Real Happy Mom

Practical tips and encouragement for moms

How to be ambitious outside of motherhood with

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Raise your hand if you have used your kids as an excuse for why you haven’t taken care of something?

I know I have! Our kids don’t have to be an excuse anymore when it comes to making time for self-care and pursuing the things that are most important to you.

My guest, Christian, knows all about how to help moms with this problem.

In this episode, Christian shares:

  • Advice for moms that feel like they don’t have time or can’t afford self-care
  • Why moms experience mom guilt when they think about making time for themselves
  • Resources for moms on their journey of creating a balance between motherhood and their identity
  • Tips for changing your mindset so that you can being to make progress towards creating that balance.

About

Christian Moon is a Certified Life Coach that specializes in coaching moms who want to seek balance between motherhood and their personal life. She is also the founder of Ambitious with a Purpose, an initiative created to assist mothers with accomplishing their goals while still being wonderful moms. The Ambitious Mom Coach is on a mission to bring new light to motherhood and balance. She is determined to bring a newfound perspective to motherhood and Womanhood.

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Transcript of this episode

Real Happy Mom 0:02
You are listening to the Real Happy Mom podcast. The weekly podcasts are busy working moms to get inspiration, encouragement and practical tips for this journey called motherhood. My name is Tony and and you are listening to Episode 149. Welcome back to another episode of the Real Happy Mom Podcast. I am so excited to have you back joining me. Thank you so much for coming on and listening to another episode. Today I’m actually joined with my friend and fellow coach here, Christian moon, always say whenever I see her name, that it sounds like a superhero and she is pretty super and awesome to me, now certified life coach and today, he is showing us some ways that we can change our mindset as well as implement some strategies so that we can start to make time for the things that we truly enjoy as well is time for our goals and dreams. Now in this episode she shares with us the way we can do that by cutting things out that are not serving us as well as making more time by getting up early and using journals and affirmations to help us with changing our mindset. And then she also gives us some strategies that will help us too as well, which includes saying no and utilize it our support system. Now, Christian is one lady that we can learn a lot of because she shares with us in this episode about how she was a teen mom and how she had to change some of her thoughts in order to make sure that she showed up to be not only a good mom, but to be an awesome person in pursuing her dreams and goals. Now, before we jump into this episode, really quick, I just wanted to make sure that you knew about the Facebook group community, which is the Real Happy Mom, community on Facebook, this Facebook group is definitely one you want to join. If you’re not already joining me there in the group, I am going to be giving some more of the tips and inspiration like I do here on the podcast. But the other big thing is the monthly trainings. In these Monday trainings, I am showing you how to use Trello, which is a practice or not practice project management tool that is going to help you with systematizing things that you get more organized, and also feel more in control and less overwhelmed. Not in some of the previous monthly trainings, I have shared a meal cleaning board as well as a home management binder. All these things can be used to help with streamlining things as well as getting things organized for you and your family. So if this is something that can help you, which I know will make sure you head over to Real Happy Mom comm slash community and join me over there inside of the Facebook group. Okay, that is my spot or I feel like it is the after party to the podcast. Make sure you join me over there and stay in touch. Okay, now that we have that out of the way, let’s go ahead and jump in to this week’s episode.

Real Happy Mom 3:11
Welcome to the podcast. Christian, I am super happy to have you on today.

Unknown Speaker 3:16
Hi,

Christian 3:17
I’m so happy to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Real Happy Mom 3:20
Yes, yes, Kristen, we share very similar mission as far as who we help, and how we do that. And but you definitely bring a different perspective when it comes to self care, as well as mom guilt. And so I’m super excited to talk to you about all of those things today. But before we jump into our topic, I want you to share a little bit about you and what you do.

Christian 3:44
Yes, so my name is Christian Mone and I am a certified life coach. And I specialize in helping moms create a an identity outside of motherhood. So I help moms with the development self care routines, setting goal plans, just pretty much doing whatever it is that makes them happy, whether it’s working out hobbies, just make sure that mothers don’t let go of their womanhood when they become mothers.

