Ever Said "I'll Get Back On Track When School Starts"?

I want you to think back to the last week of school this year. Maybe it was May for you, maybe it was June, but I bet it felt like December all over again.

There's actually a name for it now, May-cember, and if you've never heard that term before, it's the perfect way to describe what happens at the end of the school year. You've got the parties, the schedule changes, the field days, and if your kids' school does anything like mine, an entire Teacher Appreciation Week where you're not just bringing one gift, you're bringing a themed item every single day for five days straight, times however many kids you have.

By the time summer actually starts, you're depleted. And that's normal.

That's not a personal failing, that's just what happens when life throws a lot at you all at once. So your healthy habits, the ones you worked so hard on all spring, start to slip. Not because you don't care, but because you've been in survival mode. And then July rolls around, maybe August, and you start telling yourself the same thing I hear from moms all the time: I'll get back on track with healthy habits when school starts.

I want to talk about why that thought pattern keeps so many moms stuck, and what to do instead.

Why We Wait For School To Start To Get Back On Track With Healthy Habits

That instinct to wait for the perfect moment, a new school year, a Monday, the first of the month, is one of the biggest reasons September ends up feeling like starting completely over instead of building on anything.

You tell yourself this time will be different. New school year, new routine, you'll have your time back, and you're going to change everything at once.

Here's the thing though.

That surge of motivation you feel is real, but it's not actually the problem.

The problem is what you do with it.

Most moms take that motivation and try to overhaul their entire life on day one. Workout every day, meal prep every single meal on Sunday, cut out sugar, drink all the water, get to bed early, all of it, all at once, starting Monday.

I want you to think about this a different way. Let's do a little visualization exercise, shall we?

Imagine you're an employer and you hire a brand new employee.

On their very first day, you hand them a stack of responsibilities and expect them to execute all of it flawlessly, immediately, with zero training.

How long do you think that employee lasts? Probably not long. They don't have the skills yet. They haven't built the muscle for any of it.

That's exactly what we do to ourselves every single time we wait for some arbitrary date to overhaul our healthy habits all at once.

We expect ourselves to perform a lifestyle that someone else spent years building, and we expect it on week one. It doesn't work, not because you lack discipline, but because that's just not how sustainable change happens.

The New Employee Mistake Busy Moms Make With Back On Track Healthy Habits

I bring this up with my clients constantly, this idea of building habits one or two at a time instead of trying to do everything simultaneously.

I actually had a client tell me recently that her husband went through a coaching program that was much more all or nothing, do everything at once and it works. And she said flat out, that approach never would have worked for her. She needed something that built her habits gradually, something that actually got woven into her real life instead of bulldozing it.

That's the approach I take with every single client I work with, and it's the approach I want you to take with yourself this year, whether or not you ever work with me.

Instead of sitting in your car mentally listing every single thing you're doing wrong and piling on shame until you feel motivated enough to change, I want you to get specific about what's actually within your control.

You can't tell your body to lose twenty pounds.

But you can commit to lifting weights three times a week.

You can commit to meal planning on the same day every week so you're not making five last minute trips to the store.

Those are the kinds of goals that actually move the needle, because they're things you have direct control over.

What To Do Instead Of Overhauling Everything When School Starts

Start by identifying what I call your core needs.

These are the non-negotiable things you need to do each week in order to actually show up well in your role, whether that's as a wife, a mom, or both.

For me, being a good mom means I have to take care of my body, which means I meal plan once a week and I have a designated day and time to grocery shop so I'm not running to the store constantly, because that stresses me out and makes me a less patient, less present mom.

Sleep belongs on that list too. So does moving your body. Write down what your actual core needs are, the things that are truly essential, not the extras (I'm looking at you, kid's sports).

Here's where most moms go wrong when they're building their weekly calendar. They fill it up with every single thing their kids need first, school pick up, practices, tutoring, lessons, and then they try to find whatever scraps of time are left over for themselves.

I want you to flip that. Put your core needs on the calendar first. Yes, school pickup is essential and it's going to happen no matter what.

But your workout time and your meal planning time deserve a spot on that calendar too, and they deserve to be protected, not squeezed into whatever's left.

I see this constantly, moms who run themselves into the ground doing everything for their kids and somewhere along the way stop acting like they're a person too.

Your kids don't actually need every extracurricular under the sun. What they need is a regulated, healthy mom.

Once you've got your core needs written down, pick one, maybe two, to actually focus on.

Not five, not ten, one or two.

Meal planning and lifting weights, for example. Nail those down before you add anything else in.

This is where so many moms sabotage themselves, they try to add every good habit at once instead of letting one become automatic before layering on the next.

Learning The Difference Between Urgent And Important As A Busy Mom

There's one more piece to this I want you to really sit with, and that's learning to tell the difference between what feels urgent and what's actually urgent.

As moms, we're usually the one everyone comes to when something falls apart, whether that's with our kids or extended family. And there's a trap a lot of us fall into, which is letting other people's lack of planning constantly override our own needs.

I'm not saying don't help your family. I'm saying pay attention to the pattern. If every time someone needs something, your workout, your meal plan, your time gets pushed aside without a second thought, that's worth examining. The more we rescue, the more that pattern repeats itself, and it only grows as our kids get older.

You are allowed to be a person with needs, not just the household's emergency response team.

Setting that boundary might feel uncomfortable at first, but it gets easier, and it's part of what actually makes back on track healthy habits stick long term instead of falling apart the next time life gets busy.

My program, the Fat Loss Formula for Moms, goes deep into everything we talked about today, because for most of the women I work with, this isn't just about getting the right macros or the right workout plan.

A lot of us have been trying to lose weight for years, even decades, and there's mindset and belief work that has to happen alongside the physical piece for any of it to actually stick.

If that's something you want support with, I'd love to chat. You can book a free discovery call here.

This week, I want you to get honest about what you're actually capable of adding right now. Write down your core needs, pick the one or two that will make the biggest difference, and put them on your calendar first. You don't have to wait for September to do this. You can start today.

-Rachel