When you are a parent, your entire world will be filled with taking care of your children. This is most true when they are newborns and very young, and as they get older there is more chance for you to step back. However, it will feel as though you are needed at every stage of their development, and many parents are happy to be there for their children at all times.
However, it’s important to remember that you aren’t just a parent; you’re an individual with your own thoughts and feelings and your own hopes and dreams. Yet, it can sometimes be hard to acknowledge this, let alone do anything about it.
This is not good for you and can lead you to have much less of a chance in life than you should have. Therefore, if you are a parent and you have dreams, read on; here are some ways you can do both.
Table of Contents
Get Help
The first thing to consider if you want to follow your life’s dreams as a parent is getting help. This could be in the form of a nanny, extra babysitting, a cleaner, or perhaps a friend or family member who is able to help out. If you can get this kind of help, you will free up a lot of time – perhaps a few hours a day, and at the very least a few hours a week.
What could you use this time for? Ideally, you would use it to start reaching your goals. You might go back to college so you can earn a degree to be an effective social worker like you’ve always wanted to, for example. Or perhaps you’ll use the time to start your own business and be able to perfect your work-life balance. Maybe you’ll take up a hobby that you’ve always been fascinated by. Whatever you do, getting help means you’ll have the time to do it.
Involve The Family
Another way to enable you to follow your dreams when you’re a parent is to involve the entire family in what you’re doing. That way, they will understand more about why you might need some additional time to yourself, and you will be able to spend extra time with them when they are helping out.
Take a new hobby, for example. It might be that your kids are interested in learning the same thing, so you can do it together. In this way, you won’t need to hire a babysitter or try to squeeze in a class in between school runs and sporting fixtures, and dentist visits. Plus, you can be a lot more when you are all together doing something fun.
Take Online Classes
Technology is a marvelous thing, and it has opened up the world to everyone, allowing them to do so much with their lives. If you want or need to go to college to obtain a degree so you can follow your dreams and get the career you’ve always wanted, or if going to college actually is your dream, then you might think it’s impossible.
Even with babysitters and plenty of help, attending a college course is a big commitment, and you might not be able to do it due to your other responsibilities, let alone your current job.
Online courses are the answer. With an online course, you can study for whatever you want and earn a recognized qualification at the end of your course. You can do it at home, at any time that works for you, and you can make it fit your other responsibilities. Online learning is the most flexible way to realize your dreams – whatever they may be – while you are a parent, as you really can have it all.
However, something to remember about online degrees is that just because you don’t have to attend a physical school, the work is just as hard and you need to put just as much effort in.
As long as you are willing to do this, an online degree can give you anything and everything you want. Gaining a degree as a parent is also an excellent way to be a role model to your kids.
Find Your People
If you want to see your dreams come true, it’s important that you have support, which is why it’s so crucial to ‘find your people’. These are the people who will support you in your dreams and endeavors and who will help you achieve those dreams.
Without this kind of support, something that is already hard – reaching for your goals while also taking care of your children and ensuring they have everything they need – will be all but impossible. You need to have people you can rely on, who you can trust, and who will be there for you if you need advice, a shoulder to cry on, or anything else.
These people could already be in your life and might be a friend or family members. However, if you don’t have this kind of support at home, don’t worry; you’ll be able to find it elsewhere. It could be in the form of online groups such as you would find on social media, for example. If you look, you will find your people, and this is essential if you want to fulfill your dreams.
Voice Your Dreams
Perhaps one of the most underrated ways to follow your dreams when you are a parent is to let other people know what those dreams are. If you keep it all to yourself, you won’t have anyone to hold you accountable. If you slip behind or ignore your dreams altogether, there will be no one to boost you back up and keep you motivated because no one will know what it is you really want.
As well as this, once you have voiced your ideas and ideals, they will feel a lot more real. Instead of being some distant thing that you want but don’t know how to get to, they become much more tangible; you’ll start to look more closely into what you need to do, and you might even put some plans in place.
Voicing your dreams helps you to make them become a part of your life, and although it might be hard to put your ideas into words, once it’s done, you’ll feel the difference immediately.
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