Not Wonder Woman
I do not fly, leap from buildings, or stop bullets with my bracelets.
And I wish that I had a truth telling lasso. Instead I drive a minivan, go to soccer
matches, and love reading bed time stories.
I am not Wonder Woman or
Super Woman either.
I am one woman who believes that
I can succeed in the military while being married and having kids.
Last week and every so often someone
makes a comment to me that I am a superwoman because I do all three. It
continues to bother me every time someone says something like this. The
implication is that being married, having kids, and being an AF leader takes
some sort of super powers. This is absolutely not the case!
It will not always be easy, but
it can be done.
I do not have all of the answers,
but a two techniques that work for me are to 1) Be Organized and 2) Look For
Solutions.
1) Be Organized
I think that it is essential that
all working moms must be organized. I try my best to be organized by tracking
my items, my husband’s events and the boys’ activities. I have to know when my
important dates are for my work and my husband’s work. I also have to track all
the family events. I have to know when the sports events are occurring and when
the school projects are due. I do both long range, short range & dynamic
planning. I look one month or more out for long term planning, a week out for
short term, and daily is dynamic planning.
My goal is always to minimize the dynamic changes.
Right now I am using a Google
Calendar and a white board calendar at home. The Google Calendar is used for
long range planning. It is accessible on my phone and computer which allows me
to add events as I learn about them. Another great feature is that I am able to
share the calendar with my husband and family. This is in contrast to the white board
calendar which is used for short term planning. This calendar is mounted on a
cabinet inside the house. I have to manually update this calendar every month
to provide both the weekly and daily view. One of my favorite features is that
this calendar is visible helps remind me of events.
2) Look For Solutions
There is no one size fit all
answer to how to make this work. However, I believe that you have to be
solution oriented if you want success. There are times when I wonder how I will
work through a particular situation. The answer is always to look for
solutions. Sometimes I have to get creative to keep everything on the calendar.
Other times, I have to accept that some items will not happen. However, for the
most part, I am resourceful at creating solutions. I believe that starting with
this mindset helps find solutions.