[00:00:00] You are listening to episode 239 of the Peaceful Mind Podcast.
Welcome to the Peaceful Mind Podcast, a place for creating the peace of mind you need to be the best mom you were created by God to be. If you want to bring more balance, more joy, and more peace to your motherhood, This is the place for you. I'm your host, certified life coach at Catholic Mom, Danielle Thienel.
In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, let's get started.
Hello wonderful moms and welcome back to another episode. Today, we're going to be doing a bookend episode to one I did a few weeks back about our morning routines. Now we're going to concentrate and focus on evening routines. So if you didn't listen to that first one about morning routines, I totally urge you to go back and do that.
And not only are we going to talk about evening routines, we're going to talk about how to create a more stress free evening routine [00:01:00] because that is what I am hearing right now about what's going on in the lives of my clients. And so that what's always kind of sparks to address something here on the podcast.
So when we're talking about going after a more stress free evening routine, that is whether it's the rush of dinner, it's the chaos of bedtime or simply winding down from a busy day. The evening can often feel like it, like it's like the sprint to the finish line of the day. It doesn't have to be that way.
And today we're going to break down this challenge that many of us have into three manageable parts. I want you to identify what stresses you out about your evening. We're going to talk about making a plan to tackle those exact stressors, and then we're going to try out and put into practice [00:02:00] some of the solutions we came up to, to see what really works.
And I would say most importantly, I want to, in talking about each of these three parts steps, to take to have a more stress free evening routine, I'm also going to offer some strategies that will combat the, the obstacles that your brain is going to offer when it hears me give you the steps to having a stress free evening routine.
So let's dive in. First up is to identify the stressful parts. If we realize that our evening isn't going like we want to, we want to call out a name and get more awareness around what those parts exactly are. Because I'm guessing that there are some parts to it that you are doing well and that aren't very stressful and are more automatic or routine or that the kids follow well.
And what happens [00:03:00] is our brains don't look at those because all it does is lump in when some things aren't going wrong, right? It lumps in that everything's going wrong. So first we identify. And this is all about understanding what parts of your evening right now are making you feel the most overwhelmed.
Is it when you're trying to cook dinner and the kids are running wild? Maybe it's the mountain of dishes that seem to magically pile up, or perhaps it's just the thought of getting everyone to bed on time can be a daunting thought, right? Well, here's what you can do, where you can start. I would like to urge you to take a week and jot down notes about your evening.
You don't need a detailed journal, just quick bullet points about what's happening when you feel stressed. You might start noticing patterns. And maybe it's every time you have to figure out a meal on the fly or when you leave lunch boxes until the morning [00:04:00] to clean out and to repack. Now as I'm, as I'm bringing you this this action item to do, I'm reminded that it's the same kind of thing when I help clients with their time, I have a resource that is called a time tracker.
That is templates that are already made up for you to be able to make it a little bit easier for you to identify where you are not using your time as wisely or where you might be, quote, wasting time and what activities those are and what distractions come up for you. So I will try and remember to link that in the show notes if you're interested in getting ahold of those time trackers,
I'm kind of asking you to, in order to have a stress free evening, that that might serve you to make note in some form or fashion, whether it's these templates or whether it's just, you know, a little pad of paper and pen to be able to find out and [00:05:00] identify and write down.
And name what it is that is causing your stress in the evening. So I want you to notice what those patterns are. I have I'm just thinking of a client right now who I know what she discovered is she found that her stress peak was right after dinner.
What she realized after making note of this for a while and we honing in on first finding out what was so stressful about her evenings, she realized she was spending a lot of time cleaning up after the meals and she still had to get the kids ready for bed right after that. And for her, it was just too much to handle all at once in that time period. Or she hadn't like really problem solved on that particular part of the evening on how to make the cleaning up process less taxing on her.
And then what happened is during that time, there was a lot of kind of mental chatter [00:06:00] going on that would really bring her to a place of resentment or rushing, or it gave her time when she was like cleaning up to think about and dread the upcoming putting like to bed and thinking about what the kids would probably do to make it more stressful.
And so just in that notice where her mind was focusing on made her more stressed. So it was really, really helpful in this case to be able to stop, do the tracker for a few days to a week and really get super clear on what her starting point was of that stress. So that's the first kind of help I'm offering you today to have more stress free evening routine is to take the time to stop and identify what the actual stressful parts are.
And then next we want to move on to making a plan. So once you've identified your stress points. Now, it's time to strategize for each [00:07:00] stressor. We want to come up with something that feels doable, feels like you're capable, feels realistic and simple strategy that will ease the pressures that you have.
Now, notice how I'm not saying like stop and eliminate any pressures or hard moments of an evening routine because there is going to always be some that we're dealing with, or as kids get older or as stages of motherhood change, they are going to morph whatever our evening routine is. And so we want to take a look at what could ease the pressure in the evening for us.
