The more time I spend with moms that are trying to get unstuck when working from home. Trying to get this vision in their minds to become a reality. The more I see, one of the biggest hiccups that they have is actually their own thought patterns. Their own emotions of feeling stuck and being held back by those emotions every single day. Feeling like a failure, like this is just the season I’m in. Just being low and down and out all the time.
This made me realize I need to do a post on this because my advice is the same every single time. It’s the same inside the Systemize Your Life Facebook Group and inside The Systemize Your Life Academy. It’s the same advice I give to my mom and friends who are close to me in my everyday work and personal life. My answer is the same every single time. And that is what today’s post will be about.
So if you want to know what that advice is, you should stick around. I’ve got three really, really powerful steps for you. Grab a pen and paper and let’s dive in.
Listen below for the entire episode on The Systemize Your Life Podcast
Feeling Like A Failure When Working From Home As A Mom
The likelihood that you will get frustrated and discouraged while working from home as a mom is a hundred percent everyday thing. Always having to get unstuck when working from home and not just in the grand scheme of things.
Let’s take the next three months, I have this big thing that I want to get accomplished. Am I going to get discouraged throughout that process? Yes, but even more so, am I going to get discouraged every day? And the answer is most likely, Yes.
Every day something is going to come up that doesn’t go well. Children don’t care what you’re doing. Their whole psychology is based on themselves, especially when they’re younger. We train them as they get older not to be self-centered individuals, but when they’re young, that is what survival looks like. That is what thriving looks like. That is what learning the world around them looks like. It is to just solely focus on them, their needs, their wants, their feelings, and their emotions.
They’re trying to figure out how to be a human, so that is what they do, that’s part of the process. Then we decide to add to the mix and not only take care of them, but we’re going to take care of our home. We’re going to then try and run this business and not burn out at the same time.
What I see happening over and over again is you start to come down on yourself and you start thinking about the failures that you’re experiencing. I had this week planned out and I put time blocks in my planner. And then you get to the weekend, or maybe you just make it to Tuesday, or even Monday when things aren’t going well. You feel like you’ve failed.
Having Doubts
There are always doubts like, what if I can’t do this? If I can’t even get through the week? How am I going to get through taking on more clients, or showing up on Instagram, or getting more followers? Can I start an email list, or actually retain the momentum that I built before I had kids?
Whatever that failure and whatever those “what if’s” end up looking like, they end up turning into, I should’ve, coulda, woulda’s. I should’ve done it this way. What if I would’ve done it that way?
It becomes this big spiral where you just spin completely out of control and your thoughts begin to get the best of you. And that’s when you get overwhelmed and consumed by your emotions and stop trying. For a few days, or a few weeks, or years.
After looking back on the last year, I actually feel that I have a lot of clarity on what it is that I was called to do. And that’s because I worked really hard with a coach. I was very intentional about showing up every single day, even when I didn’t have any idea what I was doing. Did I have total clarity in the beginning, No? I didn’t have that clarity in the beginning. I didn’t know what that thing was, but I knew I was supposed to do something. And I saw it in my mind, but I had no idea how to articulate it.
Getting Clarity
So I took this big goal and I broke it down, and I just started doing things. And when those things didn’t work out perfectly. When the kids got sick, my schedule went crazy, and my husband and I were at each other’s throats. I was stressed out to the max and I don’t know how to communicate this new thing that I had going on in my life.
When all the things started crumbling in the beginning, that’s when I realized, this doesn’t have to be like this. Your emotions are really getting in the way of something very simple. You get up, you work every day, and then you do the system that I’m about to tell you. The system that is going to help you get unstuck when working from home. I’m going to share with you how to make data-driven decisions instead of emotional decisions to get you to the success that you want.
What Does Success Look Like To You?
Whether that success is just having a good day every day or a successful week every week. Having peace, joyfulness, and productivity. Completing your workflow. Keeping a clean house. Whatever your goal is for that day, for that season, for that year. Whatever that looks like, the only thing that holds you back from those things is your emotions. The thought patterns that you process over and over again in your head.
I believe that those thought patterns come even before our habits. It’s so hard to create new habits when we can’t get a grip on our thought patterns. So this post comes to you after a year of reflecting and understanding what I have let get in the way, what tries to get in my way. I’m one of the most emotive people on the planet, and so I really can speak to those of you who have a hard time with your emotions.
“I believe that those thought patterns come even before our habits. It’s so hard to create new habits when we can’t get a grip on our thought patterns.”
