4 Easy Steps to Motherhood Happiness

I am a planner.

I love planning my week in advance.

I love knowing what my tasks for the week/day will be. That gives me a sense of focus.

I love the feeling knowing that my day will be well-spent completing what I need to do.

Ticking off items from my to-do list gives me great pleasure.

And the best part of all, things will ALWAYS go as planned - at least 98% of the time.

Right until my promotion to MUM status.

I mean, I love being a mum.

I love it to bits.

Really, I do.

But mummy planning is not a skill that comes easy.

It takes practise and a whole lot of adjustments.

It's challenging because motherhood is full of surprises.

Times when you expect your plan to work, it will completely go the opposite direction.

Truth be told, that was one of the main things that put a lot of stress on me as a new mum.

For months after giving birth to Fayrah, I was a complete wITCH with a capital B.

So I sat myself down and tried to find the root cause to my unhappiness.

That was when I realised that I had to plan and think like a MUM.

How do you do THAT?

Let me share with you the minor changes I did that had major (positive) effect on myself AND the people around me - especially my little newborn.

1) Baby Inclusive.In my personal opinion, your children are (and should) be your first priority. But I hate to admit that there are so many times that I would forget to include Fayrah into my planning. Unless you have a nanny, factors like feeding, changing, giving a bath etc MUST be included because all these responsibilities take up a huge chunk of your time.

2) Be flexible.Life is full of surprises and that's a fact we have to accept - whether or not we like it. So instead of getting frustrated about not being able to check your emails because your little one was super grumpy that day, enjoy the time extra time with him/her. Before you know it, they might get too embarrassed to be seen with mummy once they hit puberty.

3) Get back to reality.I was always so ambitious during planning that I would include more than 6 tasks in a day. More often than not, I would end up grumpy because I never usually manage to get through them! Not even half of it sometimes! A simple rule of thumb - 4 tasks (maximum!) that will take 1 hour or less to complete OR 2 tasks that will take less than 1 hour to complete. Now whenever, I plan I choose either one instead of cramping all of them on 1 day.

4) Take care of you so you can take care of them.Even if it's just for a mere 30 minutes, it can do wonders to your well-being - especially now that you're a mum. Most of the time, we are so caught up in handling and fulfilling other peoples' needs that we completely forget about ours. If it's a spa session, a quiet stroll by yourself, a movie outing or even just reading a book (without any disturbances) that makes you happy, I say DO IT! Allocate just 30 minutes of everyday for yourself because quite frankly, if you don't take cAre of yourself, who will?