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Why should kids have all the fun? Come join the mamas of the Mother Like a Boss™ Playground Facebook group. Why a playground? Well, aside from the obvious link to motherhood and kids, I find playgrounds to be some of the most enjoyable places on earth. You can swing, climb, run, jump, dig, chase, balance and slide, just like all moms do everyday. You can make friends, bring the ones you have or do both. You can feel free and unjudged, because everyone around you is enjoying the same place at the same time.

If you're looking for a fun, supportive and encouraging group of mothers helping one another and asking great questions, come to the playground. Plus, you'll receive tons of homemakerish help from yours truly.

Oh, and unlike most other playgrounds, a little adult conversation isn't frowned upon.

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Let’s be Insta-friends. Follow me over on Instagram for encouraging mom posts and stories that don’t take themselves too seriously.

In the fall of 2012, when I was pregnant with my second baby, I had to scrounge for change throughout our house to take my then 5 year old daughter to a Halloween festival. She wanted to go, my family would be there and I felt like a complete and total loser because I had zero extra dollars to take her. . . I found an old change purse that has quarters and some dollar bills and it was enough for her to get some popcorn at the very least. . . This was one of the lowest points in my life. I felt like a failure, a loser, a degenerate. We hadn’t planned right. We had counted our business eggs before they hatched and now here we were with a kindergartner and a baby on the way, broke. Flat. Broke. . . If you had told me then that 7 years later, I’d be taking a trip to San Diego for the 6th time in 2 years, I would have done more than laugh in your face: I would have gotten angry with you. That was so far from where I was that I couldn’t have seen it with a telescope. But here I am, sister at my side, enjoying the bright sun while we work on my successful business in paradise. . . I don’t have a mansion. I don’t own a Lamborghini. I buy my clothes at Target. I’m not luxurious, but I am living FOR my dreams instead of living IN my nightmares. . . Stop pretending you don’t want things. Stop pretending you don’t want something better because it seems disrespectful to the life you have. This isn’t where I ever thought I would be back then, but I pulled myself out of the unhappiness and realized if I was going to be the best mom to my kids, I had to become the best Kendra for me. I’ve also been able to hire my sisters to work for me so they weren’t shackled to jobs they hated for pay that wasn’t worth it. THAT is my why. . . If you’re inside the struggle, I get it. I’ve lived it, but I’ve also made it out which means you can too. Because if a knocked-up college dropout with zero business experience can make her dreams come true, who can do whatever the hell you want. ❤️
Yesterday, I read a journal entry I had written July 7, 2016. It was short, but sweet. I had listed out my goals for the year and wrote my life in present tense. . . “I am so happy to have this amazing life filled with students I can help everyday. “It feels incredible to have so much free time in my schedule to spend with family.” “I love that I get to work from home full time.” among many other affirmations and goals. . . I sat there reading it and cried. Sobbed. Ugly crying. Makeup-ruining crying. Watching the end of Stranger Things season 3 crying. Because that life I wrote about then is the life I actually live now. . . And then some. . . I am a living embodiment of what true goal setting can accomplish. I am the embodiment of what ditching the beliefs that “hard work will get you where you want to be” can do for you. I am the embodiment of what embracing true abundance can do for you. I am living my dream life now because I believed my dream life was possible. . . Stop buying into the belief that your life has to be struggle, that motherhood has to be a struggle. It doesn’t. The struggles can be outweighed by the peace, the joy, the abundance, the ease. . . Stop letting other people tell you that you should have to suffer in your home when you have young children because that makes other moms feel more comfortable. . . How different would my life look now if 2016 Kendra had said, “Eh, no one even needs this crap anyway. I should stick to my cleaning business. This is stupid.” . . What life can YOU write into existence today? What start can YOU make? Let me know! . . I also want to tag some people whose podcasts and courses and books and Instagram accounts and Facebook lives and private coaching and all the things helped me get to where I am. None of us do this alone, mama. NONE of us. @allie_thatsme @jessicastansberry @jaclyn_mellone @erikatebbensconsulting @caitlinbacher @screwtheninetofive @jameswedmore @manifestationbabe @kimraluna @danamalstaff @flippedls @jensincero @melrobbinslive @girlconfident @denisedt