Thought Patterns
For those of you that don’t know this about me already, I was in a very negative cyclical relationship. By definition, it was abusive, but I choose not to use that term because I have forgiven and respect that individual. I too allowed myself to be in a space in my life where those things were happening and it was very negative.
I went through thought patterns throughout that process. And even after that process that kept me from having the success in my life that I now have with my current husband and family. I learned a lot from that.
Also, I learned a lot from having an event-based business that cycled from being unsuccessful to successful over and over again. I just cycled through that and learned. Now looking back on all these things, even just this past year. What was the ticket?
What have I worked through that allowed me to not create that constant cycle of momentum and then backslide over again? Keeping me constantly stuck in this cycle of being overwhelmed, and feeling like a failure. But then somehow managing to want to try again over and over in this pattern. It really came down to emotions.
3 Specific Ways To Get Unstuck When Working From Home
So we are going to dive into three specific ways to get unstuck when working from home.
First, I’m going to talk about why you need to start making data-driven decisions. Then, what to do instead of making emotional decisions. And last, I’m going to tell you how to make this system work in your life.
I’m going to teach you how to get out of your own way and start making movement and momentum at whatever rate that you want. However much time and energy you have to put into it. There shouldn’t be these cycles of emotions getting in your way, or at least there doesn’t have to be. And so that’s what we’re going to go through.
One: Why You Need To Make Data-Driven Decisions
Why do you need this? Well, I just kind of told you my personal story and why you need it. But, if you want to get to the other side and actually see the completion of a project, the completion of a dream, the completion of a vision. You want to start seeing in reality what it is that you’re hoping for, what it is that you are working really hard towards. Then you’re going to have to show up in a way where you’re making decisions that are a little less emotional and more based on data. You are going to have to show up to get unstuck when working from home.
There’s actual data happening in your life every single day that could be utilized to help you make wise choices with what you choose to do every single day. Instead of just basing it on how you feel.
Now, I am very driven by my feelings. My husband’s probably going to poop his pants when he hears this episode because he is like, what? You don’t do everything based on feelings. And, as I mentioned, I’m super emotive. I have to emote, I have to get emotions out.
But when it comes to my business, I’m pretty serious about what I need to get done. The routines that we have, the blocks that we have, and the way that we communicate. I’m pretty intentional about how I go about that in most realms, right in my home.
The Academy
And that’s what The Systemize Your Life Academy is all about. I teach you the systems that I use so that you can gain the momentum that you need. And this is that ticket to get you to this place where I’ve seen myself grow into. Where I’ve grown through all of these things over the past 10 years.
It’s been probably 10 years of me trying to get myself to the place where I’m right now. And I’m not done. I have to use this all the time, but it’s become the system of using data to drive the decision-making in my life. Ths is why you need to start using this system.
Two: Use Data Not Emotions To Make Decisions
So, what is this data-driven system and what do you do instead of just basing things on your motions?
Some of us are more emotional than others, but that is how we begin to take control of the way that we move through this heart-centered world that we live in. The little world that I live in, just me, myself, and I, is a very heart-centered world. Everything is about feelings. Everything is about caring and giving and loving and nurturing and serving. That’s where my world surrounds itself.
For some of you, maybe your feelings don’t come from a heart-centered world. They come more from feeling attacked, feeling hurt, guilt, and shame. You’re constantly feeling, right?
So we have to begin to make tally marks. And sometimes these tally marks don’t even have to be written down. This can just be a really quick conversation with yourself. But the whole premise of this entire data-driven decision-making system is becoming very, very cognizant of why you’re feeling the way that you are.
The Importance Of Why
The funny thing is my mother jokes all the time that I was born asking the question “why.” I’ve been insanely inquisitive since I was tiny, and both of my girls really are as well. But I’ve fostered that into them because I love it so much.
I feel like the why behind things is our ticket the key to success. Truly not making everything about the failure, the overwhelm, the regret, the fear, or the emotional response. We don’t have to suffer and be at the mercy of all of these feelings that we have just because things didn’t go the way that we had hoped.
That’s where we end up gaining our control back, and how we move forward in the direction that we want. Instead of being at the mercy of everything else that we feel is happening to us, around us, and because of us. We just start collecting data and making really wise decisions instead, so we can get unstuck when working from home.
Three: How To Make This System Work And What It Looks Like
Next time you find yourself in a place of loss or sadness, feeling anxious, or even a little sad and depressed. Now, I do believe in a thing called clinical depression, and I understand that that can be very different for people. I’m talking more so of the times when you just don’t know what your next move should be. You’re not entirely certain how to have the clarity that you need, right? You’re not sure what you should do. You are constantly swinging from one side of the pendulum to the other. Feeling down on yourself and not really confident in how things are going to look.
