How to be a happy homemaker in 7 steps

Let me ask you a question when you wake up does it feel like you’re in a never-ending cycle in life? Does it feel like all you do is cook, clean, take care of the family, and pets, and then use whatever time and energy you have left to attempt to take care of YOU?

Maybe you feel tired, unappreciated, undervalued, with no sense of purpose because your day is filled with what feels like meaningless tasks that generally go unnoticed. And the dreaded question “who am I?” constantly plagues your mind.

Your friends may envy your ability to be at home, but you find it mundane, unfulfilling, and rather meh at times. How do I know? I’ve been there. I’m still there. As a woman, we’re always taking care of someone else and always last on our care list. It’s exhausting, right? After sharing all of this, how is it possible to be a happy homemaker?

Well, I can’t tell you what will make you happy…I’m not you. However, I can tell you what I did and am doing to help me change the way I view my role and set me on my way to happiness.

These 7 things can help you become a happy homemaker:

• Develop a self-care routine
• Understand your role as a homemaker: List all of the things you do
• Create a healthy balance between taking care of others and yourself
• Having a hobby is important
• Change the way you view your day to day tasks
• Create easy routines
• Find ways to make the day-to-day tasks easier

OK! Let me go into deeper detail. I bet these tips will help you on your journey as well.

I put this one first because we often put this one last on our list. Personally, I think this is a really important tip to becoming a happy homemaker. We need a full bucket each day so we can pour it into others.

Whether you do your self-care routine in the morning or evening, totally up to you. It doesn’t matter when you do it…you just need to do it. If you need help deciding on a routine, I have a few self-care routine ideas for you. You can grab that by simply filling out this quick form below.

At the time of writing this, I’ve been married for 12 years, and the majority of the time I’ve been a homemaker (an unfulfilled one). Funny enough, I never used this title. When people asked what I do I’d always say, “I’m just a stay-at-home mom”. Really? Am I just a mom? Ab-solutely not, but I never understood my actual role…until now that is.

As a homemaker, our roles are many. We’re the fabric that holds the family together! Interior decorator that fills the house with the decor that represents our style. We’re the chef that fills the bellies of the ones we love. We provide the nurture and compassion our family needs especially when they’ve had a rough day, amongst so many other things. I’d say that’s pretty important. But I get it. Sometimes we feel this way when our lives are out of balance.

It’s important to understand we’ll never find that balance, we have to be intentional in creating it. We can’t devote 100% of our energy to the new thing and expect to have energy left over for the other areas of our life.

The saying, “you can’t pour from an empty bucket” has never been so true. You can’t. I’ve tried. As mentioned earlier, our nature as women is to put our family first. But this is a flawed way to be. Yes, we need to take care of our family, but make sure we have something to pour into them. We need self-care too. Sometimes that looks like waking up a little earlier or staying up later to do a nice facial, painting your nails, or doing your favorite hobby. Whatever the case, we need to make sure we, as homemakers, are taking care of everyone in the household (this includes us).

Need help creating a healthy balance? I gotcha! Check out this blog post.

Continuing from the previous step, having a hobby is very important when you’re a homemaker. I know what you’re going to say, “I don’t have time as it is…and you want me to have a hobby?” But hear me out….errrrrr keep reading!

Having a hobby helps you really stay true to the person you were before you were even married. Even if that hobby isn’t something you did before your life changed. It gives you something outside of the everyday tasks you do as a homemaker. Hobbies can be a way of escape from the “mundane” and reconnecting with you. It gives you a sense of satisfaction and refills your self-care bucket. My current hobby (because they change often) is coffee. Would love to know what your hobby is! Tell me in the comments.

Hobbies you can start today:

• Painting
• Doodling
• YouTube
• Blogging
• Clay making
• Podcast
• Sewing
• & more

Check out my hobbies to see if it interests you!

Laundry. Dishes. Cooking. Oh my!! When you read those words…how did you feel inside? Did you cringe? Get sleepy? Well, imagine if you were excited to do these tasks. Are you imagining it? It seems like such a far-fetched concept. I get it. I’m having a hard time imagining it myself.

But here’s the thing. If we begrudgingly perform our roles, everything will feel like a chore (that’s no fun). But if we view these tasks as contributing to our family’s well-being then, in time, it won’t seem so…so…yuck! This is something I’ve learned from the amazing book, Glory in the Ordinary by Courtney Reissig. I highly recommend picking up a copy for yourself to read during quiet time (yes…we, adults, need one too)!

If you feel your days are hectic and you can’t keep up, I can almost bet you don’t have any structured routines in place. I don’t have one in place…yet! Hold on, before you dismiss me consider how you’re feeling.

I get that life is really chaotic and anything structured seems unobtainable but it’s not.

It really is something we both can achieve. Routines give us some predictability and the flexibility we need, but also a sense of peace. It doesn’t have to be strict, we’re not creating a schedule, just a simple flow of events and behaviors we can follow each day.

Changing how you view the tasks you do each day is important, however, what if you can change the way you do them? What if you can give yourself time to do other things you actually WANT to do? You can! You totally can. Your time is valuable…cherish it. Here are two things you can get someone to do for you so you can spend that time on other things:

• Get your groceries delivered
• Order needed items online
• Meal Delivery Service

You don’t have to do everything yourself.

Hang in there, homemaker! I know you don’t hear “thank you”, “I appreciate you” and “great job” often enough…if ever…but you know the good work you do. You know that you pour into your family as best you can.

I fully believe that once you develop your self-care routine, understand your role, create your balance you’ll find it easier to do the other things like start a hobby, create a routine, to ultimately become the happy homemaker you desire to be. Where are you on your journey? Let me know in the comments or if you rather, send me a message! Would love to connect with you.

Remember to grab your self-care routine ideas. It’ll help you start you on the path to happiness!