I wonder what my husband would say if I asked him how he practices self care everyday? . . I'm going to take a wild guess based on knowing him for 16 years and say he'd look at me sideways and say, "I don't even know what that means. I just take care of myself..." . . It's 2019 and we're still convincing moms that it's "ok" to take care of themselves first. Hell, the flight attendants on a plane have to say it multiple times and then walk around to the parents on the planes to remind them, because it's so ingrained in us to take care of others before ourselves. . . There has been a lot of talk about self-care lately and I'm glad. But, I'm also sad. I'm sad that we even have a phrase the describes one taking care of themselves. It should be a given, whether you have children or not. Somewhere, at some point, we decided that becoming a mom stripped you of your ability to be taken care of. . . Years ago, when Kate Gosselin joined Dancing with the Stars (a show I admittedly never watched, but I loved me some Jon and Kate Plus 8) there was outrage. "How could a mother of 8 just leave her children to do that!?" She was leaving to make money, to do something she enjoyed and because she's a mom, we tore her down. Meanwhile, not one single dad that was associated with the show was asked, "And who is taking care of your kids. Do you feel guilty?" Not. One. . . I'm happy to see so many articles now that describe what real self-care is, because it isn't baths and manicures. Those are ways to pamper yourself and pampering is an ELEMENT of self-care. I love me a good pedicure, but everyday, I care for myself by... - Saying no, even when I feel like a jerk doing it. - Setting boundaries with my time and energy, even with people I love. - Reading books that uplift my spirit and don't just make me a "better mom" - Making sleep and nutrition an important part of my life - Making my marriage a priority, even sometimes over my children (GASP!) - Speaking kindly about myself, to myself and to others, even if that means I am viewed as self-centered. . . Self-care shouldn't be an exception to the rule of motherhood. It should be THE rule. How are YOU following the rule today? 👇🏼
🎶 If there was a problem, yo, I’ll solve it...with my journal. . . That’s the Vanilla Kendra version of the song. Here I am, early in the morning, sitting outside in my casual attire (aka, pajamas) with a book and my journal. There isn’t a single problem I’ve found that I can’t solve by first heading to my journal. . . Journaling isn’t like writing in a diary when your 13. I don’t tell it my deepest, darkest secrets in autobiographical form. Journaling is more of a therapy. It’s a way to put my thoughts down on paper and listen to what my inner being and God have to say to me in response. . . Some days I free write. Some days I use prompts. Some days it’s a paragraph. Some days it’s 3 pages. Journaling, like most things in life, are only difficult because you make it difficult. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be amazing right out of the gate. It’s a practice and like any good practice, the confidence comes from consistency. . . The real reason I journal is because it’s something I do just for me. No one else is involved and it’s my time to be with myself. As a mom, a wife and a business owner, so much of myself ends up being divided up amongst others, but my journal doesn’t ask that of me. Time with my journal is time with me, and I’m a pretty cool chick to spend that 1-1 time with. . So, what are you doing today just for you? How you you treating you today? How are you making the time (not FINDING the time) for you? Lemme know and tag a friend that needs a message of encouragement. . . ✏️ p.s. I follow journal prompts from @girlconfident Faith Activated Journaling Experience. She’s incredible and worth following, friends. ❤️
My biggest failure was my greatest accomplishment. 🤷🏼‍♀️ . . When I was 22, I dropped out of college in my last semester. Soon after that, I found out I was pregnant. This was not the way I had "planned" my life to be or the way anyone else thought my life would go. . . I was the "smart" kid. I was the girl in "advanced" and college classes. I was the girl in National Honor Society. I was the girl who strived for straight As, even without thinking about what a grade meant. I even got a partial academic scholarship to attend college. Being smart was my identity. Doing well in school and following rules was who I was supposed to be. . . And before my last semester started, I had a meltdown and freaked out at the thought of having to finish college and go get a teaching job. I had no interest in it anymore. None. Zero and I panicked thinking that this was my life and I had no say in it. . . So I quit. I dropped out, without really knowing what I was going to do afterward. . . In the eyes of the world as a whole, I was a failure, because we view failure as mistake you can't come back from. That "failure" was the single greatest decision of my entire life. That failure brought me to where I am now. That failure showed me what true success could look like. . . I set a goal in high school to attend a great college, get a teaching degree, get a job around my home town and live happily ever after, proof that the goals we set aren't always about what we want, they are about what we think we're supposed to have. . . Are you living a life based on your goals, or a life based on the goals you thought you were supposed to set? What would it truly do for you to "fail" and finally create success for YOU? . . Your Best Mom Year Bootcamp is open for 2 more days. (Link in bio, mama) This is your chance to finally learn HOW to create your goals and live your life on your own terms, failures welcomed. You're just one failed goal away from a life that fulfills you more than any success ever could.