If you try again because you feel like you’re stuck in this pattern of things not going well, and you’re feeling just kind of down, Then you get out your piece of paper, and I want you to write down these three things. This can be something that you do every single day. Or something that you do as your therapy to yourself to help you in these actual moments. This can be something that you do once a week to reflect on how your week went. That is one of the things I do to get unstuck when working from home.
My Real-Life Example
I do this about once a week so that I don’t begin. So here’s a real-life example for you. Every single week, it’s very easy for us to say, I got nothing done this week. Right? Here comes Friday, you didn’t get your work done and your business went into non of your time blocks and didn’t go the way you thought it would.
Your house is a mess. You’re feeling super behind. Your to-do list got longer, not shorter, and it’s about to be the weekend. And now you’re supposed to unplug from your phone. You’re feeling all this pressure and this temptation to just keep working. But then if you don’t pour into your house and your home and your kids, that’s going to affect Monday. So here you sit super stuck.
Mommy Vacation
I still have that from time to time. And let me tell you, I just went on a little mommy vacation, on a girl’s retreat over the weekend. I left Friday morning and came back Sunday morning. I looked at the clock, it was literally 49 hours from door to door, from I’m leaving my children to, I’m coming back to my children. That’s not very long at all.
My children’s behavior had changed. Bailey was not responsive to me the way that she always is. My oldest one was super sad and super clingy. My house was amazing. Blaine was vacuuming and doing a great job.
But I just know that I need to get unstuck when working from home because I also have to start homeschooling on Monday to start preschool for that week. To start a really impactful and successful week of business. Showing up on a podcast showing up in an incredibly awesome Systemize Your Life Facebook Community that I love, which by the way, if you’re not in there, go get in there. Me serving my email list, serving my community, serving my friends, serving my extended family members, having food in everyone’s bellies. I know what needs to happen.
Monday After Vacation
I just walked into Monday like, oh, help me. And trying to tell myself to not get emotional. Go to your data-driven decision-making. What do we need to do right now? Okay, let’s look. What do we need to do?
You didn’t start the week the way that you were supposed to. Fine, it wasn’t momentum, but I walked away from that weekend with a very clear vision of what I’m doing for the next 12 months. I just have peace.
I have everything that I need to take care of myself and my dreams that have been planted in me to become the woman that I need to be. I’m ready for it. I’m ready for it for another year. It’s going to be so much work, but I’m ready now. I have that. Is that a good trade-off in my mind? Is that a good trade-off for a week that isn’t ideal? Yep.
Check The Data
Check data, decision number one, done. Moving on.
Number two, how do we get through this week? And really what it came down to yesterday was how do we get through this day? I was snippy, I was short, I was frustrated in the morning, and I had to remind myself of the data-driven decisions right?
Now, what are we doing? How do you want this day to look? What kind of mother and wife do you want to be? What kind of business owner do you want to be?
So what did I decide to do? We play. We come back together as a family. Everyone missed, mom. I need to be able to make so much eye contact and so many hugs and love with my kids. We need to eat good food. Make some memories. We needed to laugh, we needs to reunite.
And that’s what we did. I dropped everything.
Not Everything Is Perfect
I fit in homeschool where I could. I did the very best that I could. We got most of the way caught up. My house is not perfect the way that I need it to be. I need my house to be in order to be able to focus on my kids and my business and my marriage throughout the week.
Now, that is going to be hard for me. But the data-driven decision that I made said you have enough negative experiences from making the decision to be stressed out about the dishes and the schedule. You know that if you continue your day, stressed out about the dishes, about the clutter, about being behind with homeschooling. You know that if you do that, the end of that looks like you going to bed at night, not being the mom that you want to be, and being at wit’s end with you and Blaine.
It’s probably not going to be pretty. And nothing will be done in the house still. And no one’s relationships will be the way that you want them to be. It just won’t be a good day.
Make Wise Choices
So a wise choice would be, Chelsea, check yourself and do the thing that needs to be done. Make a different decision and see if you can get a different outcome. Stop responding to those emotions and make a decision that’s going to get you the outcome that you want. And ideally, the outcome that I wanted was for us to be happy was for us to have a good day.
I would rather that happen than be a tyrant and freak out in my house because nothing was done. I was going to have a bad week because I couldn’t show up for the podcast because now I can’t get Frankie caught up on homeschooling.
