A Day in the Life: Mom, Coach, Mentor

Hey, my name is Teresa Hildebrand and this is Organized Chaos. We take a deep dive into living with intentionality, focusing on what's important in our lives so we can truly feel our best. It may feel chaotic at times, but with a little organization, the right mindset and a ton of self-love we can still thrive. Join me as we talk to other busy moms and experts who will share tips and strategies to help you reach your goals. Hope you enjoy this episode of Organized Chaos. Now on to the show. Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Organized Chaos and if you're new here, welcome. Thank you so much for joining me. So it's a little cold right now. My hands are freezing. I guess it's sweater weather here in Southern California just barely. But I'm not here to talk about the weather. Today I actually want to share a day in the life of a mom, coach and mentor. I actually want to share my day for a few different reasons. One maybe you can relate to some of my experiences and challenges as a mom entrepreneur. Number two is I want to be open about how I manage my day, because I want you to know that I actually take my own advice and the tips and strategies that I give you. I actually practice myself. Number three I want to be able to inspire you. Maybe this will get you to want to take on some opportunities or maybe just try to be a little bit more productive so that you can kind of manage your chaos a little bit better. Another thing is I want to provide some insights. Maybe you'll have an aha moment or realize that there are certain strategies that you were doing that maybe you can tweak a little bit just from hearing my day and five. I just want to show the actual practical application of a lot of the things that I talk about. So I hope you enjoy this episode. I want to start off with a little bit of background because if you don't know me or my story, I just want to give you a little insight on that. So currently I'm a certified master life coach for mom entrepreneurs and basically I help moms who are trying to do it all really kind of manage the chaos of life and create harmony between life and business. Now, I didn't start off this way. I had a full-time job seven years ago and I left that job because I wanted to spend more time with my kids. The kids were little and I really felt like I was missing out and I thought well, we have this business, so let's just work on that. And we made the decision, which was really tough, and we stumbled many, many times. And then the goal was to get my husband to come home, and he worked for LAPD for 20 years. He at the end of his career, he was a sergeant too, and we actually made that happen. This year, we have two kids who are teenagers right now the 13 and 14, and we also have a new puppy. So life is a little hectic. We're both working from home, so there's different challenges there. One of those challenges is time. Right, we all struggle with time because, like I said earlier, like we're always trying to do it all, we put a lot on our plate. So one way that I have been able to tackle this is creating a morning routine. Now, this takes care of a lot of things. It takes care of some of the things that I have to do for my business. It allows me to give myself some space, have that alone time, journal just a lot of different things that I can do even before anybody wakes up. It's quiet, it's it's my time, it's that time that is just for me. I don't have to worry about interruptions, I don't have to worry about putting out fires, it's just me, myself and I, and it's something that has really helped me because it sets the tone for the day, and it's not that I do a lot during this time. So I wake up super early. Now, of course, you don't have to wake up so early. This is something that I always talk about. People laugh and think that we're crazy because we wake up so early. But I wake up anywhere between 3.30 and 4 o'clock in the morning. So the reason I do this is well, it goes back to when I was working full time, because I had to do that in order to try and fit this in this morning routine before I actually had to go to my full-time job and then get off at a specific time so that I could be home at a decent time. So it all just kind of worked out that way and ever since I left my job, I've kept it that way because it's helped me so much. So I wake up super early and I write in my journal, I plan out my day, like okay, what's happening? You know I've already done the whole week. I kind of done a plan for the week, but now it's the day and I write it down because it's a reminder of what I'm doing and I time block the things that I'm doing. I also, you know, practice gratitude. You know I write what I'm thankful for and I also write the focus of the day, like what's the most important things that I need to get done today, and then I also kind of reflect at the end. I, in the same page, I reflect on how the day went, so that way I can see like, okay, did things go as planned? And if they didn't, okay, well, can I do better next time. Sometimes I will throw in some meditation, just because it gets me in a really good state of mind. Because once I'm done with that, I can jump into some work and I already know what I'm going to do, because I already planned it out for the week and I have a focus. So during like maybe 45 minutes to an hour, I will focus on a specific task. So maybe it's related to a project or just, you know, some coaching sessions or whatever, or maybe even this podcast, and I will do that because I have so much focus. Also do some emails, notifications, things like that. But then, once that's done and like five, five, 15 rolls around, then I go to my garage to work out. And of course I don't have to tell you why it's important to move every single day, but that is something that I know. If it gets done and it doesn't have to be the perfect workout, but if I get my body moving, then I'm so much better equipped to handle what comes next. Now, as I'm talking through this, like this is an ideal day, and you'll see that it sounds like, oh, like everything's going smoothly. But I'm just going through what my ideal day would be like, because things always come up like the kids get sick or something else happens, there's an emergency. So of course the plan isn't going to go how you expected every single time, but I'm just an idea of what I plan. Okay, now it's time to focus on family, because I have to get the kids up, I have to get ready and school drop off, all of that good stuff. And this is when I try to, you know, put all the devices away, because otherwise I'm just like constantly in the in between, meaning like I'm just half assing everything, like I'm trying to do some work stuff, trying to get the kids ready and of course they're not listening and then. So it just gets chaotic that way. So this is when I try to really focus on just getting the kids ready and out the door so that I don't lose my shit right, and I've done it many times and it's okay, because I recognize that and I try to do better next time. So once I drop off the kids and I come back home, then I, you know, do a few other things, maybe take the dog out, and just try to like pick stuff up, because you know it does get chaotic when you're trying to get the kids ready and things are all over the place, shoes