How to Live with Purpose (and Why it's Good for You)

At MAMMA-MIYA, our vision is to help moms organize their days, AND also make room for their well-being.

For us, a mom’s well-being is as important as her productivity, because worldwide, moms are more stressed, overworked and exhausted than ever.

We are working as much as 2.5 people on a given day. We’re balancing multiple roles and priorities and shouldering the majority of the invisible mental load for our families.

It’s a 24 x 7 x 365 job.

We’re so much more than our daily task lists.

We have identities and lives outside of motherhood, but all of that took a backseat when we became moms.

Now we’re so busy everyday that keeping these parts of us alive – our hobbies, interests, causes that we’re passionate about – can feel like yet another to-do rather than a fulfilling journey of self-discovery.

One of the ways to live with purpose is to spend your life on activities that matter to you.

Identifying our values, and the things that matter to us will get us closer to our life’s purpose, and help us build the life we want.

And it starts with adding it to our days. Because, as writer Annie Dillard said, how we spend our days, is of course, how we live our lives.

Use Hats for the parts of you that you want to nurture

The goal behind the Hats feature in MAMMA-MIYA is to help moms be intentional about how they spend their time and energy.

Each of us play multiple roles in our daily lives – as mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, colleagues, friends.

Work might be dominating our waking hours, but we can still find pockets of time for self-care, like walking around the block during lunch, or even 5 minutes of deep breathing.

With every task that we tag to a Hat, we are choosing to spend our time and energy on that role.

For example, if you would like to read regularly, making a Hat for it is a strong way to start.

The next step is to start scheduling activities under this Hat. We recommend adding them as routines, with a realistic goal and frequency.

Track your progress, but be gentle on yourself

You can start small, and don’t worry (or give up!) if you’re not regular.

Pushing ourselves to get through our task list, day after day, is counterproductive beyond a point.

It takes consistency and commitment to build habits, and routines are straight paths to habits.

Doing something for yourself, or engaging in an activity you enjoy will light up your day, and energize you.

Building a routine for something that matters to you will also build your self-confidence in your own ability to get closer to the life you want for yourself.

Living purposefully can help your family too

According to this research, a mother’s sense of well-being and satisfaction has twice as much impact as a father’s on a number of child and family-related outcomes.

Spending quality time with our partner, our kids and extended family can also be a part of living with purpose.

This study showed that parents who went on date nights through their children’s growing years were significantly more likely to be happier with their relationship and satisfied with life.

While building MAMMA-MIYA, our founders Aash and Namz spoke to “sorted” moms who have successfully managed their multiple roles and priorities with a sense of lightness and intention, and felt fulfilled by it.

Here are a few gems of their wisdom:

Regularly ask yourself, what is truly important to me?

It’s okay to not know the answers immediately. Many of us are still discovering the ways becoming a mother changed us. But it’s important to know what you want and to put it down somewhere.

Make personal goals. Start small, and cross them off one by one. Do it regularly for long enough, and you’d have built a healthy routine.

When you decide to do something for yourself, commit to it by structuring time for it in your day. When that time comes, dedicate yourself to that task fully, be present in it. The rest of your day will still be waiting for you when you’re done, anyway.

How to Live with Purpose (and Why it’s Good for You)

At MAMMA-MIYA, our vision is to help moms organize their days, AND also make room for their well-being.

For us, a mom’s well-being is as important as her productivity, because worldwide, moms are more stressed, overworked and exhausted than ever.

It’s a 24 x 7 x 365 job.

We’re so much more than our daily task lists.

We have identities and lives outside of motherhood, but all of that took a backseat when we became moms.

Now we’re so busy everyday that keeping these parts of us alive – our hobbies, interests, causes that we’re passionate about – can feel like yet another to-do rather than a fulfilling journey of self-discovery.

One of the ways to live with purpose is to spend your life on activities that matter to you.

And it starts with adding it to our days. Because, as writer Annie Dillard said, how we spend our days, is of course, how we live our lives.

Use Hats for the parts of you that you want to nurture

The goal behind the Hats feature in MAMMA-MIYA is to help moms be intentional about how they spend their time and energy.

Each of us play multiple roles in our daily lives – as mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, colleagues, friends.

Work might be dominating our waking hours, but we can still find pockets of time for self-care, like walking around the block during lunch, or even 5 minutes of deep breathing.

With every task that we tag to a Hat, we are choosing to spend our time and energy on that role.

For example, if you would like to read regularly, making a Hat for it is a strong way to start.

The next step is to start scheduling activities under this Hat. We recommend adding them as routines, with a realistic goal and frequency.

Track your progress, but be gentle on yourself

You can start small, and don’t worry (or give up!) if you’re not regular.

Pushing ourselves to get through our task list, day after day, is counterproductive beyond a point.

Doing something for yourself, or engaging in an activity you enjoy will light up your day, and energize you.

Living purposefully can help your family too

According to this research, a mother’s sense of well-being and satisfaction has twice as much impact as a father’s on a number of child and family-related outcomes.

This study showed that parents who went on date nights through their children’s growing years were significantly more likely to be happier with their relationship and satisfied with life.

While building MAMMA-MIYA, our founders Aash and Namz spoke to “sorted” moms who have successfully managed their multiple roles and priorities with a sense of lightness and intention, and felt fulfilled by it.

Here are a few gems of their wisdom:

You can read the full list here.

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