Real Happy Mom 4:11
Yes, and you are also a full time working mom too as well, in addition to your coaching business, correct? That is correct. Yes. Yes, yes. And how is it with juggling all of those things?

Christian 4:23
Um, to be honest, sometimes it can be quite overwhelming, just juggling everything. But I am in a place where I feel like I’ve gotten pretty consistent with my routines and been able to implement a couple of strategies to help me throughout it, but I mean, everybody has their days and I’m not gonna lie. I have my days sometimes where I’m like, how am I holding out every single thing?

Real Happy Mom 4:47
Yes, definitely. Definitely. It is funny that you bring up, you know, this whole issue with time because I think that is a common theme with a lot of moms. Especially when it comes to self care. They feel like oh, I don’t have Time, I don’t have time for that. But I know that you have some particular advice. And when it comes to self care, so I wanted you to share with us a little bit about some advice you would give us if we feel like we don’t have time for self care, or we feel like we can’t afford it.

Christian 5:16
Yeah, absolutely. So one thing that I always try to go over with my clients is to take a take time to really look at their schedule, like look at every single thing that they do. Within a day, when you take time to write down every single aspect I’m talking about from hour to hour, you see that you actually have a lot more time that you think you do, but it’s just how you’re utilizing the time. So I know for me when I was struggling with time, and I actually did this process myself, I noticed that I was spending maybe three to four hours just scrolling throughout the day on Instagram, as opposed to dedicate that time to self care. So I kind of try to tell my clients and tell any moms out there to see where your time is being utilized. Because you have a lot of more extra time than you think you have is just where you are putting your time.

Real Happy Mom 6:06
Just definitely because I tell the story all the time about how I was doing laundry one day, and I was like, Oh, let me take a break real quick. So I popped my phone out. And I’m like scrolling on Instagram. And I was like, Oh, I’m only gonna be on here for five minutes. And like, 30 minutes later, I’m on, what’s her name’s profile. Like, I’m like, how did I get here? Like, what am I doing on cardi B’s like profile, like what is going on? But it’s really true, like, we do have a lot more time than, than we think. But I think a lot of it has to do with the guilt too. So we use the excuse that we don’t have time. So I’m just wondering why you think that moms experienced this whole mom guilt when it comes to making time for themselves, whether it be for self care or for pursuing their dreams and goals.

Christian 6:54
Yeah, I think that for some reason, um, it puts us in a mind frame of we’re being selfish when we’re doing something other than being a mom. And so that’s where we come up with the different excuses. So it excuses kind of make us feel comfortable with what we’re comfortable with, right, which is just strictly being a mom. Um, because we have this guilt or this fear, or this stigma. I feel like that’s around mothers doing anything other than being moms. So, um, when a guilt comes, I feel like, we don’t know how to how to combat it. Because this is our routine. This is what we’re used to.

Real Happy Mom 7:34
Yes, definitely. Because I definitely know about, yes, the the comfort of doing what we’re used to. But I know that there are some ways that you’re able to help moms in particular, when it comes to kind of breaking out of this and creating that balance between motherhood as well as having their own identity. So, share with us a little bit about some of those things and how we can definitely start doing better with creating that balance.

Christian 8:04
Yeah, so I think that the first step, honestly, um, would be to believe that you can do it. Just a little bit of like backstory about my journey, I was a teen mom, and I pretty much gave up on myself before I even delivered my son. Because I became a teen mom, I was super, super ashamed, embarrassed. And I just felt like because I was having my child like, that was the end of my life. I had my mom, she was actually a team on my aunt’s my grandmother. So I felt that I was continuing on this generation of becoming a teen mom and having to let her goals like her goals go and like for me, my mom, she didn’t finish high school, she didn’t get the chance to go to college. So here I was in my senior year. And I was at a standstill and already feeling like my life was over. And I had these dreams of going to college and having a career and doing all of these things. Once I changed my mindset after time, you know, went on and everything. And I was able to understand that even though I’m a mom, I still can do those things, it may take a little bit more work, it may take a little bit more flexibility than I was able to get on that path. So I feel like with moms, the first step is that you got to understand that you are capable of doing it, you got to understand that you deserve to do something else outside of motherhood. And that’s the first thought. So once you’re already thinking positive about the situation, and you’ve already developed that mindset, the journey gets easier from there. And then you go on to the strategies, which is to implement in more time cutting out certain things and maybe getting up early before the kids get up to and things like that. But the strategy doesn’t come until your mindset is in a correct place because you can implement whatever strategies you want. But if your mind doesn’t believe that it’s possible, there’s no way that you’re going to be able to do it.

