About Me
I’m a life coach for moms who don’t have enough time to focus on themselves.
You’re a busy and overachieving mom who wants to give everyone and everything in your life 100% attention. You do your best to be there for every school function, give the Pinterest touch to your kids lunches, have a thriving career or hobby, spend time alone with your partner, make sure the house is in order, exercise, never mind taking care of yourself.
You’re not good at prioritizing yourself and you hate to say no to anyone.
Lately you’re finding it impossible to be everything to everyone. Giving 100% to every area is exhausting!
You’re tired of feeling exhausted and never having any personal time for yourself. It feels like no matter how much you do, you’re still behind. You wish you could just have some downtime, but you feel guilty everytime you take time for yourself worrying that your kids may feel less loved or attended to or that you’ll be even more behind on your never ending work load.
Somewhere along the way you feel like you lost yourself. You want to have some time for yourself to recharge and focus on doing things you enjoy so you can feel like yourself again.
Hey, I’ve been there too and I’ve come out on the other side.
Hi, I’m Sanaz Rasouli.
I’m a life coach for moms who don’t have enough time to focus on themselves. They feel exhausted trying to balance it all and feel like they’ve lost themselves along the way and are having a hard time making themselves a priority. I help them focus on what matters most so they can carve out time for themselves to do things that bring them joy helping them feel like a happier and more present mom.
My Journey
During the first year after becoming a mom, I was so focused on trying to survive and raise a human, that I never had much time to think about myself and my needs.
Things changed though shortly after my daughter turned one. As much as I was having fun watching her grow, playing with her and attending playdates, I noticed that I had this deep burning desire to have something just for me.
I felt resentment towards my husband who could just walk out the door every morning to work. I wanted to have that freedom, to have something that I could call mine. I would dream about just heading out of the door and having some quiet time to do something for me, and be free of any roles or responsibilities. I longed to find my sense of purpose outside of just being a mom or a wife. I wanted to take regular breaks where I could pursue anything that interested me or just have some free time to take care of myself, or see my friends without our kids in tow.
I noticed that I had been running on empty for quite some time and had become increasingly irritable and impatient. During these times I couldn’t recognize my normally sweet and cheerful self. My family and friends kept telling me that I had to start taking some me time to recharge and I knew they were right.
Taking the first steps in making myself a priority.
In those early days when I started taking me time, I felt like I didn’t know what to do with myself to make the time worth it. It had been so long since I had quiet time to do anything I wanted. I actually felt overwhelmed and couldn’t focus properly. During my me time, I found myself constantly thinking about my daughter or staring at her photos, or scheduling activities for her or wasting time flipping through my phone on social media. Again I felt I wasn’t doing something for me.
I would wonder what I had done with the time I had taken for myself and felt like I had somehow wasted it.
I would end up coming home feeling like I still hadn’t recharged in addition to feeling guilty about having left her for so long. I’d feel frustrated because I thought I’d feel so much better but instead I felt like I had let the time slip away from me and I wasn’t sure when I would have the next opportunity to step out by myself.
I started to notice that I would make up for the guilty feelings by deliberately spending more time with my daughter. I was constantly focused on the quantity of time we had together rather than the quality of time we were spending together. This led me to feeling even more drained.
I started to notice some of my other mom friends didn’t feel this kind of guilt. They seemed happy and well connected and satisfied with the time they spent with their children. In fact some of these moms were working full-time and had limited time with their kids. They were away most of the day, but somehow the few hours they had with their children seemed to be of quality. Their kids seemed happy and well connected and didn’t seem any less loved or attended to. These moms didn’t share the same guilt I felt even though they didn’t have as much time to spend with their kids than I had. I envied their lack of frustration in trying to create meaningful moments and how they didn’t feel guilty for not being there all of the time. It made me wonder why as a stay-at-home mom I should still feel this guilty for not doing or being enough, when I had more hours to spend with my daughter? I wanted to figure out how I could carve out meaningful time for myself without feeling guilty.
