Why Most Goal-Setting Advice Doesn’t Work for Moms

I think we need to have a little chat about goal setting.

Because if you’re a mum with dreams of your own, you’ve probably been given plenty of advice about how to achieve them.

• Set a big goal.

• Break it into smaller goals.

• Create a plan.

• Schedule your priorities.

• Wake up early.

• Stay disciplined.

• Be consistent.

• Don’t make excuses.

And, of course, my personal favourite:

“Make your goals a priority.”

This is all lovely enough advice, except there’s one tiny problem.

Most traditional goal-setting advice assumes you have a relatively predictable life.

Because here’s what life for a mum looks like on any typical day.

• Your child gets sick.

• Someone needs a lift.

• The school calls.

• The washing machine breaks.

• Your partner needs you.

• Dinner needs making.

• Someone has forgotten something they absolutely, positively need tomorrow morning.

• A toddler wakes up.

• A teenager has a crisis at 9:47pm.

• A family member needs support.

And when you’re that exhausted, a colour-coded goal plan you created on Sunday night starts to look a little ridiculous.

And it’s not because you’re lazy (you work so hard!), or don’t really want the thing (you do!).

But because the goal-setting advice you were given wasn’t designed for the family life you’re actually living.

Except way too many moms conclude that they’re the problem when really, the goal-setting framework that they’re trying to follow that is the problem.

Goal setting experts tell you that if something matters, make it a priority.

On the surface it seems like pretty sensible advice.

But what does that actually mean when you’re a mum?

You can’t simply decide that writing your book is now more important than your child needing you.

You can’t always put your business ahead of the family.

You can’t necessarily protect your workout when the morning has descended into chaos.

And you probably don’t want to. I mean, I have personally found this to be true as a mum who runs her own online business.

Let’s just acknowledge the fact that we usually want both.

You want to be a present mum AND build something meaningful.

You want to care for your family AND have dreams of your own.

You want to make money AND have time to enjoy your life.

You want to exercise AND sometimes sit on the couch with a cup of tea.

You want to achieve things without feeling as though every spare minute has to be monetised, optimised or turned into “productive time.”

That’s the part most traditional goal-setting advice misses.

The goal isn’t simply to fit your dreams into your life.

It’s to create a way of pursuing them that actually works within the life you have.

One of the biggest mistakes moms make when setting goals is looking only at time.

“How many hours do I need?”

But time is only one resource.

• You also have energy (another resource we can tap into).

• Attention.

• Mental bandwidth.

• Emotional capacity.

• And control over your schedule.

And these things matter maybe even more than the amount of time we have up our sleeve.

Because you might technically have two free hours on a Monday afternoon.

But if you’ve been up three times during the night, spent the morning dealing with family logistics and have been mentally juggling 27 things since you woke up, those two hours are not equivalent to two peaceful hours belonging to someone with no one depending on them.

Ask me how I know? Yep, from personal experience. The moment my sleep started to be disrupted due to perimenopausal symptoms, it completely changed how I showed up during the day.

Sometimes what we need is better ways to manage our precious energy, set better expectations and clearer boundaries.

And, perhaps most importantly, a more compassionate way to work towards our goals.

Here’s another piece of advice I’d happily love to throw out the window:

“Create a consistent routine and stick to it.”

Of course, consistency is important.

But consistency does not have to mean doing the exact same thing every Wednesday at 10am forever. That would be impossible for me. As a carer of my son who is a full-time wheelchair user, my weeks never look exactly the same.

Some weeks are spacious, others are chaotic.

Some are filled with appointments, other involve holidays or kids off school due to breaks.

Some involve sick children or caring for ageing parents.

Some involve work deadlines and others are simply hard due to a myriad of different reason.

So instead of asking:

“What can I realistically do every single week?”

Try asking:

“What can I realistically do in this season of my life?”

That is a much more useful question for moms to try and answer.

Maybe this month is a big month for your business and you can devote more time to it.

Maybe next month your family needs more of you and your business goal needs to move into maintenance mode.

This is simply you working with your real life and your real energy levels.

And you’re allowed to have seasons where you push forward and seasons where you simply keep things moving.

This is one of my favourite ways to think about goals.

Most people decide what they would ideally like to accomplish.

“I’m going to exercise five days a week.”

“I’m going to write 2,000 words every day.”

“I’m going to work on my business for two hours every morning.”

Wonderful. Go ahead and do that if you can.

But what happens when life gets messy?

If your goal only has an “ideal” version, you have two choices:

Do everything or do nothing and this all-or-nothing thinking is where a lot of goals fall apart.

Instead, I suggest you create a minimum version.

• Five workouts becomes one.

• 2,000 words becomes 200.

• Two hours of business becomes 20 minutes.

• An hour of reading becomes ten pages.

The bare minimum isn’t the goal but it’s the floor. And having a “minimal viable” floor means that when you’re having a difficult week it doesn’t translate to you totally giving up on your goals.

You can still move forward because tiny progress still counts.

I think this is the ultimate test of a good goal.

When you ask yourself these questions:

• Can my goal still survive and stay alive during a tough week?

• Can it survive a sick child?

• Can it survive a bad night’s sleep?

• Can it survive a school holiday?

• Can it survive you being human?

