Why is our life so hard?

Why is our life so hard?

This has been a question that keeps coming up at the dinner table, especially when my husband and I are wrestling our 3 year old to stay at the table and eat at least one bite of the food we rushed home to prepare.

Why is our life so hard?

I know this is a relative question. There are a lot of things that we are lucky to have (good jobs, health, running water, shelter), but raising young kids can still feel challenging and overwhelming.

The first step in making a change, is to create a vision.  So I did an exercise to envision our ideal life. What would life be like, without so many struggles?

First, we would get a full nights sleep.  We would be in bed and asleep by 10pm.  No midnight wakeups.  No early morning visitors, until the alarm went off.

Second, my son would be done potty training. No more dirty pull-ups. No more accidents to clean up.

Finally, we would enjoy quality time together in the mornings and evenings, when we were not at work.

Dinner would be easy to prepare and everyone would enjoy it.

I would have meaningful conversations with my husband during dinner, without anyone screaming or leaving the table.

Bedtime would follow the routine without arguments.

It does not seem like too much to ask for, so how do we get there?

Consistent routines and planning. And patience and flexibility when changes happen.

When I take the time to think about it and try to be in the moment, I realize we already have the key elements. We have a lot of great quality time, especially in the evenings and on weekends.  Most of the struggles are usually when something happens to break our routines.  

So it is time to keep our eyes on the prize (the vision) and get back into the ring to try again.

Brave girls

Being one of two women in my college engineering classes did not seem brave to me at the time. It was just following what I had interest in...math, science and making things.

Joining the Peace Corps did not seem brave to me.  I was just following an interest in travel and helping others.

When I was in Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer, I saw real bravery.

Brave girls attending school for as long as their families would support them, then rushing home to fetch water and help their mothers cook.

Brave girls studying by candle light after everyone was in bed and the chores were all done.

Brave girls getting up early to start the fire and walk 2 miles to school.

Brave girls studying hard to avoid the corruption of trading money or sex for grades.

Brave mothers, toiling in small farm plots with a baby on their back and selling produce in the market so that their kids could go to school.

As a teacher, I recognized their bravery and wondered how I could help these girls. My Peace Corps assignment was only two years.  I was not a revolutionary and I did not have enough money to give them all scholarships.  I came to realize that by being myself, I was a role model for them. I was a female teacher from America. I had more education than most of their other teachers. I came to school every day on time and sober (unlike other teachers). I challenged them to think about science, rather than just memorize phrases.  I carried myself with confidence and spoke to the other teachers as equals.  I was successful in their eyes.

It was then that I decided to practice the skills that God gave me. To practice science and engineering. To share my passion and love for science and technology. To coach my future children to question the world and think scientifically. To be a role model as a practicing engineer...for other girls and women...for my kids...and for those girls in Africa that were so brave.

I will never be as brave as those girls and mothers in Africa, but I can continue to use the gifts I was born with and live my authentic self, bravely.  

3 ways to make a Good Mistake

I have been reading about entrepeneurs recently and one common theme is their attitude toward mistakes.

Repeat after me:  Mistakes are a good thing.
Mistakes are how we learn.
Failure is not a four letter word (literally).
We may fail multiple times before we succeed.  And our success will be that much bigger because we learned so much along the way.

Don't get me wrong, we should not make mistakes on purpose, but we should not beat ourselves up so much when we make them.  As moms (and employees) we get caught up in the thought that we have to be perfect.  That there is no room for mistakes.  But most of the time what we stress about is not life threatening.

Sometimes we need to take a lesson from our kids.

1.  Make a mistake and try again
When your baby starts to walk, she might cry a little the first time she falls, but that does not stop her from trying to stand again.  Why do we give up after trying something once?  It is through our failures that we learn.

2.  Change the approach
Think about how your kids try to get something they want.  They will start out asking you.  If you say no, they go to dad.  As they get older, they may change the way they ask, to be more persuasive.  If that does not work they go to grandma.  If they fail, they are not afraid to ask multiple times and in the process they learn what works.  

3.  Celebrate the wins
My son is taking a basketball class.  Do you know how many times he throws the ball up in the air and completely misses the basket?  But when he does make it in the hoop, he is so proud he dances around the gym.  Appreciate that moment when you find a winning formula.  And it will feel even sweeter in contrast to some of your failures.

If we teach our kids anything it should be to accept failure and learn from it.  There will be mistakes and disappointments.  Learn from them, improve and refuse to give up. You will be more successful in the long run.  

Think about the scientific method. It is an iterative process of testing and forming a new hypothesis based on the results. 

Here are a couple failure areas that I am trying to learn from:

Cooking delicious meals - I am not going to give up on my quest to find meals my family enjoys that I can cook in 30 minutes.  Yes, I have all the cookbooks and Pinterest resources, but I need to practice, practice, pick myself up after a failed crockpot failure and practice again.

Exercise - I know I am not alone in this, but finding time to go for a walk, let alone go to the gym is challenging.  But I am not going to give up.  I am going to renew my effort to make this a priority and find a new approach to guard the time and the resolve to make this happen.  Newest idea - walk at lunch or while I am on a conference call.