years old. Your priority in that season will be to do everything you can to ensure that you, your family and your relationship survive. You will live for a moment with a cup of tea that isn’t cold yet and the far-off dream that your kids will sleep through the night.
But this, too, will pass.
Challenging seasons pass slowly while you are wading through the mud but incredibly fast looking back. We need to cherish the moments we have with our kids as much as we can when they are little; because once they get bigger those times are gone.
But as they get bigger new opportunities open up too.
When I had two kids under two I was running to day care, to the office and back, initially with a toddler on my hip and a heavily pregnant stomach. Dressed in my high heels and grey pin striped suit. My driving skills took a sharp decline. I drove over and into everything – with the dents to prove it. Life was just insane.
Every morning, as I walked through those revolving doors into the office, my mask went on and I did what I had to do to cope. In that moment my family was to one side. It didn’t matter who had thrown up on me that morning… I was present in my 8am business meeting and that was all that mattered.
When I went home in the afternoons I tried to put my work stress aside and be the very best mother I could be to my boys.
I didn’t always succeed.
I know you don’t always succeed either. And that’s ok.
Really, it is ok.
You may look around at other women and wonder about their lives. You may look at their Facebook pages, their well-dressed kids and Instagram holidays and you may think, “Wow. They’ve really got it together!”
We compare ourselves to other people’s masks. To what we see on the surface. But the truth is that all of us are like ducks. Above the water everything is calm but under the water our legs are kicking WILDLY just trying to keep us afloat.
You’re not alone. You’re part of that micro-generation that is doing this for the very first time. You are a pioneer.
The decisions you make today are going to impact your life and the lives of the members of your family. They’re going to impact the lives of other women as well.
So please be kind to yourself. Please be especially kind to the women you compare yourself with on a daily basis. Because you don’t know their truth. You aren’t privy to the inner workings of their lives. In some cases, they don’t even know what they don’t know about the reasons for the choices they make.
The key is not to compare ourselves to one another, but to learn together how to navigate the opportunities we ourselves have with grace and compassion.
With grace for ourselves. With compassion for others.
It’s also really important to learn to say No to the wrong things so that you can say Yes to the right ones.
What is your Seasonal Purpose? The ONE thing you are called to do in this season that no-one else can?