As a single working mom of two young boys I am often faced with the conflict of being a good employee or a great mom. It seems like I am constantly trying to juggle and balance that issue on a day to day basis. How do you remain sane when you are getting pulled in so many directions?
Like many moms I struggle when my kids are sick and I still must work. I feel guilty when I leave work early or say no to a big project. Both lead me to feel stressed out and questioning myself. That feeling of disappointing others is hard to manage.
So how do you deal with that feeling of disappointment, getting pulled in a million directions and stress from not being able to be everything for everyone all at the same time?
In Sandler Training, there is a concept called I/R Theory. What this theory trains you to do is to isolate who you are from what you do. The roles in our lives are what we do, our labels. Who we are and the way we think about ourselves is the identity.
The way I break it down in my mind is like this. Two major roles I carry in my life are the role of being a mom and the role of being an employee. Each of these roles are extremely important and valuable. However, it is extremely hard for me to be effective at either role co-currently. My identity goes with me everywhere though. It doesn’t matter what role I am playing at the time because what I think about myself is the same.
The “I” represents identity, your personal self-worth. The value of this can range from a 0 to a 10 just depending on how you view yourself, without thinking of what others think of you and without thinking about how well you are doing in your current roles. The goal would be to try and always hold that at a ten. Having this number high helps you to accomplish whatever you want to do on your role side.
Here is a major problem with accomplishing the I/R Theory, many people connect self-worth to their role. Early on in life what our parents and society taught us was that if you were a good daughter/son, student, kid, team player, etc. you would get praised or even rewarded. Sadly, this doesn’t stop in adulthood either. This praise and rewards are amazing when things are going good in the roles but detrimental when they are not.
The key to having it all is simply this, allow yourself to not be perfect in your roles. I realize that I won’t be a perfect mom or a perfect employee on the same day. This lack of perfection doesn’t change who I am on the inside or how I see myself as a person. You can perform in your roles only in a manner that is consistent with how you see yourself conceptually. So go get mentally and emotionally tough.
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