In this episode, I will be talking to you about ‘balancing’ your life. As a mom, it can feel overwhelming, to do it all. And everyone will tell you what you CAN or CAN'T. Others might even say that you "have to" choose. I say you decide. And that can change depending on where you are in life.
Listen to hear how I figure it out and do things my way.
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In this episode, I will be talking to you about ‘balancing’ your life. As a mom, it can feel overwhelming, to do it all. And everyone will tell you what you CAN or CAN'T. Others might even say that you "have to" choose. I say you decide. And that can change depending on where you are in life.
Listen to hear how I figure it out and do things my way.
EPISODE LINKS
Thank you for listening, please Subscribe and leave a Review, and Follow me via IG @ManifestYourCareer
Get Tips to Manifest 10x Faster Subscribe to my Newsletter Today!
Welcome to the manifest your career podcast. I'm your host Dr. Norma Reyes, a Latina career and life coach. With this podcast, I help successful women learn how to combine their intuition and logic so that they can manifest their dream career. By listening to my podcast, you'll learn how to go from feeling stuck and lost on what to do next to having the clarity, motivation and strategies to manifest the career of your dreams. Each episode, I'll teach you the skills, strategies and mindset you need girl to get in alignment with your career goals. Now, let's go ahead and get started. Hey, everyone, welcome back. This is Episode 16. And in this episode, I will be talking to you about balancing, quote, unquote, your life. As a mom, it can feel really overwhelming to do it all. And everyone will tell you that you can't do it. Some people might tell you, you can. So then you might start feeling like So which is it? You can you can't really hear so thing. It's all it's a whatever you believe you can do. You'll be able to do whatever you don't think you can, you won't. It's our mindset, a little bit of luck, and lots of faith that everything will work out the way that it should. And being willing to ask for help. And knowing that it's okay for things not to go as planned. So here's a little bit about me in my journey as a mom, at age 25, I unexpectedly became a mom. It was the summer of 2009. I was working two jobs. I can't help it guys. I always have worked so much. There's something about always working, maybe it's from my parents, if you have free time you work. So it was summer of 2009. And I'd been accepted into my master's program for counseling. I was living life, life as I knew it then. And I didn't expect to get a call from child protective services that my four year old niece who I hadn't seen in two years needed to be picked up from the hospital. Now I won't go into details there. But that day, changed my life forever. I dropped everything I picked up my mind was racing. What am I going to do with the four year old, I didn't have anything for her. They didn't give me anything. And here I am walking out of the hospital with a four year old, not having a clue what to do. And I'll be forever grateful for everyone that helped me along the way. So one of my sisters helped me with giving me started giving me some of her daughter's clothes, or my sweaty sisters stepped in in so many ways that I just am so grateful shout out to all of my sisters Chi epsilon sigma, they really helped me during that transition. And not just with material things, but with advice to like asking can afford real take a bath on their own. I mean, really, guys, I was seriously clueless. I had changed a handful of diapers my entire life. And I never really babysat anyone longer than a few hours. I mean, I watched my brother growing up, he's like four years younger than me. But that's totally different than having a child depend on you for everything. So what did I do? I suddenly had to think about how to manage raising a four year old work, and I was starting school soon. As I mentioned right before getting my niece, I had been accepted into a master's program for counseling. And there was just no way I wasn't not going to keep going towards my goals. I knew that it all would work out. Even if I didn't know how I figured it out along the way. I focused on the present on what I could do at the moment and I planned each week who would watch her while I was in class who would pick her up if I couldn't. And finally what would we eat and for those of you that don't know, I'm not much of a cook so that was something new for me. I seriously could live off of sandwiches and stereo. So at the time that she came to live with me, I was living at my parents house, not them paying the bills, but me living in a house they owned and I paid all the bills. My mom was living her life and not really at home as much. It was really nice setup my brother lemon in the back house, me and my mom in the friend house, but there's really not much space for a child. But I made it work. Having her really pushed me to get my own place with a friend. And then afters. Six months of living in the most horrible rental, I decided to take the leap. So she might now daughter, who's 16 unbelievable, push me into looking into buying a home, something I hadn't really thought about at that time. I was 25 and just living life. then a year later in 2010. After becoming a mom, I became a homeowner. And never did I really ever think that I would be a homeowner of a four bedroom, two bath home at age 26. In retrospect, everything seemed to have happened so quickly and fall into place. I mean, guys, I was making like 32,000 a year at the time, the home purchase was 142. I still can you believe I was approved for a loan like that? Is right after the housing crash market something another? I don't know. But it all worked out. And just the way it was supposed to it all fell in place. So at the time, did it feel like that? Was it always smooth and easy? No, of course not. I was learning to be a parent. For the first time, it was rough. I had no idea how my mom raised four of us on her own. Yes, my dad was there for us financially. But my mom was