Episode 67: Not Just for Kids: How to Use Back-to-School as Your Reset
ITUNES | SPOTIFY
Back-to-school season isn’t just for kids—it can be a fresh start for you, too. In this episode, I’m sharing how to harness the energy of this time of year to reset your routines, revisit forgotten goals, and make the most of the last third of the year. Whether it’s tweaking your bedtime routine, refreshing family rhythms, or tackling a project you’ve been putting off, this is your chance to create your own “new semester” and finish out the year with intention.
links & resources mentioned in this episode:
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You are listening to the Life Coach for Working Moms podcast, the show where we are talking about what it actually takes to make life work as a working mom. I'm your host, Katelyn Denning, a full time working mom of three and a certified life and executive coach. I'm so glad you're here and I hope you enjoy this week's episode.
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. How are you this week? I have sort of a topsy-turvy week. My kids are headed back to school this week, but they do a midweek start. So of course there aren't really camps or opportunities like that.
So doing a little bit of a, a juggle some off hours, working to fit things in and spend the last couple of days at home with them. Having a little bit of fun, being a little lazy, and also preparing for what is around the corner, which is what I wanna talk about today. Now, if you are looking for a back to school checklist of things that you should do or consider, that is not this episode though, let me know if you would like that.
I feel like I have it pretty dialed in at this point, but whether or not you have kids who are headed back to school, you can probably feel the shift, the energetic shift that happens around this time of year where things are starting to change.
You've probably seen all of the back to school supplies out in stores, though. They've been in the stores for what feels like months at this point. Maybe you're passing buses now on the drive to work. You are seeing kids walking to and from school and just noticing that back to school is on basically everything these days, whether it's actually for back to school or just tapping into the season and what everyone is doing.
And so. No matter how far removed you are from going back to school yourself, I swear, it's like your body or your nervous system knows. I mean, I haven't been in school for, I don't wanna tell you exactly how many years, but decades, right? And yet I still feel it internally, not just because I'm helping prepare my kids to go back to school, but I just feel it.
I want to talk about harnessing that vibe or harnessing the energy
as an opportunity for you to have a bit of a reset.
Like I said, my kids are headed back to school this week and, and we have been doing what we can to prepare. We cleaned out book bags from all of the camps that they were in this summer, we sorted their bin of paperwork. I have a bin where anything that comes home, artwork, homework, worksheets, just gets put in there and probably twice a year we sort through it and just save.
The items that are worth saving and recycle the rest. So we emptied it out from the end of the school year and got it ready for all of the new papers that will come home. We tried on soccer cleats for fall season, which is starting soon, and I ordered some new socks because Wow, do they all seem to have holes in them?
And also I'm tired of always washing socks just to keep those clean and ready for school.
The first couple of weeks during this transition, especially if you are like me and have kids who are school aged, it is just about supporting them. There's not much that I change or that I would recommend that you change during this transition. Trying to keep activities to a minimum, make dinners that are easy.
It is a transition for everyone involved. And if you wanna hear more about that, this time last year, I did an episode. It's episode number five called Smooth. Transitions all about supporting yourself, supporting your kids, and keeping things moving. When you are going through a transition, whether it's back to school, a different job, a new schedule, or any other change in your life.
But as the transition starts to feel easier and easier. There is some energy that you can use to your advantage, to your benefit because this season does feel a bit like a fresh start. It feels like a clean slate. My kids, and I just read Anna Green Gables, so I'm picturing Anne of Ley and Gilbert Blythe with their chalkboards wiped clean every day for school.
If you remember back to when you were in school, the homework hasn't started piling up yet at the beginning. Your new teacher doesn't know you really yet. You have fresh notebooks. Your locker is clean. Who says you need a new calendar year to embrace that? Even if your work doesn't change from. One week to the next.
Your schedule doesn't change from one week to the next. Maybe your kids are still in daycare or with a nanny, or they're too little, or they're older and this does not apply. Who says we can't embrace this energy? I also really love doing a reset at this time of year because there is still a third of the year left before January 1st before the new calendar year.
That is so much time. If there is something that you want to create, a relationship that you want to develop, a new way of parenting, that you want to practice, a goal that you want to achieve, you could have it done or have made significant progress on it before the end of the year. You do not have to wait for January one.
Why not start now?
I am taking this transition time, this first week back to school and not overcommitting myself. I mostly am focused on supporting us all through this transition as we find our school legs and settle into our new rhythms. But then I'm going to do a bit of evaluating. I am excited in the same way that maybe you have a practice of reviewing the last year in preparation for New Year's Day.
I'm gonna look around at our life, at my routines, at our family's routines. I'm gonna look at our schedules, both for our family, our calendar, my work schedule, and routines. And there are some areas of my life and how I am showing up that aren't what I want. Some of that is just because summer tends to be about less structure.
In some ways, more flexibility and spontaneity, and some of that is just. What felt important at the beginning of the year no longer feels important, or I've forgotten about some of those goals that I was working toward. And so for me, I love the idea of revisiting some of that, of looking around and taking stock and thinking about what could I do in the last third of the year.
