On my flight home from Perth last week on a flight with no entertainment I sat pondering my life and my business.
I got out a sheet of paper and wrote whatever came into my head. This was a range of quotes, ideas and observations about my life and my business.
One such observation started with “She will know…..”. The she I am referring to is my daughter Ava and what I hope she will know about me as a child and an adult.
I wrote “she will know, her mother followed her dreams, loved to travel and adored her baby girl and husband with everything she had”.
I turned this into a graphic this week and asked my tribe what is it that you hope your children will know about you? The responses were lovely to read.
In my Self-Confidence for Mums E-Course we are about to get started on two topics that encourage us to be a bit ‘Selfish’. We look at what our key strengths, core values, passions and ultimately life purpose is.
This can be quite hard for women, especially mums, as society and our own natures tend to drive us to be selfless and to put our partner, children, family and friends before ourselves to the point where we loose sight of who we really are.
One of my missions through Reverie Coaching is to show mums that living your dreams and your passions and adoring and caring for your family is not mutually exclusive. You CAN do both and what’s more you can do both and let go of the guilt.
On this recent trip to Perth with 3 nights away from my nearly three year old I chose to leave the guilt at home, do my job well, enjoy my quiet time and trust in the love and care she would receive from her father. I came home ready to smother her in love and so appreciative to be her mother.
I returned to work two years ago to a corporate job I was good at but didn’t like much and I really struggled with the knowledge that I would raise my daughter to follow her dreams and passions yet I was not living mine. Reverie Coaching changed all that.
I want my daughter to know I love to travel, this is my main passion beyond her, my hubby and my business and I have not done much of it in the last 5 years. But I plan to. I plan to travel as a family, just with her, on my own and with friends. She will grow up knowing (and hopefully sharing) my love of travel and exploring the world.
Above all else I want her to grow up seeing that as her mother I can be passionate, vibrant, driven, ambitious and still be an amazing mother who loves her with every ounce of my being.
One of my dear colleagues Emma Grey of WorkLifeBliss often recounts a story of her pre-teen child saying to her something along the lines of “mummy you can’t give up on your dreams”. So really are we doing the best for our children by being selfless?
When I think about my own mother (still living) and what she would want me to know about her I like to think she wants me to know that she loves us all equally, that she believes in all of our greatness and potential, that she always wanted to provide us with a safe and stable home and that she too loves travel – a gift she imparted to me.
So I have two questions for you:
- What do you want your children to know about you?
- What do you think your parents want(ed) you to know about them?
And finally are you living with passion or are you putting everyone before yourself? Is that really the best lesson for your children?
Kathryn Hocking is mum and a Director of Reverie Coaching, a Career and Life Coaching Business specialising in working mums and mumpreneurs. For further information on her programmes visit: Ultimate Self-Confidence for Mums and Passion Passport Coaching Program.
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