Finding a Way Forward.
I sought extra support and classes to enroll my daughter in to help me get more time for myself. I started to freelance and find projects I could work on that interested me and that would help me achieve a sense of accomplishment.
At first all of these things worked and I started to feel better. However I still didn’t feel like I was doing things that lit me up and I hadn’t managed to shake the guilt for the times that I wasn’t spending with my daughter.
It wasn’t until I started working with a life coach that I understood what was standing in my way.
I decided to enrol in an online class to figure out what work I wanted to do. I wanted to find a job that I found meaningful and that made me excited to get out of bed everyday but also allowed me the flexibility to stay home with the kids.
One of my instructors in the class was a life coach. Some of the lessons were coaching related and it was here that I started getting exposed to life coaching principles. I was amazed at how much I was learning about myself through these coaching exercises. There was a heavy importance placed on time management and building a support network in order to achieve our goals. I started to understand how to ask for help and not feel any less because of it. I also started to realize which tasks I could outsource in order to free up time without giving the tasks away that brought me immense joy.
My Big Aha Moment.
One assignment in particular allowed me to have a big revelation. I had to analyze my skills, strengths and interview several key people in my life and how I had impacted them. After completing this exercise and culminating all of their responses, I wrote the following paragraph:
"I could see myself helping people to gain more insight about themselves and help them get the clarity, confidence and belief that they could achieve and succeed at anything if they really wanted to. I want to inspire people to live a life that ignites them."
Another new opportunity was on the horizon.
I decided to enroll in a life coaching certification program so that I could have the tools to make a greater impact.
Through my certification, I started to understand why I had felt so imbalanced in my own life and why I was carrying around so much mom guilt and how my time management was fundamentally flawed.
Not only was I finally doing something I Ioved, but through life coach training I started to learn about key principles that helped me live a more aligned life. I started to realize why I felt misaligned and why I never felt like I was doing or being enough.
I learned how to allocate my time to focus on things that mattered. I was finally able to define the right balance for me and for my family. I found that I started feeling more energized even though I was doing a lot more than before. I became extremely intentional with my time. I knew where I wanted to focus my time and started learning how to say no more often and building healthy boundaries so that I never short changed myself anymore.
I knew that I wanted to help other moms discover these amazing tools and techniques too. I wanted to help them find the right balance for their lives, to find a way to pursue their free time purposefully and ultimately make sure that they never neglected their needs or ended up at the bottom of their own to do lists.
A Life Coach is Born.
Now, several amazing programs later, I’m a Certified Life Coach and Master Neurolinguistic Practitioner and I’m loving every minute of it!
Today, I am so grateful for the tools I gained in life coach training and for the valuable lessons I learned with my own coaches. You’ll experience a combination of my life coaching skills combined with my prior experience in engineering, project management, teaching and writing all woven together to help serve you better.
Still Finding Time Amidst a Pandemic.
The fundamental principles I learned helped me cope and navigate a global pandemic. I still managed to meet my needs and make sure to make time for myself deven amidst losing all of my support systems and schools having been shut for over a year.
The strategies and tools I learned truly are robust enough to stand even in moments of crisis and chaos. I couldn’t be more grateful that I was equipped with these strategies as well as a great coach in my corner to help me cope and survive (and even thrive) through a pandemic.
I feel aligned with my inner compass.
I can now focus more on the quality of time I have with my kids rather than the quantity of time we spend together. I live a life where I honor what’s most important to me. I know the importance of prioritizing myself which has helped me to make sure I never overlook my needs. I know that I need to take care of myself so that I can take care of my kids and be the best mom I can be.
I feel so lucky to get to help moms learn how to prioritize themselves in order to enjoy their motherhood journey without having to sacrifice their needs.
I love my work as a Life Coach, and every day I’m thankful for the opportunities I have to make a tangible difference in my clients’ lives.
I would love to hear from you! To learn more about how I can help you find more me time and spend it in a fulfilling and purposeful way, click the Work With Me button below or send me an email.
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