So if mealtime is a total hassle, could you perhaps try meal prepping on Sundays or if bedtime feels chaotic, what would create a bedtime routine? Would creating like a chart that your kids can follow that have visuals, would that be something? These are just two quick ideas that came from the top of my head, but if you give it [00:08:00] a moment, if you actually focus and ask your brain, what are some strategies I could do for these stress points that I've identified?
At first it may say nothing, but I promise you if you keep asking, and what else could I try or what else would I want to be a part of my plan? What else do I think might be good to change up? And so you really want to use your mind in a way that's going to help you. And as I explain the way that the brain works and holds us back in my coaching program, it shows you that when you are deliberately and intentionally making plans and deciding touch points of that plan, you are working in what we call your higher brain. This is the prefrontal cortex.
So many good things come from for our life when we operate from this part of our brain. So we for sure want to take the time to make a plan [00:09:00] to strategize once we've identified these stress points. So Right. Simple. I'm going to even, though I'm going to go to into it a little bit deeper when we talk about strategizing for the obstacles that your brain might be offering you.
I just want to bring up that the goal here is not for our evening, like isn't perfection for like the perfect evening routine that we uphold every night and the kids follow all night, all the time. And we repeat it week after week. No, we are looking for improvement in our lives. We are looking for being a little bit more satisfied with how things are going for ourselves in certain areas than, than we did last week.
So for one of my clients who has two toddlers, what she started doing is she started using a visual bedtime routine chart and for her changed everything. And what I mean by this is she first was giving her evening routine different sections and she found visuals. I can't remember if it was like from [00:10:00] Pinterest or, I mean, do we all have lots of magazines sitting around our house anymore?
I'm not sure. Maybe we do. I know my mom gets some and then she gives them to me. So I do have at least one basket I know of some kind of magazine sitting around, but anyways, I digress here getting back to this particular client. It was super helpful for the kids to know what was expected, right?
And she found that when she had this kind of visual, it was so good for her mind to have that picture, right? It showed like all the kids. I think one of the pictures was by the sink and they were a couple kids up there on the stool and they were surrounded and they were brushing your teeth. And the mom was actually in there with a big smile on her face.
And it's this is what my client like was hoping for in her evening routine. And what she told me that came from this is that she didn't have to nag as much. And I just want to underscore that part. As much. [00:11:00] Yeah. Is there going to be some nagging in the evening routine? Probably. Would you feel less stressed if you didn't have to nag as much?
I think so. Okay. So think about those small changes that could make a big impact, right? Remember it's setting the table for dinner in the morning, maybe when you have more energy or it's assigning each child a small task to help with the evening chores, these little small changes could really help lower your stress levels.
And the last part that I want to bring to your attention, once we have identified these stressors, once you have made a plan, then the next step is to put it into action. Try it out. We need to have action before we can get results and we want to be evaluating our results to see where things didn't go well, where things did go well, or what we want to then change up and try differently going forward.
So you've identified the stress points, you've made the plan. Now give it a shot. Implement the strategies for, I would say for at least two [00:12:00] weeks. It does take time to see if change is truly working and because we're not after perfection, we're going to have some kind of bumps in the road.
And I don't want your mind to be like, Oh yep, that didn't work. And we've only put like three days effort into it. So I feel like two weeks could give us enough time to be able to see and go through some of those bump nights or things that we weren't expecting that came up. And at the end of this trial, we want to evaluate what's helping and what's not. You might find that some things work better than you expected, or you might, what you thought would work, maybe didn't, or you want to tweak it a little bit.
So I know I mentioned meal prep. I'm trying to think of a client who prepped her meals on Sunday. So, that was, she identified the stressor, which was meal plans and then she made a plan to do that meal prepping on Sunday, but when she went into the third part where you try it out and evaluate, she found out after putting into action, it was [00:13:00] too exhausting for her.
Like, Sunday evenings wasn't the time for her to be putting all of her effort, so she switched it up a little bit. She just prepped the ingredients instead. Instead of making the whole thing, it was literally about having like certain things chopped or separated. So this still saved her time during her week and it for sure helped into having things feel less overwhelming for her.
And when we're in this, try it out, evaluate stage of having a less stressful evening routine. You cannot forget to do one of my favorite tools in the mom toolbox, and that is to celebrate your wins. No matter how small. Maybe you had one evening out of all week where everything went smoothly. I want you to acknowledge that success with your family.
Everyone, you are doing such amazing things [00:14:00] to care for these humans. You're not celebrating them enough. That's already something that I know you're doing a wonderful job and amazing and a lot of us the best we can with what we know. And so as you're going through this process, I would really want to underscore you celebrating your wins more than maybe you are already.
Okay, so the next part of this episode is I want to actually just reiterate a little bit. If anything you've heard me say, your brain had a little bit of an argument to, or it said, well, that might work for others that it won't work for me or this one like, Oh, I tried that before and it didn't work. I, I just want to speak a little bit to that.