Real Happy Mom 9:55
Yes, definitely. Now you brought up a couple of things that I want to dabble into Hear in the first thing was about the Vienna tea mom because that that is definitely challenging within itself because at least for me, like whenever I think about it, I’m just like man, like, like having a child like earlier on like, you’re still like trying to you know, do things and enjoy certain things about life. But I feel like being a mom is like such a huge responsibility. And I could see how like, it’s easy to kind of like write yourself off before you even get started. So I was just wondering it, was it support that you had? Was it you know, doing your own internal work that caused this change in your mindset? Like, what was it for you?

Christian 10:42
Yeah, so there were actually a number of things like number one, I was so depressed about my pregnancy, that I had the worst pregnancy, I just felt miserable every day. And I feel that resulted in me having complications with the delivery of my son. So when I went to deliver my son delivered him early, like maybe about six weeks early, and he was premature. And I remember when I delivered them, he literally just passed out and turned blue. And the doctors were trying to bring them back, they rushed him to intensive care. Luckily, the Children’s Hospital in Michigan was like connected to the Women’s Hospital. So they were able to transport him straight down there and get him the help that he needed. But he was in the hospital for like two or three weeks. And I just remember like, praying a lot and just telling God and feeling so guilty about how I felt throughout the pregnancy and feeling that I put my child in this situation because I was so depressed and just so upset at myself. And just promising that if God put him through, I would no longer feel like that, I wouldn’t think like that, I wouldn’t have those thoughts. And I would just make the best out of my situation. And God held up his end of the bargain. So that’s what I did with with mine. And then don’t get me wrong, there still were times where I did feel very frustrated and still hurt nowhere near as much as the beginning. But I still was very frustrated. Because then after that, me and his dad, we had our problems. And it resulted in me being a single mom. So now we’re where I’m coming from just a team on. So now I’m a single mom. So I’m dealing with that journey, which is causing a lot of issues with me, you know, kind of going back into that space of thinking negative, but I would quickly kind of take myself out of that I didn’t have a whole lot of support, I had support, but not as much as I would have wanted. Because like I said before my mom, she was a teen mom, so she had to drop out of school, she didn’t have like a good job to be able to barely take care of us, let alone You know, help me with my child. So I just kind of got into this mindset where I was determined to just prove everybody wrong and prove to myself like that I can do this, I can do this and that I can be the best mom that I could be and still get to the my dreams and goals that I have for myself.

Real Happy Mom 12:57
Yes, yes, I’m totally loving that now, you definitely brought up the the mindset thing, we kind of touched on a little bit. So I wanted to kind of unpack this a little bit. And I know you said the first step to really like, you know, definitely making more time for yourself and getting out of the the whole guilt is to, you know, look at yourself and say that, you know, you’re capable of doing these things, and you deserve to have and do things outside of motherhood, which I totally agree with. And I just I know that there’s a lot of moms who struggle with that. So I really want you to like really unpack some of the the shifts that we need to take when it comes to really believing in understanding that we deserve to have something else out of motherhood and that we are capable of doing all of these awesome things, in addition to being a great mom.

