‘Every mother can design her life so she can have it all’
After a career helping women achieve their goals, Maxine Nwaneri now shares her insight in her self-help book The Future is Greater: A Working Mother’s Guide to Finding Balance
Iused to hate the phrase ‘have it all’ when used in relation to working mums and their careers, as it always brought up visions of some unattainable perfection and sense of balance that we must try to reach. Over time, though, my experience has shown me that we can have it all when we take the time to figure out what ‘all’ means for us as individuals in each season of our lives. Through my life and work, I have found that ‘all’ can look very different from one woman to the next because, although we may face many similar challenges as women, we are all wonderfully unique. I have also found that having it all can look very different throughout our lives – what a woman may want in her thirties may not look at all like what she wants in her forties, and so on.
I believe that we women can have the career, the family, the body, the life – all the things that are meant for us in each season of our lives, even in this age of endless demands and time constraints. That’s my goal when I wrote The Future is Greater: A Working Mother’s Guide to Finding Balance; to help as many women as possible go from barely surviving – or whatever point they find themselves – to thriving. I appreciate this might sound like a totally ridiculous and impossible dream to you, especially given how hard things have been for women for literally centuries. So often, we are told, or even expected, to sacrifice our desires for the sake of our families and others, yet I believe in and live by the motto that anything is possible. I’ve seen the impossible become possible too many times to be convinced otherwise. Creating the impossible had become the norm for me over two decades that I’d spent building a successful international corporate career, then launching an executive coaching and leadership
I believe in and live by the motto that anything is possible
advisory practice in which I help professional women create and live out their best possible lives.
It’s now my job to help women create lives and careers that blow their minds, and if I say so myself, I’m pretty amazing at it! There have been so many surreal moments when my clients have compared their results from our coaching to where they were when they started, and they are completely stunned. I have seen this enough to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that with the right guidance and following a few specific steps, every mother can design her life so she can have it all, no matter where she is starting from.
That said, in all honesty, when I first sensed the call to write this book I felt more than a little overwhelmed and wanted nothing to do with it. I thought, I’m here struggling with juggling motherhood and a career myself, how in the world am I going to find time to write a book? So I ignored the urge. I kept procrastinating and putting off the book idea, telling myself that I’d get to it when I had more time and energy, but everywhere I went, I noticed the plight of women, especially mothers, trying to keep their heads above water in the sea of endless demands from work, family, themselves and elsewhere, and my heart broke regularly. It broke for the mum who is so mentally and physically exhausted but who must find a way to keep going; for the mum who cried herself to sleep last night due to how hard things are but who is moved by love to get up and do it all again today. For the mum who can’t find a moment for herself because of all the time she devotes to others. For the one who has lost all sense of who she even is anymore outside of all her responsibilities. For all the mums trying their best and still feeling like it’s not good enough, and that they are failing everywhere. My heart broke repeatedly for all of us, and then I felt that bolt of purpose shoot through me once more, and this time it convinced me that I had to write this book – for the sake of all those mums.
How many times have you thought of something you want to do for yourself and decided you’d do it when you get to some more opportune moment, like maybe when you have more time? Of all those things you said you’d do later, what percentage of them have you actually ever got around to doing?
If you are anything like most of the women I have worked with and spoken to during my work as a coach, and while conducting research calls for this book, that percentage is pretty low.
Whether we want to finally have that ‘me time’ we have been craving, or to start that project in the house, so many of us mums fall prey to the ‘I’ll do it when…’ mindset. We often have to deal with all sorts of urgent and important things for other people that distract us from going for our own goals. As we busy ourselves looking after everything and everyone else, and fighting the fires in life that pop up unexpectedly, there can be a tendency to keep saying things to ourselves like: I’ll do what I want to for myself when…
I have more time
I have more money
I have more motivation
I have more connections
I finish this urgent work project
My kids get to a certain age
I get more childcare sorted
I have more answers
I feel more confident
I reach that next level in my career
I have a better idea of how it will work out
I know exactly what to do
I can get it done as close to perfectly as possible
These are just some examples, but there may be others that better relate to you and your specific situation. Feel free to fill in whatever it is you’ve been telling yourself is the right time to focus on your goals and what you really want for you.
Most mothers I meet manage their time in reaction mode to external demands and stimuli from their kids, work, the economy, societal expectations, friends, crises (like the global pandemic). This leads to never ending to do lists, far too many conflicting priorities, stress and guilt inducing trade-offs, and of course the mothers and their needs last or close to it on the list.
My approach flips all this on its head and empowers mums to put themselves first and manage their time in Creation rather than Reaction mode.
Creation mode involves living life from the inside out driven by an uplifting vision which I lead mothers to create through reading The Future is Greater. In this vision, they are well cared for, and achieving their own dreams while also looking after everything and everyone they need to.
The 5D Weekly process then helps them to make it a reality.
In summary the 5Ds are:
1 Delete – everything from the to do list that has nothing to do with your vision (It may involve setting boundaries and finding the courage to say no to people and things you have said yes to for years).
2 Delegate – anything that doesn’t absolutely have to be done by you.
3 Don’t – don’t use a running to do list, at least not exclusively as it leads us to commit to far more than is humanly possible, and then guilt and stress. Instead, I recommend using a calendar to plan exactly when in the week you will get your priorities done – ensuring selfcare and working on the things you most value go in first.
4 Do – complete the to dos at the scheduled time leveraging your strengths for efficiency.
5 Decide – as new to-dos come in run them through this process while also leveraging your intuition to decide if and how they get tackled.