People ask me on a regular basis, “How do you do it? Have a successful career and raise a family?”  Good question, how do I do it? Truth is, I have no clue.  I guess my strategy is I don’t give myself any other options. I use this tool in my career, as a mother, and as a wife. The minute you focus on obstacles, you lose sight of your goals. We are all stronger than we think we are, especially as women.  Who else can hold a job, push a baby out of their vagina, make a mean lasagna, take care of the pets, and keep the house organized? That’s right: No one!  

Don’t get me wrong, there are mornings I wake up and beg God for 20 more minutes of sleep.  My day starts hours before my ‘real job’ begins.  Husband goes to work earlier than I do so it is my duty to make sure Kid has been fed and dressed.  Once I drop him off, I sit in traffic checking my emails, or review talking points for my owner’s presentations.  Once I am at work, I now have 5 people who need me as their leader to guide them and do damage control.  I have to work extra hard because I know my time is limited.  If I stay late, that is another night I won’t be able to kiss my son goodnight.  The balance at times is very difficult.

I have had many conversations regarding this topic with other working moms, and we always have the same complaints.  How are we supposed to do it all?  Being a Type A, I had to be perfect at everything.  Have the highest sales, be the perfect leader, be the perfect wife, perfect mom, have a perfect house.  I remember I use to not go to bed until the house was spotless, or else my mind would run through a list of ‘to-dos’ before I could get to sleep.  At some point my mother-in-law told me, “You have to let something go or you are going to drive yourself nuts!”  I would reply, “This is who I am.”  However making sure my house was clean is not who I am, it was something I did.  It was also something I had to un-do. The older I get I realize I can’t be perfect at everything and that’s ok.  Things CAN wait until tomorrow.  I found that these expectations are usually ones we place on ourselves, yet no one else is keeping score. To find a balance you have to learn to let go.  I may be a hot mess on the inside, but on the outside it’s game on. So all those b*tches you see that make it look so easy and we find ourselves being slightly jealous of; they are all just fakers.  Myself included.