So when we're talking about the step one that I suggest, which is to identify the stressful parts. And I even suggested using the time tracker templates that I have access to. [00:15:00] Well, your mind might have really resisted taking any time to reflect. You might feel overwhelmed or reluctant to closely examine your routine.
I know my brain used to say that I used to say, Oh, it'll work itself out. Or I just, I don't have the time to stop and look at my routines. I actually just want to go ahead and hurry up and do my routine thinking that if I when I got to the end, I would feel better, right?
Maybe you're fearing that you'll realize once you have this information that it's really a little bit more. The extent of your chaos is more than you even thought it would be. Or you're fearing that you're going to be self critical, which feels terrible once you reveal your shortcomings. Instead, I want to offer you this coaching tool called Compassionate Inquiry.
This is what we're after when we get finished with our few days [00:16:00] or weeks of evaluating where are stressors and identifying. I want to encourage you to have nonjudgmental approach to it. You're not alone in this. Other moms, they are having stressful evenings too, and so I encourage you to be nonjudgmental about yourself and just come from curiosity that you're going to learn something. It's going to be self reflective and be compassionate with yourself.
Use questions like, what do you feel when the evening chaos begins? And what do you want to feel? Or what's one small thing that could have made tonight easier? This will promote more understanding without overwhelming, giving any guilt or shame over what's happening. Remember, in order to make the change that you want, we have to first gain an awareness.
That's what this first step does. Gaining an [00:17:00] awareness is not for us to then use it against ourselves, beat ourselves up, be judgmental. No, we want to be compassionate that I'm a human being and I just wasn't seeing it and I was just kind of plowing forward through the evening. And so it's a good thing to be able to discover where your challenge is because then we can actually put some focus to change it.
Okay. The second part of having a stress free evening routine was to make a plan and this is where I spoke to it for just a little bit earlier, but I wanted to just reiterate that when you're making plans it may, if you tend to be a perfectionist, you want to be careful that this might hold you back.
Those moms who are listening, who feel that if they can't implement the perfect plan, then it's not worth trying at all. Or you think I've made this plan and that plan is actually trying to overhaul everything. [00:18:00] Everything at once, right? Like I'm just gonna found, I found and identified what my stressors are and now I'm going to change everything and I'm going to change it all tonight.
Well, what I know is this will lead to burnout over time. Can you find one stressor and try one thing out and then evaluate that and then if that's working well after a while, then you add another one. I just want you to be careful about perfectionism and overwhelming yourself with your new plan. It'll kind of X out here.
We are trying to have less stress, but now we're adding overwhelm. So don't forget small, manageable steps. Focus on one change at a time, celebrate those successes along the way. Build up your confidence that, Hey, I can do this, or maybe this, this is working. Build that momentum. Okay.
And then the last kind of where I want to hit on your mindset in case you had a mindset obstacle of actually putting your plan into action and evaluating, I want to address that you might have [00:19:00] this fear of failure and discouragement.
So this will even keep you from carrying out the plan. Doing the evaluation process. So let's say you've implemented some new routines, right? What you might encounter is some setbacks. Maybe you make less progress than expected and this leads you to discouragement or Abandoning it all together. Well, I want you to perhaps be a little bit more reflective and resilient in building this stress free evening routine.
So maybe that looks like having a little evening journal to know what went well and what didn't simply that's how you evaluate what went well tonight, what didn't go well. And this can help you learn from each day without feeling like a failure. I want resilience to be taught to you through, you know, where before you would have negative thoughts about failing.
And this time you can reframe it [00:20:00] to what I help my clients and want to help you see is that it's not failure. We either win or we learn. That's your new definition of failure. Reframe it to that. They're learning opportunities when anything doesn't go well. That's what it is. It doesn't mean anything about us as moms.
Right. These are the things that I just know that when I offer you a new kind of steps to take, I know some of you will listen and you will have brains that will like offer up why you can't do that. And so hopefully I've addressed a couple of those mindset obstacles here. All right, everyone. So that is what I wanted to offer you for your evening routine to be a little bit more stress free.
And if you combine that with the episodes, a few episodes back about your morning routine. I hope that one or all or both, right, that I've offered gives you some [00:21:00] pathway to having more peace of mind in your life. That is what I have for you this week. Thank you for being here and you know, definitely listen to the outro.
I have, would love if any of you are feeling a little bit of, you know, if you're feeling If you're not so calm, feeling a little out of control, not really confident in your life right now, then I want to help you get back into balance. And so I want to invite you to come to one of my free calls that I am calling a back in balance call.
This is where we take everything that you learn on this podcast and we put it into action to your specific life. And if you've ever been curious about coaching, now is the time to come. I'm really excited about some offerings that I have now. And I would love to see if you are a fit for me and my coaching offerings at this time.
So definitely check out the notes in the podcast so you can sign up for one of those free back to balance strategy calls. All [00:22:00] right, everyone have a beautiful week and may peace be with you always. Always.
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