Congratulations! I’m guessing you either just had or are soon having a new baby! Being a new mom is quite the adventure but really is worth all of the sleepless nights and tears (from you and the baby). No matter what, you will never really be fully prepared as a new mom, I’ve done the baby thing twice now and even the second time there were things I wasn’t prepared for.

That being said, one of the biggest things you can do to give yourself a head start of sorts when you bring that baby home is to have set priorities.

What are priorities?

A priority is something that is important to you, something that you want to focus on and that helps to guide your decision making.

As a new mom your priorities will probably include: baby, yourself, your husband, your other children...and that’s probably it for the first few weeks.

I encourage you to make it a priority not to have priorities as a brand new mom. Give yourself a few weeks to adjust and to get the hang of the whole being a mom thing. The timeline I always tell people to go by is that 6 week mark, don’t worry about losing the baby weight, working, or attempting to keep up with housework until baby is 6 weeks old. Our culture has kind of made that the standard “okay it’s time to come back to the world” mark and for the most part I agree with that but it’s okay if it takes you longer to adjust. Everyone is different. I also have a post about why it’s okay not to be okay after six weeks.

Once you’re ready to come back to the surface and do life again, that’s when it’s time to really focus on those other priorities. (P.S. If you are really stuck in that postpartum fog, I have a great post on hope for when you don’t feel like yourself postpartum)

How To Find Your Priorities

Finding what is most important to you may seem like a “duh” thing but once you start writing down all of the things that are important to you, that list could go on for quite awhile.

I like to focus on a few key areas when finding priorities. List out two or three things in each category, that you really want to focus on.

Priority Areas:

> Personal Growth + Career: This are includes any goals you have in your career or in a hobby that you’d like to monetize as well as continuing your education or growing as a person.

> Health: Part of living a joyful lifestyle, is living a healthy lifestyle so make your health a priority. It may be important to you to lose that baby weight or to follow the 80/20 rule with your meals, or maybe you just want to make it a priority to go for regular walks.

> Relationships: This includes relationships with your family, friends, husband, and children.

> Faith/Spiritual Life: For me, my relationship with Jesus is a priority in my life. Whatever your spiritual life includes, making it a priority will help you to keep your other priorities in line.

In my course The Stay-at-Home Mom’s Guide I have a brief section on priorities but then we really dig deep into building a family mission statement which will really help you to keep your entire family’s priorities in line. Check out the course here and if it’s a good fit for you, use the code “MOMLIFE” to get $5 off!

How To Stick To Your Priorities

If you’re like me, you may set New Year’s intentions and then forget about them a month later. I have a few things that I recommend you do to make sure you stick to your priorities.

1. Write your priorities down and put them somewhere where you will see them regularly.
2. Create action steps, or things to do to accomplish each priority.
3. Find someone to keep you accountable. I have an awesome group of mamas + homemakers on Facebook and you may be able to find an accountability partner in there!

Now, go! Go enjoy your new baby and take some time to just chill. Or if your baby is a few weeks old, start working on those priorities to get started on a joyful, intentional lifestyle!

Abby Barstow is the creative behind Joyful Homemaker’s Club. She blogs about joy, Jesus, and intentional living for homemakers, basically she provides homemakers with all of the tools they need to live a joyful, faith-based, intentional lifestyle. When she’s not blogging she’s probably watching way too much TV or eating. Or both. You can learn more about Abby here. You can also find her on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.