Christian 13:50
Yeah, um, one technique that I know for sure, because one thing about it is that it’s something that doesn’t happen overnight. And I want everyone to know that because so often, we kind of get frustrated during our journey and during the challenges because it’s something that we have to work on. And it’s not happening right away. But that’s anything in life. And it’s like, we also didn’t develop the mindset that we have overnight. It was something that you know, happened within time. So just giving ourselves grace and given our and being patient with ourselves is like the first step. And then just utilize whatever tools that you can. So for instance, um, affirmations like, write down affirmations and tell them to yourself every day, not just talking to yourself every day, but believe in it, like when you put things into the universe, or you say things often, you know, is more chances of it happening and being that way for you. But if you’re if you’re just pouring it into yourself, I mean, I feel like sometimes it still works, but putting it out into the atmosphere. I’m like a very, very firm believer like putting things out into the universe. So practicing your affirmations, I’m a huge, huge fan of journaling, because I feel like with journaling, you’re able to release a lot of things that you may feel like we all have our thoughts and stuff like that. But it’s a whole nother thing to like, release it onto paper, your thoughts, especially like guided journals where it’s asking you certain questions, because sometimes that’s what we need. What if we like can’t afford a coach or something like that, then maybe a guided journal would be a great fit, because it’s asking you the questions that maybe you need to be asked to figure out, you know, where you are in your journey and how you can implement some, you know, different strategies. But to do the, the mindset work is something that has to be done consistently, every single day. And it’s something that has to be worked at every day. So I feel like a lot of times when we do it, and we’re not getting the results that we want fast, we kind of give up. So the main thing that we can do to do that work is just to be consistent with it to be disciplined. To create a habit of like believing in ourselves and doing the necessary work on ourselves, we should be doing that same type of work the same way as if we were working out, you know, we were working out we’re going to the gym every day or every few days or working with a trainer being dedicated, we have to do that same work on our on our mind, because our mind is a very important part, you know, and like I explained in my story, my mind, I feel like made my situation go from bad to worse when I had my son premature, because I let my thoughts get the best of me. So you have to take care of your mind first before you can do anything.

Real Happy Mom 16:35
Yes, yes, definitely. Now, you brought up affirmations, which is like one of like, my favorite tools to use? And I have. I think I still have it out there. Yeah, I have the freebie out there for some mom information. So when I was wondering, what is some of your favorite affirmations to use? And then to it with journaling? since you brought up journaling, as well? Like? Are there any particular guided journals that you use? Or you can just like Google something that can get you started with journaling? Like, what are some of those things that you would say to like, get started if someone’s listening, and it’s like, yeah, okay, I’m ready to do the mindset work, like, what are some affirmations and some guided journal prompts that will help us get us going?

Christian 17:18
Yeah, so um, for affirmations, my favorite affirmation that I say to myself is, I am a wonderful mother, and I am striving to be even better. I love that one so much, because I feel like sometimes I can get pretty hard on myself and hard on my journey as I know a lot of us can. And just saying it to myself every day, it kind of like puts me in check, like remind me to just take it easy and just, you know, go with the flow. And as far as journaling, I love guided journals on one guided journal that I really like is a this year I will and it’s like a yearly journal where you’re able to like get all of your goals together, there’s prompts that actually like what’s stopping you from doing certain things. I really love that. And I pretty much do that journal every year. I also have a couple of gratitude guided journals, too, that helps me with like practicing gratitude. And I also have a guided journal that I created just for moms quite ambitious with the purpose that goes over that type of stuff as well like setting self care routines, creating a bucket list, going over your goals, celebrating your wins, and all that good stuff.

Real Happy Mom 18:30
I love it, love it. Now definitely I’ll make sure to include the link to your ambitious with a purpose journal, because that is definitely sounds like a great resource to use to get started. Now, I know we’ve covered affirmations and journaling. And you kind of touched a little bit on how some other strategies that can help us with self care. And then also making time for our dreams and goals include like cutting out things that are wasting our time and getting up early. But I was wondering if there’s any other strategies that you would like to give us that can definitely help with getting things back in and on track when it comes to self care and also making time to pursue our goals and dreams?

