Like many women, I rushed to the theatre the other night with my girlfriends, eager to see the highly anticipated “Bad Moms.” While it wasn’t the next great Oscar contender, it resonated with all of us. Why? Because whether you’re a mom or not, it’s relatable.
The premise of the movie suggests none of us can be perfect. When we aren’t perfect, we are considered “bad” at what we do. Striving to do our best is different than attempting to achieve an unrealistic standard in our lives unilaterally. The trick is prioritization and confidence.
PRIORITIZATION
Whether you’re a mom, dad, pet owner, or just have a life outside the office, so many of our existences are filled with things we have to do, as well as the things we want to do. When you partner all of those things with a drive to give your very best at work, you’re looking at mental and physical burnout.
The trick is to determine what truly matters to you. Give your best efforts to those things. Everything else needs to take a lower priority.
For example, I’m a single working mom. I quickly figured out that if I wanted to be home at night to make dinner for my daughters and spend some quality time catching up with them in the evening, I would need to hit the office at the crack of dawn so I could use that quiet block as a “get my work done” time.
It’s definitely not fun when the alarm goes off early and I’m at my desk by 6:30 a.m. But the prioritized time I get on the back end to achieve my mission of spending that time with my kids is invaluable.
I work with plenty of people who edit their schedules to prioritize what works for them. Some trade their lunch break for the gym because health is important to them. Some listen to podcasts during their commute so they can fuel their brains with new things. The point is we’re all individuals with different things that are important to each of us.
WHAT YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW
Make a quick list with two columns. One side is the “must do,” and the other is “want to do.”
List everything on both sides. Prioritize what’s most important to get done well. And then get creative. For example, cleaning my house is an important thing, but deciding to invest a little money to have someone give it a thorough cleaning became well worth it in terms of the time I got back to do things I valued doing more with my time.
I see other busy people ordering healthy lunches to the office in order to save themselves the time and effort of shopping, food prep, etc. They gain time back with the help of a simple app. Their priority of eating healthy is simplified by a click every morning, and ultimately gives them precious time back to pursue other important items.
CONFIDENCE
We can all create priority lists and creative solutions. Building the confidence to execute them is a little different. This comes with time, trust building, and a bunch of other subjective factors. It’s hard to walk into a new job without relationships and credibility and announce, “My health is really important to me, so I’m going to disappear every day for an hour to go running.”
However, once you’ve built up the confidence that comes with proven work impact and have some relationships in place, it becomes much easier to not have to explain or justify yourself.
It can be awkward sometimes when I’m the one walking out of the office at 5:30 p.m. and everyone else is going to crank out another hour or so before heading home. I know I arrived hours before them in the morning, and that it’s not the hours that truly matter—it’s the overall impact we make. However, it takes confidence to say to yourself, “I’m executing on my priorities. They may not be anyone else’s, but this is what works for me.”
DETERMINE WHAT’S IMPORTANT TO YOU
Review your list of priorities and determine what’s causing you stress. Perhaps health is on your list, but you haven’t made any time to exercise. Or perhaps you want to sit down with your friends or family at least three times a week to share a meal. Figure out where you are falling short on these priorities, and then edit your behavior to make them happen.
This often comes with a bit of confidence building. If people have certain expectations of you (typical hours worked, always bringing homemade muffins to a team meeting, etc.), you’re going to have to reset those expectations. Do it with confidence and move on. If you’re feeling good about your choices, don’t sweat their expectations. Trust me, you’re thinking about it way more than they are.
Whether you are a parent, recent college grad, or anyone in between, we all have jam-packed lives. However, when we can prioritize and determine what’s truly important to us—and then create ways to take some pressure off those efforts—we make our lives significantly more manageable.
If that’s truly what we call being a “bad mom", then I’m perfecting being the worst.
Christina Luconi is Chief People Officer for Rapid7. Follow her on Twitter: @peopleinnovator.
Image via Unsplash