How Being A Parent Can Help You Find Inspiration

Sometimes it can be quite difficult to keep up with everything life throws at you, especially in this day and age!

Everything just piles up Quality time and before you know it, any motivation you might have had is completely smothered.

Believe me when I say that, nowadays, this is completely normal considering that being a working mom is the norm.

I am almost certain that there’s no individual out there that doesn’t feel overwhelmed by all of the responsibilities of a father or mother at some stage of parenthood.

Most of us identify with the sensation that we’re slowly caving under the mounting pressure.

Whether it’s work, family obligations, or just the news, our entire modern lifestyle is stressful and can drain all the fun and excitement out of anything that we’re doing. Be it work or a personal hobby, the joy and motivation just disappear into a puff of smoke.

The question is: How do you get it back?

The best way of finding inspiration, when your current one dies out, is to look for a new source. While your new source of inspiration feeds you, your old one will hopefully have the chance to renew itself.

And maybe, just maybe, if you’re lucky, the new one will last longer!

Well, at least the one I’m talking about today is likely to.

The wellspring of inspiration I’m referring to, or rather, the wellsprings, are your kids.

Yes, they can be the source of your stress as well, but that’s minuscule in comparison to just how much inspiration, motivation, and pure joy they can bring.

And it’s all contained in the childlike innocence that they exhibit – that special spark of boundless energy they share for anything that interests them, no matter how boring, simple, or outright tedious it might seem.

But, realistically, how is this meant to help you? Well, that’s what I’m here to share with you today, and the answer is really simple, learn from them.

Learning From Your Kids

Yeah, you heard right, learning from them is the solution. There are plenty of ways to do this, all you have to do is observe for a little while. If you do, you should notice that their perspective is very different from that of most adults. Try to adopt their way of viewing the world and the tasks that are currently bringing you down.

1. Do it for them

One of the most obvious takeaways you can get from this lesson is to use your kids as direct motivation.

Do you like seeing them smile?

Do you like being able to provide for them?

Would you do anything to keep them happy and ensure they don’t have to experience the weight of hard times, at least not in their youth?

Then there’s your answer. It’s up to you to provide this for them, to ensure that, at any given point, you can say you’ve given your all to provide a stable life for your little ones. It doesn’t have to be luxurious, but it has to be enough for you to be able to say that you’re doing your best.

Don’t see it as a chore though, treat it as a goal to work towards, one that you’ll be content with once you reach it. If it becomes an obligation, then you’re just going to be creating more problems for yourself.

They are, after all, meant to be a blessing, not a curse.

While this best serves to give you a fresh new outlook on your job and your duty as a parent, it can also, to a lesser extent, be utilized for your own hobbies. As long as you can channel your love for your children into it and create something that represents that.

2. Revel in the Simplicity

Sometimes the problem is really just burnout. We give 110% for so long, that we end up burning brightly like a match and then fizzling out and turning into a hunched over twig. We complicate things by never being satisfied.

When this happens, it’s time to look at how your kids do it. More often than not, they’re content repeating the same things they did yesterday and still find joy in it.

Why? Because they view tasks and life from a simpler perspective. They savor their experiences by lingering on certain steps, taking a breather in a sense, and enjoying it fully before moving onto the next one.

This way you don’t have to function with the desire to better yourself at every waking moment. Although this notion is a great motivator, it will burn you out rather quickly if you expect to be making strides every single day.

This is particularly relevant for hobbies.

While it’s always fun to explore new aspects of an activity, sometimes it might do you better to take a step back and revisit something you’ve already tried before. Check to see how well you’ve progressed since the simplest of steps.

You may also find a new level of enjoyment from something that you now consider to be trivial.

As someone who writes stories as a hobby, I started steering away from children’s stories as I deemed them too easy after learning more and more about creative writing.

But, after I hit a wall in my progress that I couldn’t seem to get over no matter how hard I tried, I ended up getting unnecessarily frustrated. I believed that I needed to overcome the block at the same pace that I had done so in the past.

It wasn’t until I took some time to sit down and take a breather while playing with my kids that I noticed just how much they enjoyed playing pattycake and other similar games that we had played when they were little. It was at this point that I realized I should do the same.

I returned to my roots for a bit which ended up refreshing my love and joy for the hobby. The mounting frustration was dispersed and replaced by a feeling of contentment and general happiness.

3. Include Your Kids in Your Activities

My final parenting tip on this topic is to clue your kids into whatever you’re doing, let them be part of your world as much as you’re a part of theirs.

Show them what you, as a parent, are up to every day – let them see what a day in the life of a parent is like, spend some more quality time with them.

At first, the benefits of this may not seem clear, but you’ll find that your kids will, more often than not, be curious about it and start asking questions.

In teaching the new generation about things they previously didn’t know about, the spark is likely to be rekindled.

Showing your kids the ropes around what you do for a living or your favorite hobby can really help breathe life back into those activities as you take on the role of a mentor and potentially find a kindred spirit in something only you enjoyed previously.

That was the case for me at the start. In my family, I was the only one who delighted in board games, but it got boring fast as I couldn’t really play alone. Eventually, I decided to introduce my kids to some of the simpler ones and they loved it!

They began to ask questions about how certain game mechanics worked and took a genuine interest in what I loved doing which rekindled my passion because I could now share my hobby with my kids.

Sure it was only some of the simpler ones at first, but that has since evolved into some more complex board games that require a bit more thought and I couldn’t be happier for it.

The same can be applied to any other hobby, and believe me when I say that you’ll be over the moon if you can get your children to share in a mutual passion.

It’ll extend its lifespan not only because you’ll have someone to enjoy it with, but you might find new things about your hobby that you previously wouldn’t have on your own.

The Takeaway

Life can sometimes knock us down a few pegs with how negative things can get in the world today.

But, our kids remain a shining beacon of hope and they can be our ever-present anchor for inspiration as long as we allow them to be.

Do remember that they’re growing up fast and that, before you know it, they’ll be full-grown adults and you might miss out on it if you don’t see them as the source of positivity that they are.

Bring them into as many of your everyday activities as you can and you’ll see just how bright and amazing life becomes because of that!


Author’s bio: Ivana Davies is a teacher turned stay-at-home mom and blogger. When she’s not busy with her son and daughter, she creates content for her blog Find Your Mom Tribe, a community for both new and experienced moms to come together and learn more about helpful parenting hacks, pregnancy and postpartum health, as well as the best baby products.