This week I have been so frustrated with myself for not being able to be summertime fun mom between refereeing arguments, being a flailing family chef, home entertainer, taxi driver, loving wife and more-than-one-paragraph-a-day writer.
Please tell me this sounds overwhelming to you too! (If it doesn’t, teach me your ways!)
That would be why I was banging my head against my laptop screen while being interrupted every 3-5 words I typed.
Then this morning I heard a resounding theme that’s come back to me again rising up from inside me. How do I define my success? Do I find success in putting my earbuds in to write/edit heart wrenching chapters while my children are nestled in front of a tablet or screen? Do I find success in barking orders at them, huffing irritably when I have to stop working to get them a snack, just so that I can get my book out faster?
Nope. Although no judgment if your definition is different than mine. That’s the point. It’s personal.
My personal success can’t be about writing at the expense of my relationship with these little ones that I’ve been entrusted to shepherd. I know they will be grown one day, out of the house and I’ll have so much quiet that it’ll probably drive me as crazy as all the noise does now!
But a lot of days, success is surviving the day without anything being broken and nobody bleeding; some days it’s just surviving because both of those things happened before 9 a.m.
In the same way, my personal success can’t be defined in motherhood without pursuing the dream in my heart to write. Even if it is little by little. Who would I be to tell my kids to go after their heart’s longings if I didn’t pursue my own?
Ergo, I may not write a book a year—or so. I may not write posts as often as I’d like.
But know that while my book drafts are being tweaked at a turtle pace, I may be doing yoga poses with my daughter, throwing a ball with my pre-schoolers, playing Checkers with my son. Maybe I’m having Friday night movie night snuggled up to my hubby. Although the majority of it isn’t rainbows and marshmallows. Most of the time, it’s all chaos mixed with a couple breaths of sunshine.
Success is intentional, guys. It doesn’t happen by accident. I’ve heard it said, “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” And success in your family is the same way.
Let me ask you . . . what is it that would make you say “I’m a success”? Pursue that today.
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