I'll give you a few examples because I know that I personally love to hear examples from others just to get some ideas going. So. One of the things that I am going to be looking at is, , my bedtime and my morning and what I want those to be like. I started a new weight training program actually just this week.
I decided that I did not want to wait, , and in order to fit that in, I do want to get up a little bit earlier than I have been. I want to have that finished. I want to be fully ready. Earlier than I have been so far this summer, and I know that my bedtime as it is currently is not going to support that.
I have been staying up late, and I think that's natural and it's fine, and I'm not beating myself up over that. It's summer and the kids are up later, therefore I'm up later. And so I've just gotten accustomed to that. I know that probably as the days get shorter and the weather gets colder, I will naturally head to bed earlier, but I'm gonna jumpstart that with this fresh back to school energy now.
And so I'm just gonna slowly inch my bedtime earlier a little bit each night over the coming weeks. Another thing that I'm going to be looking at fitting in before the end of the year is travel. There is still a small trip that I want to make this year, and it would be so easy to put it off until next year when you're looking at the end of the year, this final three, four months with the holidays and all of the things that could be happening.
It would certainly be easier to put it off, but I am going to just start the planning process and I'm gonna see if I can still make it happen because four months is four months, and I know people who have planned travel on much shorter timelines than that. So that is another thing that I want to use some of this energy toward right now.
Then there are little things, little tweaks and updates, things that I have put up with for a while, things that I just haven't felt like I had the energy or the focus to change. I am, for example, really tired of making the same dinners over and over again. I've almost gotten into too much of a routine and I am ready to change things up a little bit, and so
I want to challenge myself to test out some new recipes, things that I can make ahead of time or make in, I don't know, a crockpot or an Instapot, , because our evenings are gonna be getting busier this fall. And also, I just wanna simplify dinner. So that is an area, for example, that I'm looking at and thinking, this is not really working for me anymore and I'm ready and feeling motivated with all of these changes happening externally around me that I wanna make this change to.
And just one more that I'll, I'll mention. This was a goal that I had put on my intentions list for this year and it's just not been something that I have really given much attention to. And that is one-on-one time with each of my kids. I know that with fall sports and other activities, they are going to be busy.
We are going to have a lot on our plates, but I still feel like this is very important time where we can connect and I just, I want that space with each of them. And so I'm gonna start thinking now about. What do I want? What could that look like and how or where might I fit that in? Again, something that I don't want to push off or see on my intentions list for the next year.
I wanna see where I could be by the end of the year if I started with just a few small things now.
I have a couple of bigger projects, things that we need to take care of around the house , and some exciting projects that are coming up in my business also in the next month or so. And so I'm just going to be spending some time also previewing the calendar to make sure that I am giving myself enough buffer time also for those things.
It just reminds me so much, and I don't know if, if you are like this at all or were like this at all, but I, I remember getting the syllabus for a class at the beginning of the semester
and just. Previewing it. All right. What? What's to come? It feels fresh. It feels, you feel so optimistic. You have the whole semester in front of you to get this research paper done or to read these texts or to finish this project, and. That's what this time of year, at least for me and for many of my clients, what that feels like.
You are turning the page, you're getting this mini fresh start in the middle of a calendar year and it feels exciting. So maybe you want a new notebook, maybe you want to start journaling or keeping better track of your lists and some of your ideas and dreams. Maybe you want to learn a new skill or learn a new game.
One of my clients was just talking to me about learning Mahjong this year, and I was like, I wanna do that. Maybe I could do that before the end of this year. Maybe you wanna take up a new sport or join a rec league or take a new class. I. Maybe you just want a better system or to update your routines, like I was mentioning, and you want to try some new recipes.
You wanna figure out a way to meal plan that makes it easier, or you wanna get your laundry done or have a system in place for sorting paperwork. Harness the fresh start of back to school. We might not be packing up our book bags anymore or smiling for that first day pick. You are never too old to have the spirit of this time of year.
And I love thinking about that and how that could show up in really fun ways in our lives that we could have by the end of the semester, something in our lives or have done something that. We hadn't done when we started here in the middle of August or the beginning of September.
So I'm curious to hear what comes up for you when you think about your back to school fresh notebook. What do you want to fill it with? What do you want to learn, do practice, or who do you want to be? Let me know. I would love to compile a list, and if I do, I'll share it back with you, of course. But send me an email.
You can do that at Katelyn@themothernurture.com, or you can send me a DM on Instagram. I'm @lovemothernurture.
I would love to hear from you. I would love to see your. Back to school picks, so to speak. Not actually your picture, but what are your hopes and dreams for this semester? What are you going to be thinking about for you with the vibes of this time of year and this transition? All right, that's what I have for you.
Just what has been on my mind and what I'm thinking about personally in case it resonates with you or gives you some ideas or some inspiration that's. That's all I could hope for. All right. I will talk with you in the next episode. Until then, take care. I.
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