A Mompreneur Guide to Taking Control of Your Life

There’s a simple tweak in the way you phrase a sentence that will increase your chances of achieving your dreams by 52%. 

Yep, there's a scientific study to back it up.  I’ll get to that in a minute but first, let's get into how to take control of your life.

Fear Factor

When you feel out of control, often fear is in the driving seat.  With fear at the wheel, you end up in places you never wanted to go.  It’s a bit like following the Waze walking directions in a big city when you don’t have cell reception.  You just end up walking in circles (or is that just me).

Fears are different for everyone and it seems fitting this is going out on the week of Halloween. Here are a few that are common to mompreneurs:

Never Figuring it Out

As moms, our kids look to us for all the answers.  In reality, you fear that you're never going to figure out this life, you're never going to figure out your purpose, you're never going to figure out what to do to complete that big project. This triggers overthinking. 

Overthinking looks like this. You ask yourself a million questions. Well, what about this? What about that? What if I don't do this? 

Next time try this to get out of that trap. 

Slow down! It’s the opposite of what you want to do.  When my brain goes into overthinking I want to run FASTER to do all the things. Take real control by slowing down. Here are a few ways to pump the breaks.

• yoga 
• journaling 
• Take a walk
• Recite a mantra

Next, you have to state it to create it. Have the courage to state your dream out loud, without diminishing it. 

Let me share a personal example. Since I’ve started my business I haven’t liked using the word coach.  That word brought images of sleazy salespeople trying to sell me answers to problems that didn’t work for me.  When asked what I did I would default to the comfortable title of writer (coaching was what I did to make $$). Obviously, if I was generating revenue from coaching...I was a coach. Now when friends ask what I’m doing, I happily share that I'm a productivity coach. 

Ready for that simple tweak I promised you in the beginning? A study at Columbia University proved that an if/then statement will move your success on your goals goes from 39% to 91%. So say, for example, if your diminishing habit is to say, “Don't laugh but” when you're introducing your dream follow it up with “but I’m working on trying to get better.” 

You may not have it all figured out right now (do we ever), but don’t let that take away from boldly stating your dreams.

But What if I Fail

When you took on the role of motherhood you had to know failure was in your future.  Did anyone really expect to get out of this gig unscathed?  So why are you letting failures hold you back in other arenas of life?

Failures are life’s greatest lessons. If you are open to it it’s possible to grow past these failures.

In order to get past failures, you need to develop a growth mindset. A belief that you can become a virtuoso at anything if you try hard enough. This is an idea popularized by Carol Dweck.

If you fail and stop trying, odds are you are in the fixed mindset camp. Meaning you believe you’re gifted at some things but utterly incapable of others.

The good news is that the brain can be trained like any other muscle.  The key is to identify when you’ve given up or blame a mistake on your shortcomings.  Then chose to reframe that thought or reach out for help.

These are just two of the most common fears.  What fears are coming up for you?