I’m just going to leave this here. . 🎤
😴 We were up at 5am on a Saturday to watch hot air balloons fly. . . No, that's not the start of a joke or an anecdote. That's real life. Our town holds a beautiful weekend-long hot air balloon festival each year at the fairgrounds, which just happen to be right behind my house and a 5 minute walk away. . . Unfortunately, the wind made it too dangerous for take off, but we got a beautiful sunrise and show of balloons anyway. . . So why am I telling you this? Because this is the life I wished into existence. No, I INTENDED it into existence. . . I didn't wake up at 5am on a Saturday to walk up a super steep hill with two kids (that always reminds me I need to do way more cardio) because I had to. I did it because I wanted to. I wanted to see the sunrise. I wanted to enjoy the peace of the morning with my kids and watch them watch the balloons. I wanted to have that memory, however small or meaningless to someone else. . . I set an intention to get up early and made it non-negotiable. I didn't grumble when the alarm went off or blame my chest cold for not getting up. It was important to me, so I did it. If you want to reach better goals, set better intentions. . . Because my goal in life isn't to wake up early on the weekends to watch balloons fly. My goal is to spend more time with my children. My goal it to have more experiences with them. My goal is to do something fun each weekend, even if it only last an hour. THOSE are goals. . . If you want to reach your goals, stop putting all your eggs in the "planning" basket and start making a list of what you intend to do to get you there. More importantly, who do you intend to BE to get you there. Today, I was the mom up before the sun even when my bed was the way cozier option. That's who I intended to be. . . Your Best Mom Year Bootcamp is open for enrollment and waiting for you. It will be the guide you need and accountability you deserve to let go of flimsy goals and weak intentions that leave you feeling unfulfilled. . . Who do you intend to be today?
"DO YOU EVEN SET GOALS, BRO?" . . There's this thing in the business world called "bro-marketing" (which has nothing to do with gender, by the way) but I'm seeing the same thing in the goal-setting community. I'm calling it bro-goals. . . You know you've seen it. "GO BIG OR GO HOME! 10X your results. Reach for the stars and don't stop until you get there. Wake up earlier. Stay up later. Do all the things. Be a beast! GET IT GIRL!" . . I'm exhausted just reading that. . . Listen, I am ALL for getting out of your comfort zone and building yourself up, but as a mom, I've got a gillion other things going on in the midst of trying to plan my life and my future. I don't need to be told that I'm a failure if I'm not up at 4am everyday crushing my goals before the sun comes up. And neither do you. . . I created the Your Best Mom Year Bootcamp as a way to invite all the non-bro-goalers out there to join together in a group filled with other moms who want to "crush" their goals in a way that fits their life and most importantly, will be sustainable even with the demands of motherhood. And mama, it's open again for enrollment now. . . Your Best Mom Year is a 4-week LIVE program where we focus on accountability, mindset and achievability of goals over all else. No "go big or go home" You're already home and home is amazing. Instead, let's "go big or go small, because your goal should fit your personal desires and priorities." That doesn't sound as catchy on a sales page, I guess. . . This is an incredibly budget-friendly program open to all moms, near and far, no matter they season you're currently in. Whether you've made it this far in the year by bursting through your goals and you don't want to lose momentum, or the thought of setting goals is a foreign and downright scary concept to you and you have absolutely no idea where to begin, you'll find what you need in the bootcamp. . . Bro-goals may work for some, but I'm not here for it. Your motherhood shouldn't be a competition. You don't need to 10X anything to achieve fulfillment. You don't need to wait for the new year to get a jumpstart. The time is now. --- link in bio to join us in the bootcamp
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