5 Ways to Be Kinder to Yourself When Life Gets in the Way

I'm writing this from Bali. A week late. And I have thoughts.

At the start of this year I had a plan.

Weekly blog. Every Sunday. Done.

Weekly email. Every Friday. Done.

Social content scheduled in advance. Batched, planned, consistent. Done.

Exercise. At least three times a week. Absolutely done.

You can probably guess how that went.

The blog went out most weeks. The email went out for a while, then life got loud and it quietly slipped. The social content happened when it happened. The exercise was the first thing to go, the way it always is, like it was never really on the list at all.

I'm not telling you this because I think you'll be surprised. I'm telling you this because I suspect your version of this list looks a lot like mine.

The good intentions were real. The time blindness is real. And the particular chaos of being the only adult in the house — where everything that doesn't get done by you simply doesn't get done — has a way of swallowing whole weeks before you've noticed they're gone.

The four weeks before Bali were genuinely relentless. Business, content, commitments, a daughter to get ready, a group of women to organise, and a to-do list that kept growing faster than I could cross things off. Something had to give. Several things gave.

And here's what I've been sitting with since I arrived: almost every single woman on this trip said the same thing. Hard run before they got here. Health, money, work, house, kids, parents — life arriving all at once, as it does.

We are not failing. We are just full.

Here's what actually helps.

1. Send the honest email

Before I left, I was a couple of weeks behind on content I'd committed to delivering to my Butterfly Blueprint group. I had a choice: push myself to breaking point to get it done, or be honest.

I sent the email. Explained where I was at. Asked for more time when I was back from Bali.

Every single person responded with some version of: no problem, have the best trip.

Not one person was as rigid about my deadline as I was.

This is the thing nobody tells you — most people are far more understanding than the story you've been telling yourself about how they'll react. The email that feels enormous to write usually takes two minutes to send and resolves in five. The conversation you've been dreading is almost never as hard as the dread itself.

The practical thing: Write the email. The one you've been putting off because you're worried about how it lands. Adjust the deadline, ask for the extension, explain the situation. Do it today. The relief on the other side is immediate.

2. Separate your standards from everyone else's expectations

I made a detailed packing list for the whole Bali group. Comprehensive, organised, genuinely useful.

Then packed without looking at it and left without half the things on my own list (but all the things I needed for the welcome packs so the mums didn’t miss out).

I forgot my waterproof phone case. I'm in Bali. The phone case is annoying. The trip is wonderful. Both things are true.

The list I made for everyone else? I was holding myself to it with a rigidity that had nothing to do with anyone else's actual expectations. Nobody was checking. Nobody cared whether I had a waterproof phone case. The standard was entirely mine.

We do this constantly. We create expectations for ourselves — elaborate, detailed, high-achieving expectations — and then measure ourselves against them as though they came from somewhere external. As though someone else is keeping score.

Almost nobody else is keeping score.

The practical thing: Look at the thing you're currently failing to meet. Ask yourself honestly: whose expectation is this? Did someone ask this of you, or did you build this cage yourself? If it's yours, you're also allowed to unlock it.

3. When you drop something, drop it cleanly

The thing that makes a missed week worse than it needs to be is not the missing — it's everything we pile on top of it.

The guilt. The internal commentary. The proof it becomes for whatever story we're running about not being good enough, not being organised enough, not having it together.

Missing the blog last week cost me maybe one hour of actual impact. The guilt about missing it cost me significantly more.

Dropping something and then carrying it around anyway is the worst of both worlds. If something has to go — and sometimes something has to go — let it go all the way. Don't do it while also punishing yourself for doing it.

The practical thing: Name the thing you've dropped. Say it out loud or write it down. Then consciously put it down. Not with a plan to immediately fix it — just with the acknowledgement that it happened, it's okay, and you're not dragging it with you.

4. Build the repeatable system — but only once

The packing list situation taught me something I should have known already.

Starting from scratch every single time is what creates the chaos. Every trip, I mentally rebuild the packing list. Every week, I think about what the content plan should look like. Every month, I approach the budget like it's the first time.

The systems that help aren't the ones you build under pressure the night before you need them. They're the quiet ones you build once, properly, and then just use.

One packing list that lives on your phone or is laminated and stored in the suitcase. One content template. One repeating weekly meal plan. One recurring structure that means the decision is already made and you're just executing.

The goal isn't to be more disciplined. It's to have fewer decisions to make when you're already running on empty.

The practical thing: Pick one area of your life that costs you repeated mental energy because you're rebuilding it every time. Invest an hour in building the system once. A checklist, a template, a routine. Something you can use next time without thinking.

5. Find the people who get it without explanation

This is the one I keep coming back to.

Every woman on this trip arrived carrying something. And within about twenty-four hours, in the way that happens when you're somewhere warm and away from normal life, the carrying got lighter.

Not because the problems were solved. Because they were witnessed by people who didn't need the backstory. Who understood the specific texture of doing this alone — the mental load, the lack of backup, the way everything lands on one set of shoulders — without you having to justify or explain or minimise.

That is not a small thing. That is, in fact, one of the most important things.

Solo motherhood is a remarkable way to live. It is also relentless in a way that people around you may love you and still not fully understand. Finding the women who do — whether that's a group chat, a local meetup, an online community, or apparently a trip to Bali — changes the texture of the whole experience.

You don't have to be more resilient. You just need better company.

The practical thing: If you don't have people who get it, find them. The Solo Mum Society Facebook group is free and full of women at every stage of this journey. And when you're ready for something more — the SMS Membership waitlist is open.

👉 Join the free Facebook group →

👉 Join the SMS Membership waitlist →

The blog was a week late. The emails went quiet for a month. The exercise is still pending.

And I'm sitting in Bali, surrounded by women who are all doing their imperfect best, feeling more certain than ever that the standard we need to meet is a great deal lower than the one we've been setting for ourselves.

You're doing enough.

Alisha x