Not successful enough? Not rich enough? Not achieved enough in your career? Not been a good enough parent or partner?

Because I get that. All the time.

I got a postcard from my mum today. She titled it “Bringing Home The Bacon” and put a note on the back, reminding me that it’s important to be ambitious but not to the point where you set yourself targets you can’t reach. She is wise.

Still.

I can’t seem to battle the feeling I’m not doing ENOUGH at the moment. Before Christmas, I blogged about my huge workload and battle to get everything done. I wrote last month about a lack of balance and shared recently that things have started to even out a bit. I’m working less and relaxing more.

Still.

There’s always a voice in my head that whispers “Do MORE!”. I feel like I should blog more, better. I should pitch more, to bigger publications, better. I should be actively seeking out more broadcasting work, touting myself more. I should be, just, well, BETTER.

A better mum, a better writer, a better presenter, a better wife. I look around my Twitter feed and see a string of successful people. Surely I can’t be the ONLY person to occasionally get a pang of career envy or mother envy or just, sheer self-doubt, as I kick myself for not trying harder?

I’ve always been this way. As a kid at school, I’d get an A grade and instantly feel cross with myself that it wasn’t an A*. Or at university, I’d write a piece for the student newspaper or do a stint of work experience at a radio station and feel dissatisfied. It wasn’t enough that I’d done something more than my studies, I would scold myself for not being the one student in the year to be picked out for a job before they’d even graduated.

I don’t think being a woman helps. I constantly question if I’m being a good enough mum to my toddler, if I’m around enough, if I give her enough attention and arrange enough one-to-one activities for her. I battle with a constant pile of laundry and unmade beds and dusty carpets, cross with myself that I haven’t stayed up an extra hour to get it all done. I know my husband doesn’t worry about these things.

And that takes me back to the being good enough issue – I’m not a good enough homemaker (or whatever we call it in the UK). Basically, I’m rubbish at housework.

The share it all society that we now live in doesn’t help particularly. I live in a world of Facebook and Twitter, emails and text messages. Not a day passes when another person’s success, big news, exciting project or motherhood win isn’t posted in my face. We are connected with so many people, so much of the time, that simple maths concludes we will regularly witness these kinds of triumphs. This is positive – of course it is – but it’s also negative, if you’re having a bad day. On days like these it can make you feel like a bit of a failure if you don’t have big news of your own to shout about.

On this occasion, I’ve decided to take my mum’s advice. Like I said, she is wise. I’m going to remain ambitious in every area of my life, but I’m going to be pleased and satisfied with the small wins too. I don’t think we shout enough about the small wins – the ORDINARY stuff. I need to start feeling successful again.

So, my small win of the day: I made a pancake without it breaking up into a mound of rubbery gunge. Granted, not IMMEDIATELY…

But I had it down to a tee after the fourth attempt.

What’s your ordinary win of the day? And do you ever feel like you’re not good enough? I know I can’t be the only one…

The post When “good” isn’t good enough appeared first on Mother's Always Right.

Photo Credit: Alan Light

My inner Oprah Winfrey needs to be channelled. She’s sitting on the sofa today, demanding I take notice of her life coaching advice.

I can’t ignore her any longer.

She tells me to stop for a minute. Just a minute. And take a moment to recall the events of the past year. She tells me that, rather than berating myself for not achieveing the mountain of tasks on my to-do list this week, I should take stock of what I have achieved.

She tells me to look at the bigger picture.

Apparently, I need to remember where I was this time last year. I need to remember that I was yet to get married. I was in a haze of last-minute planning for said wedding. I was attempting the beginnings of a blog, a freelance career.

Taking stock and looking back, I’m reminded that this time last year I was in blissful ignorance about the battle that lay before me as my child attempted to learn to walk. I had no idea of the appointments, chasing appointments, referrals, physio assessments, physio treatments, Googling and anxious conversations with family.

And here we are, walking.

I’m reminded of my never-ending nerves over money and the “what ifs” of my freelance career not working out.

My inner Oprah tells me to take note of the increasing commissions. The commissions to write for big websites and magazines that I used to see as “The Big Boys”. Now I’m one of them. I’m a “Big Boy” (now, there’s a thing to write *snigger*).

The regular writing clients I once dreamed of, telling myself it would never happen, have arrived at my door. They are here, paying me to do a job I love. A job I didn’t even dare dream I would do when I was at university, dreaming of being “A Writer”.

No longer am I touting for cherished radio shifts. I don’t need to tout. Not at the moment, anyway. I have a regular gig. Talking. I earn actual cash from talking and laughing on the radio. And writing. They let me write for them too.

My beautiful blog, begun on a whim to see if I could still write in the haze of baby brain, is paying me back tenfold. The love I’ve cherished on it has reciprocated with new friends, a holiday, paid opportunities and fabulous products. (I apologise if the gushing Oprah is taking over a little – she’s in her stride now.)

