Pregnant and Paralyzed: In Spite of Chaos
It’s a rare gift to be able to anticipate a life-changing event. That is, to be able to say, “After this, things will never be the same,” or “After that happens, my world will metaphorically flip.”
I had a baby in April – a scheduled c-section – and I had the privilege of knowing that my life as I knew it was over. But in the best way. This was my first child, a son, so I didn’t know what to expect beyond “everything will be different, somehow.” I had roughly 9 months to reflect on it though - how my everyday would change, how I’d accommodate a baby alongside my career and athletic goals, and how I’d preserve myself in the process.
There’s a lot I tried to anticipate, but there’s no way I could be ready for the reality of it. First and foremost, I didn’t realize how much I was going to love my child, and how entirely my priorities would change; my goals went from “train for the next marathon and market my recent book,” to “keep him from crying and try to get a nap in.”
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I haven’t lost sight of myself, though, I’m determined not to: I’m still looking at the Memphis Marathon in November, and I still want every person to read my book. I just had to re-prioritize and rearrange to accommodate a new set of priorities, now that I’m a mother.
- Identify your motivation. This is how we determine why you do what you do. The three basic categories are: Incentive, Achievement, and Fear. Achievement means there’s a level up at the end (e.g., a promotion, an award); Fear means you’re either fearful of your own reprimand or someone else’s; and Incentive means you get a reward when you reach milestones. That’s the one I sit on. Nowadays, though, my incentive is also my goal: “keep him from crying and you can get a nap in.”
- Write it down. There’s something about seeing my goals written on paper that motivates me. Maybe it’s the accountability of other people looking on, or it’s seeing the words written out makes them more real. Amongst the chaos of everyone’s lives, writing out your goals can help you focus on what you need to do, and why. To-do lists work great for me.
- Create a plan and follow it. I may not be able to relax with my morning tea much anymore, but my husband and I follow a plan that ensures we can both eat, brush our teeth, and shower every day – basic things that now feel like a luxury. Doing those things every day is my goal, bless my heart, so we created a plan to make sure we both can. Your goals may look like mine used to (exercise, read a book, leave the house) or maybe you come closer to mine, but know that they can be fluid, depending on what’s going on in your life. Give yourself grace, make a plan, and keep reading.
- And do it. Consistency is the key word here. Take my example: I wanted to start meditating, so I made a plan to practice for an hour every day. This was before I had a baby when I had more time if that’s not obvious. Life got busy and I fell off the [metaphorical] train, but that’s temporary. Since breaking my routine 6 months ago, no joke, I haven’t meditated since. There are so many distractions that can and did pull me from my routine, but there’s no reason you can’t hop back on the train and reimplement good habits.
Life is chaos, and the challenge is figuring out how to accommodate your goals in the midst of it. For now, my chaos comes in the form of a small, sometimes stinky, little human.