are all over the place, so I try to like pick things up so that there isn't like a bunch of clutter, because that always clutters my mind. And then from 9am to either 10 or 1030, I try to do more focused work. Now this is when I also do calls sometimes, so I'll have coaching sessions or I'll have trainings, I'll have workshops or maybe a podcast interview. So I try to schedule things then, because this is kind of like my peak productivity time. This is when my body and my mind is like sharp so I can do my best work. Now it really depends on the day. Mondays, tuesdays and Thursdays are normally those days that I use this time to do some focused work, do sessions and things like that, but not every day is like that. For example, on Wednesdays we have date day, so I don't schedule anything and I try to set that boundary so that I know that it's important for me to spend time with my husband, especially because we're working a lot right now on a lot of great things, right, but we also know how important it is to have family time and to have time with each other. So we don't schedule and really try to be strict on this not to schedule anything on Wednesdays so we can go out to breakfast or we can spend time with each other, go on a date, do all that kind of stuff, because we know how important it is and I have to be really specific on what I'm gonna be doing between that peak productivity time, because otherwise I'm just sitting in front of my computer, I'm distracted and I just need to know, like I need to, step by step for myself. Otherwise I just get overwhelmed and I don't do anything. I also try not to schedule anything like laundry or things around the house, like I make sure that, okay, there's another time for that, if I wanna set it up so that it starts awesome. But then I just kinda leave it alone and then I make sure that I protect this time. Now, after this time, usually I don't have enough brain power to do anything more productive, so that's when I run errands or I go and walk the dog or I just kinda do things around the house and just chill. Sometimes I mean, this is when I can sit down and watch a show or go out to get some coffee or go shopping, right? So this is when I know my limits and I know that if I try to push things then I'm not gonna do my best. So I will do things that are on my calendar appointments and things like that that aren't business related, that aren't family related, because our kids are still in school. So this is the time when I can feel good about doing other things that are on my list. So now, after school pickup, that's where you can get really iffy sometimes, because it really just depends on what's going on. Sometimes we have soccer practice, sometimes we have an orthodontist appointment, sometimes we have a doctor's appointment, sometimes we have some school event, so that is always really iffy and sometimes I actually do have a training or a special call I have to do. And those are the times. They're a few and far in between, because I try to keep my boundaries so that I am not overwhelmed and not trying to mix family and business stuff too much. But it happens sometimes. But on a typical day, on an ideal day, we don't really have anything going on. All we have to do is come home and do homework. Sometimes the kids don't have homework, so that's really ideal, because that's kind of a headache sometimes if they have to do homework. But then we start to prepare food, so we try to have family time at the dinner table. This is when we talk about our day and we ask the kids you know what made you smile today? And we actually have a little box of questions that we can ask them. And it gets fun sometimes where we can ask just like questions about not just their day but just questions that we wouldn't really come up with. And it's just a really great way to have that interaction and have that connection with the kids, because life is so busy. So when we're sitting there we can actually interact with each other and feel a greater sense of connection and that bond that we are always striving for. Sometimes we try to do something different, mostly to get the kids to come downstairs, because if they're upstairs in their rooms and it's time for dinner, we have to call them a bunch of times, like they don't come right away right, and sometimes we try to make it fun so that they will want to join us right away. And one thing that we've done in the past which has been really fun is we'll sit in a different seat, so everybody has an assigned seat, right, and we'll sit in different seats and we have to act like that person the whole dinner and this is something that you know is super fun and you know we have a good laugh. So our evenings are a little different depending on the day, because sometimes we're just chilling and other times we're, you know, going back and forth, practice or doing something else that's on the schedule, but normally it's just hey, it's like wind down, like let's get things prepared for the next day and let's just chill until bedtime. So I'm still working progress and I really want to find a good evening routine for myself, like once everybody else is taken care of and my husband goes to bed earlier than I do, so I'm awake with our puppy and I will just sit there on my phone which is fine because I actually schedule that in and I'm, you know, just browsing and just like not really doing anything productive. And I think that's important because you can't always be doing something and always being productive and always hustling. It's like you have to have some time to just decompress, and it doesn't have to be a meditation, it doesn't have to be, you know, writing in your journal and things like that. Like it could just be watching, you know reels, or going on tiktok or whatever, or watching videos. Like I feel like that's also self-care, because you're just like shutting your brain off and many times the energy that we spend is it really has to do with not just the physical stuff, it's really like the mental load that we have and just shutting it off really really helps. And then that's it. And I want to say that you know I sleep eight hours and I wake up refreshed and everything. No, that's not the case. Sometimes I do have trouble sleeping. Sometimes it's because you know our kids are coming in and there's a problem or something they don't want to go to sleep. You know, the neighbors are noisy, whatever. Like I don't have like this peaceful eight hours of sleep every night still working on that, of course but I do try to get in at least seven and a half hours of sleep, which was something that for years probably ten years I really couldn't do, so I'm trying to take advantage of that. I know how important sleep is, but that's all I have. That is my typical day, day in the life. And I don't know, maybe it sounds absolutely boring to you and you're like oh my god, I'm so glad my life isn't like that. Or you're like, wow, that's really cool. Like I would want to have a life like that, or whatever, like it inspires me to want to create my own version of this day. Whatever that may be, I hope you got some tips from here. Or even just like feel like you can relate. You know that you're not alone. Alright, thanks for tuning in today. I am so, so grateful for you. I hope you have an amazing day and I will see you next week.