How To Reach Your Goals As A Stay At Home Wife

Being a stay-at-home wife can leave this lack of ambition cloud hanging over a lot of women, especially in today’s world where what we do gives us our worth. Right here and now I want you to put blinders on to the shoulds of this world and earplugs in when you are made to feel less than for being a stay at home wife.

Notice I said you are made to feel. I didn’t say someone tries to make you feel “less than.” Because the honest truth is that most of the time other people are not the problem. It’s what we allow our minds to think that is the problem.

Taking control of your thoughts is the first step to reaching your goals as a stay-at-home wife.

There is nothing wrong with being an ambitious housewife

This might seem impossible or hard to imagine but you can be ambitious and be a stay at home wife and mom at the same time. In fact, I believe we were created to do more than just feed our families, do the laundry, and run the house.

God created us to have goals and desires of our own but also line up with our family’s picture vision. It’s okay to want to earn money, have a business, or be strategic in planning and getting things done and having management skills.

I go into depth more here in this post about finding your worth as a stay at home wife that I would highly encourage you to read.

Take Control Of Your Mind To Reach Your Goals

Feeling chaotic or like you are spinning in circles with no real purpose is not at all how people were meant to live. That is not a fun place to be and it can cause a sense of anxiety. Especially if you know you were meant for more but you don’t know how to take action.

Take a deep breath and we are going to work through this together.

Sound like you?

Life is crazy and your days get filled with seemingly important to-do’s that you THINK need to be done. You are working so hard and by the time you get to the end of the day, you can’t really say what you accomplished. You are exhausted and you know you were not lazy but you have no idea what you did.

To get out of that tailspin we have to create a plan of action for you to take and help you calm your mind.

The problem is you are not doing the tasks that will move you closer to your goals. You need to give those important tasks your attention FIRST before they get pushed down the list of todo’s

To get anywhere you have to know exactly what it is that needs to be done.

Get Clear On What You Want

Maybe your goals are small and maybe they are bigger. It really doesn’t matter what they are as long as you know what you are reaching for.

So what goals do you have? Do you want to have your house in better shape? Maybe you have a home improvement list that is longer than your arm… Or you may just what to have a home that is less chaotic.

What about spending more time as a family or building a business that will bring an extra side income for your family? What about paying off debt or saving for a new car?

But here is the thing you need to do to take it a step further. You need to know WHY you are working and don’t have those goals so you are able to stick with it when you feel like giving up or when the going gets tough.

Create Space to Act Before Adding More

Once you get clear on what you want. You need to assess what you do every day. Stay at home wives are the most underestimated creatures I know.

Think about your average day… I know what day is average right? Nothing is the same day to day.

But just give me a chance. What needs to happen on a daily basis? Things like showering, dressing, feeding yourself and the kids. Homestead chores like watering the plants, pulling weeds, feeding the animals…

How To Free Up Time Before Adding More

You only have so much time in a day. So things may have to come off your plate if you want to start reaching big goals. Off your plate could mean a lot of things. But the first place you need to look is spot the time wasters. Even the most ambitious people have them.

• Pay attention to the times when you get distracted. What caused it? How can you keep yourself from getting off track next time?
• Can you stop letting that TV show play while you are folding laundry and use that time to listen to an educational podcast?
• Can you stop getting moving from the library or cancel subscriptions so you are not tempted to waste even an hour a weekend? Instead, use that hour to do something to help you reach your goals

What are the things you are doing that don’t meet the goals you want to achieve right now? But could be something you do later.

Things like having a garden or doing canning seem like a good homestead goal but those take time. And your goal is to have your homestead pay for itself. Making money to pay for your lifestyle goals is more important than doing things that make you seem more legit.

Reach Your Goals By Breaking Them Down

Start by breaking each big goal down to smaller tasks and I mean REALLY small. If you want to get a better idea read this post about planning projects.

Your steps for reaching a goal should be REALLY small. Let’s say your goal is to provide your family with 200 pounds of homegrown chicken. Your starter task list should look something like this.

• Make a list of the supplies you need to raise the chicks.
• Buy the supplies to raise the chicks.
• Clear a space to set up your brooder.
• Plan on the calendar when the weather will be best for raising chickens once they are old enough to go outside.
• Learn tips to get them to weight quickly. – This post will help you raise meat chickens fast.😉
• Find a meat processor to take them to.

Do you see how detailed it needs to be? The reason your goals need to be this detailed is because you will not have to plan this out in your mind several times over and over. But you are also able to see the tasks that need to be done and you can jump on them when you have a few minutes to get something done.

When you are super busy this is how you maximize your time. You find little pockets of time and have tasks ready to go when they show up. Things like your spouse is talking to someone and you are waiting on them. Or when you are going out with a family member and they are a bit slow meeting you at your house. Why wait around for 10 minutes scrolling on your phone when you can check off a task item that will help you reach your goal faster?

Give Those Tasks Space On Your Calendar

If you are going to reach your goals you HAVE TO give them space on your calendar. If you don’t they will remain a dream and you will never get as far as you want with them. You might start them but you certainly won’t get them done as fast as you would have if you gave your goals a spot on your calendar.

• If one goal can be achieved in a month great. Put it on your monthly plan.
• Then take the list of tasks and list them out on a sheet of paper. — one for each week. If there are 12 tasks there should be 3 on each of the four pieces of paper.
• Put those three tasks on a day that they should be able to be completed.

Do The Important Not Urgent To Reach Your Goals

As a stay at home wife, there are sssooo many things pulling for your attention. You can get detracted by what seems important but if you step back and look that thing may not be as important as it seems.

There are a ton of different ways this could be implemented in your life but the truth is what is important and not urgent looks different for everyone.

Here are two examples to help you see what I mean.

Make Dinner Simple – Instagram-worthy dinners are not important.

As women who want to make everyone happy and put an enormous amount of pressure on ourselves to make Pinterest-worthy meals. Sure making dinner for your family is important. But do you need to be spending as much time on it as you do? Could you simplify the task?

Your family will still be fed if you order pizza or take out. If eating out is not an option (either budget-wise or you just don’t have that many places around like we do) then have a frozen pizza or hamburger patties ready to pull out of the freezer when time is running low. Or make a list of 7 fast crock pot meals you can make for your family that you throw together and let the cooker do its thing.

When you are working towards a goal that will make your family’s life better. Sometimes you have to be willing to make changes.

I heard Brooke Hemingway say this on the Powerhouse women’s podcast: “Our kids don’t need a clean house and homemade cookies. They need a mom who is a lioness.” You can listen to the episode here.

And that is so true. We have turned our attention to doing the weaker and honestly less brave things under the guise of doing something for our kids or family. When really they need us to stand up and be bold for them.

Entertaining your kids every waking moment

Now before you click away and ignore me, hear me out. You are not doing your kids a favor by entertaining them every second they are in the same building as you.

Teach them to find things to do and not just sit around the house saying they are bored.

Have snacks they can get themselves if they are hungry. Find things you can have around that they know are available to them so they won’t come and pester you while you are busy working on something important.

And also teaching them that waiting for something is ok too. You don’t always get what you want right away.

Stay true to your big-picture goals and the next time you are tempted to do one of those little fire tasks. Take a look at your big-picture goals and ask yourself how much time away from those goals will that take you.

Be strategic about your timing and the tasks you do and you will live a life with purpose.