there for us all the time she worked cooked was at every school event, I saw her do it all. And never once thought about how hard or how much work it was. So the way to balance it is by focusing on the present. Let the future worry about itself. When you put energy and focus on the future, you're missing the present day, you're missing present day solutions. I'm not saying to live by the seat of your pants, but to focus on the here and now. Focus on what you can do today. plan what you can for tomorrow, then move forward. When something fails, close your eyes and take a deep breath in. And ask yourself, What am I missing? What is trying to tell me? What can I learn from this? What can I change to get what I want. Write down your goals. Write down what you want for the week, your month, the year. But remember that you want to plan for the future, not worry about it. Now, let's go ahead and fast forward to 2015 when I was pregnant with my first son, at the time, I was in the second semester of my Ph. D program. And as soon as you get pregnant, I don't know why people think that all of a sudden they have an opinion on your life and you should listen to them. So I had people starting to tell me what I had to do. I was pregnant working full time and going to school to get my PhD. So it weren't asking me what I was going to do. It was just more of like, well, now you got to quit your job since you're pregnant. Excuse me? No, I don't. Or now you got to quit your Ph. D program. No, no, I don't. So the thing is, my plan was not to put my life on home. All I heard when I started Toro program was that I couldn't live my life. Don't get married. Don't switch jobs. Don't move. Don't. Don't don't. And for me, that just doesn't make any sense. As much as I appreciate education. It's still just a piece of paper. When I look back, I'm not going to think about Wow, class was so great. It was such a momentous moment in my life. Hell no. The moments with my family are the ones that I'm gonna smile upon. You know, why do I need to sacrifice my My family time. And so for me, what made sense was to figure out how to do both. And I did. I was due in Fall 2015. So my plan was take take one course. And of course I had people tell me no, go ahead and do two, when I said, No, I didn't care if I was going to be a course behind one class wasn't going to stop me from finishing my PhD. I didn't know what it was going to be like to be a mom of two. What would it mean to have a newborn, my plan was one class, still working full time, going to class one hour away from home both ways. So two hour commute and figuring how to do it. Of course, I didn't do it alone. I figured it out day by day. Both my husband and my daughter helped. I would read and write between breastfeeding and a sleeping baby, I seriously mastered the art of cradling a baby and typing on a keyboard. That is a skill that I never thought I would have. But I totally do. The key to it all is that I made my own roles. I decided what worked and didn't work for me. In the end, I had a goal. And at that time it was to finished my PhD Was it easy. It was as easy as it could be. It worked for us. My husband helped with the kids. And we really just learned to adapt and go with the flow. He also ended up quitting his job at the end of 2015 and stayed at home with our kids, and also picked up school. So that was another adventure. I won't go into the details there. So now we have three kids. My second son was born in 2019. That same year, I defended and graduated with my PhD. I'd like to say I had it all planned out that he was born after I graduated in May. But that was just divine intervention, God helped me because he knew that I needed the time to get it done. So I defended April 1 with my pregnant belly and graduated with it too. And I'm I had baby number two or baby boy number two August 2019. So I had both my boys during my PhD journey, when I was told, you know, wait to have kids or wait to have your PhD. And that just didn't work for me. So this is not a do what I did. I say do what feels right for you. What works for you, what works for you until it doesn't and when it stops working. Ask yourself what can I do differently to get what I want? focus on today? What can you do today to make things work for you plan for the future. But don't worry about it. Enjoy today. Enjoy your kids enjoy the weather. Enjoy your family, and love. For the love of God. Please love. I know shake can get frustrating. But please, there'll be plenty of funny moments. I love thinking about all the funny moments throughout these years. You know, I still love about all the milk splashed all over my car because I pumped on my drive to and from school. I mean shit, I had an hour each way. Pumping was the thing to do while driving. And if you can't think of a funny moment at the time, watch some funny videos, something to lift your mood and then ask yourself, what can I do differently to make this work for me? Yes, so yes, yes, you can do it all if you believe you can. Will it be easy every day? No. There'll be challenges but you'll make it through. And remember the challenges are there for you to remind you to push you and tell you something's not working. Because when you're in the flow, things just fall into place and they're not as challenging. So a challenge a frustration is just run a guide you back in the direction that you need to get. So when you face an issue that just feels so unmanageable. take a pause, go somewhere different to think about a solution. Go outside, take a hike, go swimming, take a bath, ask people for different suggestions. Just don't take it as solid gold. You know, take what feels right for you and decide what you're willing to try to get what you want. There'll be days you'll hit a wall. Do your best to get through them. While only means that you need to take a pause, close your eyes. Take a deep breath and remember that everything will be okay. Remember, you can do this. So that's it for this week. See you on the next one. Thank you for listening to the manifest in your career podcast with me, your host Dr. Norma Reyes a Latina career and life coach.