And instead of being an emotional mess and responding to that, I chose to have a very short and quick conversation with myself in my head. Because you guys will hear this. You will hear the voice tell you it’s time to make a different decision. Don’t do it this way. And that is when you need to listen. And you need to say, how do I make a data-driven decision? What do I know best about myself and my family? What have I come to learn from this?
And if you don’t know that already, that’s when you need to do these specific questions. So let me get back to these questions. Number one, every single weekend, every single day, once a month, whenever you feel like you need to do this, I recommend weekly.
Questions To Ask Yourself
Question One: On a piece of paper write down what went wrong today or what went wrong this week.
I just told you what didn’t go well, right? I went into Monday with things, a hot mess. Okay? Write it down. What went wrong in your day? What went wrong in your week?
Question Two: Why did it go wrong?
Why did it go wrong? I just got goosebumps. This, why did it go wrong has to be 100% full ownership. You may not place blame on anyone for why it went wrong. Have full control over your decisions. Do not blame your children. You may not blame your husband. You may not blame anyone. Your mother for calling and talking for 12 hours, your father, for asking you for something. Your brother or your sister or your community, or your neighbor.
You may not blame anyone for why things went wrong. Own your ship and motherhood. You own your potential in your business. Own your demeanor and your attitude and the words that come outta your mouth. You own everything.
Why did it go wrong? Why was Monday a mess? I mean I have the choice to blame Blaine, blame my husband for forgetting that homeschool needed to be done on Friday? Sure, I could have, but I didn’t. It just is what it is. It happens to the best of us.
I could have sent him text message reminders all throughout the weekend. Or left him a schedule for him and the girls all weekend long, but I chose not to. I strategically chose not to. He doesn’t have to do my schedule with the girls when he has them. He doesn’t have to do that.
Would it be easier for him? Maybe. Maybe he doesn’t want to do it that way. We learned a lot from this experience as a family this weekend. Now, next time I can offer a schedule and he’ll say, yeah, that would be awesome, or no, thanks. It worked out great. That was my choice. And so I’m not going to blame him for that.
Question Three: What do you need to do next time to get a different outcome?
So when you know what it is that went wrong, why it went wrong, and what do you need to do next time to get a different outcome. Well, ask yourself literally, if you don’t know, what could you do? Pick anything. This is when you begin to gather data. Well, I don’t know why my kids were a mess today.
Okay, well, if that was the thing, my kids were a mess today. Were they hungry or tired? They didn’t get what they wanted. We had major power struggles like me and my kiddos bantered back and forth by trying to get them to help me clean. If you’re taking full ownership of that, that might look like I need to get some serious education on how to work with a teenager. Maybe, I need more information on what my teen needs from me.
I believe it always comes down to communication. So what do you do next time? Maybe next time you ask, you sit down and have an open-ended conversation with them. That helps you be a really good leader in your teamwork.
Whatever the problem is, my kids were hungry and we went to the store. Okay, do you need to have lunch first? Do you need to switch your bot blocks around? Do you need to pack snacks first? What do you need to do so that your day doesn’t go downhill?
Collect That Data And Find Out What Works For You
Because we all have those days. Write it down, try it again. If it doesn’t work, who cares? You try again. Collect data until you find a thing that works. You collect data. You’re just going about this like any CEO of any company does. You’re collecting numbers to get positive outcomes. That’s it.
And when something doesn’t work, you don’t give up. People fail miserably all the time and they just keep going. They just keep going. You cannot sit in your misery. You cannot sit in your shame and your pain and your blame, and you’re suffering and woes me. And why not this or that? And why her?
Stop and just start making tally marks. Start asking yourself these three questions on a daily basis, If you are suffering right now and want to get unstuck when working from home. Start doing this for yourself and then head over to The Systemize Your Life Facebook Group and tell me what you think about it.
I would love to help give you more support in getting unstuck when working from home. Head on over and check out The Systemize Your Life Facebook Academy, we would love to have you!
I also wanted to make sure that I share these two incredible podcasts that I had with Stephanie Gas, which talk about my experience at The Dreamer Summit. Go over to Apple Podcast and listen to episode 69.1 & episode 69.2, The Power And Potential Of Immersion With Stefanie Gass. I hope you love them!
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you have anything that would help organize my daily and weekly to-do's?
Check out Chelsi Jo’s FREE time-blocking workbook, it is an excellent tool to help you start getting your daily and weekly to-do’s organized.