If the answer is yes, that’s a good goal.

If the answer is no, because your goal requires perfect conditions to exist, then you are setting yourself up to fail ahead of time.

There’s nothing wrong with having big dreams. I am a huge believer in big dreams. But your strategy also needs to be grounded in reality.

Which is why you should continue to dream big but also plan realistically and adjust constantly.

Gosh I can’t imagine trying to live my life well without allowing room for flexiblity. Some people seem to think that if you change your plan, you must not be serious about your goal.

But I vehemently disagree.

Sometimes changing the plan is exactly what commitment looks like.

Imagine you’ve decided you’re going to write a book and your original plan is to write for an hour every morning.

Then your family circumstances change.

You can either decide:

“Well, I can’t follow my plan, so I guess I can’t write the book.”

Or you can say:

“Okay. The goal hasn’t changed. The strategy needs to.”

Maybe you write three times a week instead or in 20-minute pockets.

Maybe you dictate ideas into your phone while driving.

Maybe you write more during the school holidays and less during busy periods.

In this instance you still get to keep your same goal but the way you achieve it has been adapted to suit your very real life.

Can you see that this is NOT giving up but simply genius problem solving?

Here’s another piece of goal-setting advice moms should all ignore:

That if you’re serious about your life, you need to achieve it quickly.

Why is everyone so obsessed with this idea that sooner is better and that we need to somehow collapse timelines etc?

There’s nothing inherently wrong with ambitious timelines.

But motherhood has taught many women that life doesn’t always move in straight lines.

Sometimes it feels more like we’re taking two steps forward and one step back, over and over again.

And there’s nothing wrong with that!

You don’t have to achieve XYZ in 30 days or 90 days (unless you’re doing it due to true desire, not pressure)

You are allowed to take as long as you want to build something.

You are allowed to be a beginner for a while and you’re allowed to move slowly.

Because guess what? Slow progress is still progress.

I personally have never wanted to set or pursue a goal that requires me to become 100% unavailable to everyone around me.

Of course, sometimes you genuinely do need protected time.

You may need to say no or ask for help.

You may need your partner to take over bedtime.

You may need to stop volunteering for every school activity and close the laptop at a certain time.

And none of those things are selfish. They all fall under the category of necessary boundaries.

That isn’t the richer life most women actually want.

The goal is not: “How can I squeeze my dreams into the tiny gaps left after everyone else has been taken care of?”

A better question is:

“How can we create a life where the things that matter to all of us have room?”

I’m all for delegating and shared responsibility. Lowering some expectations and paying for help when you can.

But most importantly we need to see where we can put some things down because often the biggest obstacle to our goals isn’t a lack of discipline but the fact that we’re carrying too much.

I’d start with five questions.

1. What do I actually want? What matters most to me?

2. What season am I currently in? Do I have the capacity for growth, or is this a season where maintaining what I’ve built is enough?

3. What is my bare minimum? The smallest meaningful action I can take even when life gets messy?

4. What can I remove, delegate or renegotiate from my life? Because you may simply need to do less of the unessential stuff to create more energy and time for yourself.

5. And finally: Can I pursue this goal in a way that feels energising and satisfying rather than like another obligation I’m failing to keep up with?

Remember: the goal of your goals is to create a richer life for yourself. They aren’t supposed to become another source of pressure, guilt and evidence that you’re never doing enough.

So many women think that motherhood means putting their dreams on hold. But I’m here to tell you that you are allowed to want more.

You can have enormous dreams. Build a business. Write the book. Change careers. Get fit. Make money. Travel. Create. Learn. Start again. Do whatever you feel called to do really.

But you don’t have to pursue those things using a goal-setting framework designed for someone whose only responsibility is to themselves.

As a mum, your life is unique and therefore your goals needs to be adapted to suit your own lifestyle. My own rule has been the same for over twenty years: stretch yourself, but not so far that you break.

So the question moms need to ponder on is this:

“How can I design my goals so they work with the life I actually want to live?”

Because I don’t want you to reach the end of the year and have a completed goal list and a life you barely had time to enjoy.

I want you to make progress AND be there for the people you love.

I want you to chase the dream AND enjoy the ordinary days.

I want you to build something meaningful without constantly feeling as though you’re failing everyone else.

And I want you to remember that your life isn’t an inconvenient obstacle standing between you and your goals.

So let’s stop trying to squeeze motherhood around our goals.

Let’s build goals that fit inside a rich, complicated, beautiful life.

Your goals might take longer to reach. But that’s okay. Better to build your goals into a life you actually love than to burn your life down trying to achieve them.

Much love,

Frances xxx

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After graduating with a degree in psychology and launching my life coaching business back in 2001, I’ve spent the last two decades helping women think better, achieve their dreamy goals and actually savour their one precious life.

In 2018 I launched InspiringMomLife.com, which has since welcomed over 10 million readers.

I’m also the author of 25+ books and creator of 100+ digital courses designed to help women achieve meaningful goals without sacrificing their soul or sanity in the process.

You can explore them all inside Inspiring Life Academy.

These days I live in Sydney, Australia with my husband, kids, dogs, and a never-ending stack of books within reach.

My hope for this space is simple. It’s to help you:

Wake up, do what matters and savour it all.