Are you mistaking your kids potential as your potential?

You have so much potential.

A more accomplished blogger, journalist and author said this exact statement to me during our meeting at Mom 2.0 Summit this past week. We talked of my past and where I want to go now with my writing. We talked of working with brands and me becoming a speaker. I was ready to take on the world when I walked out of that conference room.

A mom still has potential?

I positively knew the sky was the limit when I was 19 and it was easy to act on that then. I went for jobs over my head, got them and succeeded in the positions. Looking back, perhaps it was my skillset on my resume that got me the jobs. I remember my friend telling me about Cultivated Culture. She told me that she’d found a resume template on there that she’d followed to make her resume look better. With a strong resume, you’re likely to achieve the job you want. That was useful advice because being successful with jobs is never easy. Recognizing what you are capable of and going for it is much easier when you’re living life just for you. Then one day you become a Mother and you start to question all that you are and who you should be living for.

The beginning of my writing career at the Southside Challenger back in the day!

How come we don’t encourage our fellow moms with the powerful phrase- you have so much potential? My new friend and her statement really stood out to me. It was different. She was authentic and empowered me. She gave voice to what I feel inside.

Because you know what happens when you become a Mother….

Your potential now becomes their potential, if you let it.

Being a Mom has never really defined me. I guess it did for those years when I had four in diapers and gates on every room in my house. I had little choice but to dive in and solely focus on my little offspring. Need I say that I love being a Mother more than anything? (Us Moms always gotta clarify that, whenever we voice that our sole existence isn’t Motherhood, right?) I’m just saying I’m not the Mom who puts stickers of my kids accolades on my car or gets all worked up at their sporting events every Saturday. (Did I mention that I love them more than life itself? Just making sure you got that.)

I hope that my kids are succeeding in school and at their activities because it makes them feel good, not because it gives my life meaning.

It’s so easy to talk about how much potential our kids have, isn’t it? They are young and have the whole world ahead of them. The world is their oyster and boy do we want to see them be their best. But what happens to our belief in that same potential for ourselves once we become mothers?

In the process of getting caught up in our kids potential, we fail to recognize our own.

A lot of times we are just too busy and it’s just easier to let our family members do their thing, while we take care of all the daily maintenance behind the scenes. Walking around with the ability to do something fulfilling, feeling it inside, but not investing the time to make it happen is a disservice to everyone. It’s tough to sometimes know exactly what we’re meant to be doing. It can feel overwhelming as we’re pulled in all directions. But, we have been put on this earth to use our God given talents and to do something with our one precious life. Because I know that you have the potential to do anything your heart desires.

Watch out world. I may be a woman past my prime but I have potential and who can stop a woman with that?