Do You Understand Your Value as a Mother?

If you are like most American moms, you are far too critical of the job you’re doing. You want to get it right and you critique your performance daily.

Here are three ways to work on understanding your value as a mother and putting this habit into practice:

1.  MAKE A LIST

Many of us mothers don’t know what we are good at, what we can accomplish, and what brings us real pleasure. We obsess so much about what we don’t like in ourselves, and we completely fail to define ourselves by what we do like.

So stop with the negative! Make a list of the things you are really good at and write them down. Write down what you are, what you like, and what you dream about, and whenever the negative thoughts come, think on these things that are positive.

Then go a step further: Act on them. Buy an outfit that shows off the best part of your figure. Schedule an activity that makes you feel good about your life. Make a date with a friend who is upbeat and who likes who you are. Start being the kind of friend you want to be and stop thinking about how you let your friends down.

Tremendous amounts of energy leave us daily because we exhaust it in trying what not to be rather than embracing what we want to do.

2. LIVE TO IMPRESS NO ONE

Women who have a healthy sense of their own value are delightful to be around because they never play games, put on airs, or try to impress anyone. They don’t need to because they have a sense that they lack very little.

It isn’t that they are enamored with themselves; quite the opposite, they are humble. They are so comfortable with who they are that they are free to elevate others. Mothers who constantly bad mouth others are profoundly insecure, but mothers who feel secure speak with an ease and joy that lets the hearer see their confidence. One of the best ways to feel better about whom we are as mothers is to push ourselves to accept who we are. We do this by refusing to pretend with anyone.

3. WRITE DOWN WHAT GOES IN THE BOX

There is no secret that I have come to believe that faith and God are intimately interwoven into our lives as mothers. I have seen enough death to question the afterlife and the will of God, and I have seen enough births to believe in the goodness of God.

That is why I cannot discuss our value as mothers without including him in our conversation. If we are both flesh and spirit, then God loves both—at the beginning of our lives and at the end. He alone will accompany us. The One who made all things stoops to accompany us in order that we will never be alone and never feel unloved.

Now that is something to celebrate when pondering our worth.

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Find more encouragement in my book, The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers.