Overcome Obstacles to Achieve Your Goals as a Christian SAHM

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You’ve set goals with the best of intentions…but the dishes are piled up again and your toddler is refusing the nap they desperately need, preventing you from that precious alone time you had planned. Is it even possible to overcome these obstacles? How?

While it’s not easy, you absolutely can over obstacles and achieve your goals as a SAHM. Know that you’re not alone — the goals as a stay-at-home mom come with unique challenges. However, many SAHMs meet their goals despite challenging circumstances.

Let’s talk about practical and grace-filled ways to overcome obstacles so you can make progress even in this busy season!

1. Determine if you’ve set yourself up for failure or success first.

Before you beat yourself up about not achieving your goals, you need to look at things practically and see if you’ve simply set yourself up to fail. We self-sabotage without even realizing it. The good news is that when it comes to overcoming obstacles, this one is pretty easy to overcome once you’ve identified it’s an issue.

Here are some ways we have potentially set ourselves up to fail:

Unpredictable Routines

If we don’t have a solid routine down, then things can turn chaotic pretty quickly. We need consistent rhythms that keep us anchored throughout the day, not anxious. If we just let each day unfold wherever the wind (a.ka. kids) takes us, then it will be very challenging to commit to our goals and achieve them.

Perfectionism

Have you ever been told that “If you’re going to do it, you need to do it right.” — because I’ve heard that many times in my life. While there is certainly a time and place for that mindset, most of the time, it simply becomes a hindrance or excuse not to follow through. Let the perfection go and move. Practice is what gets us closer to “doing it right” anyways.

Overload

You need to be extremely mindful of how much is on your plate. If you’re working towards many goals at once, your attention will be split. You will have surface level knowledge of many things and be an expert in none if you cannot focus. Experts recommend time and time again to focus on ONE thing at a time. Don’t try to learn or achieve many new things at once. Focus on one at a time. If you want to learn more about why this is so impactful, I highly recommend reading The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results.

Comparison

Most often, comparison will either steal your joy or feed a prideful spirit — neither of which are desirable. When you are working towards a specific goal, the only person you should be comparing yourself to is yourself. Everyone has different strengths and circumstances, which makes comparison an unreliable metric to reference. Focus on your own personal progress.

Lack of Patience

Galatians 6:9 is a verse that I recall frequently. If we know what we are doing is good, stay on that path. Often we want something when we want. Even patience. You’ll often hear the funny saying, “I want patience and I want it now!” But that’s not how patience works, unfortunately. Also, if you haven’t heard of the “Ice Cube Analogy” that James Clear talks about in his book Atomic Habits, it’s an amazing way to visualize Galatians 6:9.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Galatians 6:9 (NIV)

P.S. On a semi-related note, I enjoyed this podcast episode from Sally Clarkson about patience and wanted to share that with you in case it’s area you’re wanting to improve upon.

Intentionally plan out your goals to avoid some of these pitfalls. You can download this free template below and get started today.

2. Identify Good, Better, and Best to Overcome Obstacles

When you are working towards a goal, you often know what steps to take, but to remain consistent (Galatians 6:9), is not always easy. Another way to overcome obstacles that you experience as a stay-at-home mom is to identify “good”, “better” and “best” for the actions you are taking to reach your goals.

Let me give you an example. Let’s say that one of your goals is to get healthier and you are really focused on movement as you work towards this goal. It is not wise to simply say “I have to workout 5 days a week for 45 minutes each.” Why? Because there will be a day where you can’t meet that 45 minute rule. That’s life. But, when we can’t meet our goals, we begin to get discouraged and often quit.

Instead, at the start of a new goal, take the time to write out your good, better, and best actions that align with achieving your goal. Let’s continue with our example of getting healthier:

• Best: I will workout for 45 minutes.
• Better: I will move my body for at least 30 minutes.
• Good: I will go for a 15-minute walk around the neighborhood with the kids.

This goes back to the point about perfection that we talked about earlier. We need to prioritize progress over perfection. Knowing at the start of a new goal that you have baselines in place that help you keep the momentum going will better allow you to keep going. If you skip a day, simply because you can’t achieve that 45-minute ideal, you’re not doing yourself any favors. One of the keys to overcoming obstacles is to keep going and this practice allows you to do just that. Do the next right thing!

Don’t forget to pin these tips for later! ↓

3. The One-Day Rule

The One-Day rule is also rooted in consistency. The idea is to never miss more than one day while working towards your goal. Seasons of life can change and become more challenging, but if we want to achieve our goals, we have to keep working towards them. Rest is also important so we don’t burn out, but how can we balance the two?

If you’re going through a tough season or just having a bad day, taking one day to rest and reset is a smart move. However, what you don’t want to happen is for one day to turn into one week. If it’s a rough week, try taking one day off and then the subsequent days applying your “Good, Better, Best” rules to get your momentum moving again, even if you have to start with the “good.” Never take two days off in a row.

4. Plan Your Week Based on Rhythms Not Rigid Schedules

Moms and children alike thrive when there is consistency. However, consistency does not require perfection or rigid minute-by-minute schedules. I talk about how to create a SAHM daily schedule in this post, but the secret is that the “best schedule of a stay at home mom” is not actually a “schedule.” It’s a rhythm that we follow each day created by anchors in our day.

A working rhythm will provide you with consistency and predictability. It allows you to create blocks that have specific purposes. If you need help mapping out a daily rhythm for you and your family, I have a free toolkit that you can download. It walks you through everything and includes planning sheets, a planning checklist, and a real-life example of how I set up my weeks.

5. Accountability Is Critical

Accountability is critical to overcoming obstacles in achieving goals. We’ve already talked about how hard consistency is, which is why adding an additional measure outside of yourself is so impactful. Hebrews 10:24-25 reinforces this idea.

²⁴ And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, ²⁵ not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Hebrews 10:24-25 (NIV)

Not only is this a biblical principle, but it’s backed by research. A study found that when people wrote down their goals and sent their action items and weekly progress report to a friend (accountability partner) that they met their goals significantly more than the other groups. The key is to ensure you tell them exactly what you need to be doing so that they can effectively keep you accountable. If you simply tell them that you’re “trying to be healthier,” it’s not enough. You need to be explicit on the steps you’re taking that week. They are holding you accountable to the process not the goal.

6. Embrace Simple Systems to Overcome Obstacles

I wrote an entire post about simplifying your life so you can reach your goals, but it’s so important that I wanted to make sure I mention it in this post as well. When we simplify things and get them on autopilot, it relieves so much of our mental load.

Simple tasks such a taking a couple minutes to declutter a small area or create a weekly meal plan make a major impact. Sometimes we like to over-complicate simple things such as decluttering or meal planning, but the truth is that things are often as simple or complicated as you make them.

(P.S. If you struggle with meal planning, I do offer a free meal planner that teaches you how to meal plan in a very simple way. You can snag this down below. ↓ )

7. Remember Who You’re Serving and Who Encourages You

As Christians, if we’re living by the ultimate guide to love God and others as ourselves and our goals are rooted in glorifying God and serving others well, we have excellent reason to continue on. In everything, if we point back to our purpose, it can help us continue moving forward. These are a few of my favorite Bible verses that encourage me to continue working towards my goals.

• ⁹ Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:9, NIV)
• ⁵ Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, ⁶ in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6, NIV)
• ³ Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans. (Proverbs 16:3, NIV)
• ⁷ But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded. (2 Chronicles 15:7, NIV)
• ⁷ “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. (Jeremiah 17:7, NIV)

8. Implement a Retrospective

This is something I’m pulling out of my former Program Manager toolbox. In my career as a Program Manager, I was in charge of leading teams towards specific milestones. I’ll save you all the PM and tech world jargon, but one of the things we did frequently was conduct a retrospective as we hit certain milestones.

Retrospectives aren’t just for the Project Management realm. If done correctly, they catapult you closer to achieving your goals. At a high-level, a good retrospective covers the following:

1. What has gone well?
2. Where can I improve?
3. What do I need to change moving forward and how?

However, if you ask some people in the corporate world, they’ll tell you a retrospective (a.k.a. retro) is a waste of time. This is because people don’t actually follow through on any of the changes, which absolutely will make this exercise almost pointless. When you conduct a retro with yourself, be sure to identify at 1-2 things you will improve moving forward and then actually do them!

Words of Encouragement

Mama, I know overcoming obstacles when you have littles at home with you all day is TOUGH. There is no doubt. However, I hope these eight exercises provided you with practical encouragement to keep going. Remember, progress over perfection.

Don’t forget that if you need help creating rhythms that work for your season, download the free SAHM Schedule Toolkit and begin taking intentional steps today.