Christian 19:20
Yeah, so um, one of my favorites actually is saying no, and it may seem very silly, but I am a firm believer and setting boundaries. Because when we don’t set those boundaries, I feel like we’re kind of like a hamster on a wheel and we’re doing so many things that doesn’t really benefit us or benefit our journey and that time could be put into self care. And I was that person who pretty much like I remember when my first job that I worked at, I was literally working like 60 hours a week because remember, I was a single mom, so I’m taking care of my son, you know, and trying to get those extra hours to make sure that we’re good and I only had one off day And I tell you, it was Sunday. So before Sunday would come, my friends, my siblings, everyone already had my day plan. So it’s quick, can you take me here on a Sunday? Or couldn’t? Can we go this place? Or Could I come over or whatever, like everybody already had my whole day planned out what a lot of things that didn’t really even have anything to do with me. And so I was also that person that just was kind of scared to say no to people, like even if it was like school or daycare, you know, is like, well, Christian, could you take on this to me knowing that, you know, I really can’t, or I really don’t have a lot of time, or I could be using that time to kind of like, sit back and take care of myself as like, I’m scared to say no, so I’m just saying yes to everything these days, not so much. I’m very okay and comfortable with saying, Well, no, I’m not able to take that on right now. You know, and I’m not having to be, you know, rude about it or nasty about it. But just understanding that my self care journey, and the things that I need to do for myself, too, is important. So I’m also to another thing that I would say is utilizing your support system, because we, as moms, sometimes I feel like are, you know, wanted to be superheroes and all that good stuff, which is fine. But I also feel like sometimes it’s an ego thing. And we are having a hard time with just saying that, hey, I need help for a minute. So I can kind of get myself together. And there are some of us that may not even have a as much of a support system. And I totally understand that as well. But just kind of being creative with the ways that you’re going about making time for your for yourself care routine. So say for instance, like I give this example about when I wanted to work out, like I was tired of not feeling good, you know, not feeling my best and stuff, I really wanted to get back into the gym. And instead of me saying, Okay, well, I got my son, then I started going to this gym that had the package where you can bring your kids as well. So me, it may have been like maybe $10 more expensive, but at the same time, that’s eliminating the excuse of I can’t work out and do something for myself to get my mind back on the right track. Because more than anything working out for me was really good for my mind. But I’m able to do that, because I’m bringing my son with me to this particular gym that maybe a little bit further, maybe $10 more, but they have it where they’ll watch your kid in the next room. So just being resourceful. And just try to try and to make sure that you are looking for different ways to make sure that you’re doing it and like kind of cutting up excuses. Because I think that sometimes because we’re so comfortable. We more so instead of look for resources, we’re looking for a lot of excuses. Um, you know, to get through that situation?

Real Happy Mom 22:49
Absolutely. Because it is definitely a lot easier to use an excuse to actually pursue what it is we’re supposed to do. So, yeah, totally understand that. And I love that you brought up saying no, and utilizing the support system, because those are two huge things that I think we could definitely do better about, even if we think we’re good, like you can be even better. And it will definitely make a difference with freeing up your time. So you actually have time to do the things that truly matter to you.

Christian 23:22
Yeah, absolutely. Ow, also want to point out too, that sometimes we have to give ourselves our handclaps, like just document our ways to, because we’re always sometimes I feel like so focus on what didn’t work or what challenges we had, that we’re not giving ourselves enough praise for what went right. So even if you want to start creating like a wind jar, or even if you just want to write it out every day when we’re done for today, what what did I weigh in today, and it could be something as simple list, I got my child down for a nap, or I got my child to stay down for nap 30 minutes longer. So I can have extra time for myself or I stuck to my guns and stay at know about something or you know, so I can have more time for myself. Just those types of examples. Just making sure that we’re documenting our wins too. And not and not feeling like because they’re not huge wins that they’re not wins. I’m just understanding that every weekend count because when you go back and then you’re reflecting on that type of stuff. It’s like showing you on paper that Yeah, I was able to do that. So I can do even much more like motivates you. It gets like your adrenaline up like hey, I was able to accomplish and do this, this and this. So I know I can do the next steps.