Again, the me of this time last year doesn’t believe it.

My non-toddling toddler is toddling. I earn money writing and talking. I get to flex every creative bone in my (rather wobbly) body.

Oprah has done good.

I’m doing OK.

Now remind me of this tomorrow.

The post Oprah gives it to me straight appeared first on Mother's Always Right.

No amount of reading or trawling the internet or phoning other mums for advice will help. No matter how many supportive friends or family members come to visit, if you have a question at 1 o’clock in the morning, chances are you’ll have to work out the answer for yourself. Ultimately, it’s your call. Terrifying.

The thing is, I wasn’t used to feeling helpless.

I was used to being the confident one in the room. At work, I was bloody good at my job. I worked hard and I knew what I was doing. Considering I was at work more than I was anywhere else, my “work identity” was me.

And then I had a baby.

I felt like I’d gone from hero to zero. I was a “nobody”. Just another mum, pushing a buggy, worrying about breastfeeding and sleep. How dull.

Even though I loved my baby so much it gave me a pain in my stomach, I missed the old “me”. I missed the confident person who put nice clothes on in the morning. And I felt like I was being left behind.

It didn’t help that I was the first amongst my group of friends to have a baby. While I was dealing with dirty nappies they were off being promoted and getting new, exciting jobs.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like being a mum. I loved it. I dreaded the thought of going back to work. I wanted to live in my baby bubble forever. But then there were those constant nagging reminders of who I used to be. The old business card in my wallet. The conversations that started “And what do you do?”. I’d be right there again, in a cloud of doubt, feeling guilty for not being at work, worrying that I’d be left behind.

Idiot.

It’s now thirteen months since I went on maternity leave, fourteen if you count the annual leave at the beginning. And despite planning to take a full year off, it didn’t happen.

I made it to January before I cracked. The worry got me, that need to be “hero” again took over. I started doing the odd radio shift here and there, “to keep my hand in”. Then I started writing the odd article on a freelance basis. Then I set up a blog. Then I did more radio work, more articles and, before I knew it, I’d handed in my notice and decided not to return to the old job. I was officially a freelance journalist.

And now that I’m working again, I look back and kick myself for wasting the last precious months of my maternity leave worrying. It all turned out OK in the end. Balance has been restored. Why couldn’t I just have relaxed and let it play out without trying to chase the end of the story before it was even written?

I’ve come a long way in the last year. I’ve had a baby, furthered my career and will be getting married in just over a month.

Turns out I was never zero. I was a hero all along – I just didn’t know it.

The post From hero to zero – and back again appeared first on Mother's Always Right.

It’s a work thing. I’m a freelance journalist, see. This means that sometimes I am “Working Mum”, putting on my smart clothes and leaving the house to do a day’s work in radio. Other times I am “Work At Home Mum”, writing articles while wearing a dressing gown covered in half-chewed banana and crusty milk. Then, when I don’t have any bookings or commissions to finish, I am “Stay At Home Mum”. On these days, my uniform is a mouldy dressing gown followed by a pair of muddy jeans. And my main activity is playing.

The thing is, I don’t know which Mum I prefer.

So I thought I’d do a little exercise.

Working Mum:

Pros:

• Wearing a top that’s not covered in half-eaten food.
• Drinking a cup of tea before it’s gone cold.
• Talking with other adults about things that don’t involve babies or poo.
• Being able to listen to the radio on the way to work, rather than Humpty Dumpty’s Greatest Hits.
• Getting through a good chunk of the day without wiping someone else’s bum.
• Focusing on one task at a time, rather than juggling at least seven – all to the background noise of Rasta Mouse or Mr Tumble.

Cons:

• Getting dressed before 9am.
• Planning the military operation that is packing for a day out of the house.
• Guilt (this is a big one).

Work At Home Mum:

Pros:

• Getting dressed after 9am.
• No guilt.
• Having the time to play and earn money all in one day.

Cons:

• Juggling of epic proportions.
• Very late nights.
• The computer winking in the corner during play time.
• Cold tea.
• A rather dirty house.

Stay At Home Mum:

Pros:

• Play time lasts all day.
• No guilt.
• Having time to cook a delicious dinner.
• Having time to clean the house (this is debatable).
• No juggling.
• No military-style packing.

Cons:

• Humpty Dumpty’s Greatest Hits on repeat.
• Wearing clothes constantly covered in half-eaten food.
• Cold tea.
• Wiping a dirty bum that is not my own.

I don’t think this exercise has particularly helped, rather than to remind me how much I love a hot cup of tea and hate the “G” word.

So help me out here – which Mum are you? And what’s the best and worst thing about it?

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