Real Happy Mom 24:38
Yes, definitely. And it also it shows you like how capable you are of doing things and then also those small wins add up to be big wins because what I found is that it’s all the little things that that we do that make the the big difference and and that’s what separates people who are you know, doing great from the Those that are just mediocre and just okay. And it’s just consistently those small little things that no small wins that are causing us to move forward. So I love that you brought that up for sure.

Christian 25:13
Yeah, yep, I really, I really, I’m really a big fan of that and just practicing gratitude. I know I said, I have a gratitude guided journal to, I do recommend that as well. Because I do feel like we, we have a lot of things to be thankful for that we don’t necessarily notice or see every day. So sometimes just journaling it or writing it down every day, helps us remember how, how grateful we should be. Because sometimes I know life can be super overwhelming that we’re constantly thinking about the bat, but there’s so much other things that’s going on around the world and women or moms that has an even worse. So I feel like just putting it down onto paper, it kind of like reminds you why it humbles you to just really take it every day and be appreciative of of everything, even be appreciative of the challenges, you know, like the challenges are, don’t

Real Happy Mom 26:09
get me wrong,

Christian 26:10
but at the same time, like, if it was my heart, like wouldn’t even be worth it. Like what would what would be your story. After that, you know, being able to say like, Yeah, I was a team, I was a single mom. But I went through it, I got through it. And I became this amazing person. And it didn’t break me. Although the challenges at that time were hard is I don’t know what you know. Now, I feel even more gratitude. I feel like I’m very happy to share my story with my daughter when she gets older to prove to her that she can do even more things. And she can be the woman that she wants, either while being a mom, you know. So I just want to point that out to to just always be grateful if your journey

Real Happy Mom 26:54
is yours. Yes, yes, definitely, definitely now, because you given us a lot of things to really start to deep dive into so that we can really start to have that balance between motherhood in our own identity as well as pursuing our dreams and taking care of ourselves. So I was just wondering, before we wrapped up if there is any words of encouragement, motivational quote that you had before we signed off here? Yes, so I’m always say,

Christian 27:27
one, I just want to just let you guys know that it gets easier. In the beginning, it seems like it’s super, super hard, but it gets easier. And just always remember to be patient with yourself and give yourself grace. Because it’s something that didn’t happen overnight, so it’s not going to change overnight. And then I want to leave you with this quote, as far as like helping with your thinking habits is this quote by Napoleon Hill, it’s what the mind can conceive it can achieve. And that’s just pretty much saying like, if you believe in yourself, and you believe that gonna happen, then it can happen. I love that poll. I swear by that quote, and I’m telling you, you should really make sure that your thoughts are positive.

Real Happy Mom 28:07
Definitely, definitely. Now, Christian, if we want to learn more about you connect with you, work with you. How can we find you online? Yes, so

Christian 28:18
I am coach Krishna Ma, I Instagram and if you go to my website, www Christian moon calm, I do have coaching packages there. I also have the guided journal that I talked to you guys about, that comes feel with prompts for acts as a coaching tool. And also, you can sign up for my newsletter on there. And I send out a lot of helpful advice, but especially on Instagram, I try to be very active and motivating on there. So even if you just want to follow me just to hear some tips and get a little bit of motivation, I’m always on there as

Real Happy Mom 28:51
well. Awesome, awesome. And I will make sure to include all of those links in the show notes. Christian, thank you so much for coming on. This has been super, super helpful. And I have really enjoyed it.

Christian 29:03
Thank you. And I appreciate you so much for having me and for bringing awareness to this subject.

Real Happy Mom 29:09
Absolutely. That does it for this episode of the road. Cast the links and Show Notes for this episode, head on over to Happy Mom comm slash 149. And there you’ll find all the links that Kristen mentioned here as well as a cliff note version of this particular episode, make sure that you join me in the Facebook group, where I will be sharing more of what we are learning here, as well as some of the monthly trainings for Trello. So that you can systematize your life and get things organized so that you can get out of the overwhelm and live the life that you truly enjoy. You can go on over to Rob on.com slash community so that you can go ahead and join me there. That is like my little party area for me. All right now that’s it. On this episode, make sure you stay tuned for next week for another full episode. Take care and with lots of love

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