Consistency

The more I connect with Moms all around the globe through this space, the more I realize this to be true: every Mom is different, but all Moms have…superpowers!

Parenting is no joke. And Motherhood (which happens to be my perspective on the matte) is nowhere near any walk in any park. Now that I have grown into my new reality as a full-time working Mom, with most of our days relying on relentless time boxing, I know for a fact that plain juggling and decent planning simply won’t cut it. With all that’s at stake every single family day, only magic will do. Or some other kind of Mom-specific superpower!

As Jacqui Zadik vividly colored it in a HuffPost article on Mom-superpowers:

Moms are the chauffeur, event planner/organizer, hairstylist, wardrobe team, personal assistant: constantly changing roles, without even batting an eyelash!

She even has a list of superpowers that go along with Motherhood. Here’s some notable examples cherry picked from the basket only to be commended:

• Bullsh*t Detector. Moms’ ability to tell friends from foe, fiction from fact and excuses from actual impediments in (say) doing one’s homework!

• Eyes All Around the Head (and not just in the back). Cracked heads and smashed china phenomena have been avoided, powered by the ongoing ability of Moms to see three steps ahead even when not in line of sight!

• Our Purses Are Like Clown Cars. Toys. Comic books. Sippy cups. Pinkies. Brainz!

• Dog-like hearing. Put down that toilet paper toddly: I may not be able to see you, but I know for a fact you are just about to throw it in the toilet!

• Kisses Have Healing Powers. Sometimes they even bring down fevers as well!

• Multi-Tasker Extraordinaire.

• Sherlock Holmes. Nothing (and I mean nothing!) goes missing when Mom’s on it. It may have taken me almost a week to find my son’s missing toy horse, but I just couldn’t give up on the sight of him giggling as we clippity clop all around the living room!

• Homework helpers. Or should I say outsources?

• Award-Winning Cuddlers. The Academy would approve.

• Dog-Like Sense of Smell. Installed with a poop-risk auto-detector that penetrates walls to alert on hazardous packaged ready to be dispatched!

• Speaking Toddler-ese (and, thanks to Google, text-ese, for teens)!

• Leftover-Disguising Skills That Could Make Martha Stewart and Julia Child Jealous. Need I say more? We don’t trash good food where I come from, kiddo!

I could go on. The list is practically endless, and each Mom contributes her own two cents of wisdom to the collective intelligence every time this topic is raised. And although I can easily picture myself in many of the aforementioned occasions as I write them down, I dare admit that my own superpower was not cited. I don’t know why I couldn’t find it. Maybe it’s a bit less fun. Maybe it’s not fit for a Meme. Yet it pays huge and (at the end of the day) equally satisfying dividends.

My superpower -in everything I do, in all that I am, in all my goals or roles I’m called in to play in my life, Mother, Wife, Professional, Friend or Daughter- is this: Consistency. I walk my talk. I don’t overpromise and underdeliver. Nor do I undervalue and overcompensate. What you see is what you get from me. I don’t make promises I can’t keep, and what I promise I deliver. My efforts follow a continuum. I pick a focus area (or three) lay down the maps and stick to the bloody plan, until the goal is achieved. Until the milestone is met. Until the port is reached. Every. Single. Time!

I had been familiarizing myself with Consistency for a while now, primarily through my experience in the Business world. After all, this concept plays a lot in professional development themes such as Strategy, Sustainability and Leadership. In an ever-changing world where Customers crave for instant responses from their companies and Employees expect ongoing gratification to remain engaged, working diligently towards building Organizations and Leaders whose presence is Consistent is by far the best bet yet!

On his bestselling book “Connected leadership“, esteemed business thought-leader Dr. Simon Hayward goes on to explore Consistency as a core Leadership and Organizational trait. Leaders now aspire to help forge organisations that are Consistent with their business narrative: what they say is what they do; what happens internally, is in line with what they write in their annual reports; what they promise to their customers is, indeed, delivered. This practice further empowers their organizational competence towards a more agile structure, allowing companies to respond swiftly to changing markets and customer needs, to build trust, and to cope with increasing market complexity and uncertainty.

Meanwhile, back in the home-life, Consistency is slowly -yet steadily- gaining momentum among Parents, as the silver bullet for the new decade! If we believe what we read in articles published in popular Parenting hubs such as Parents.com, Consistency (in terms of structure and routine) is highly commended for providing a confirming and safe way for children to organize and integrate information into their brain, and gain an understanding of how the world works. Kids, therefore, understand the world through repetition and consistency, and when they are able to predict how their morning will go, they feel more secure and -in turn- make better choices! Like companies do!

So, once again, we find ourselves tackling a concept where the setup may appear different at first, yet the experience, skill set and underlying requirements are actually totally… Analogous! I’m not saying that every Mom I know goes with Consistency. What I am saying is that, Moms like me -who swear by Consistency and acknowledge this practice as their mantra and their superpower- aren’t just consistent at home. They are consistent in everything they do.

• Consistent with their nutrition as a way to maintain a healthy living standard.
• Consistent with their exercise routine to keep their physique polished.
• Consistent with their habits (whoever they may be).
• Consistent with their choices (of friends, of experiences, of flavors).
• Consistent with their emotional responses to what’s going on.

As (I feel) my friend Dr.Dweck would undoubtedly agree, Consistency is pivotal to cultivating a growth mindset. Once it grows into you and you learn how to own it, you simply wander how you ever made do without it. It sticks. It’s tough at times, but it’s super powerful. That’s how some of you Mommas out there thrive!

As for you, my dear Recruiter or Hiring Manager, if Consistency is what you seek for in a job role, take a second look at that Mom in your list. Perhaps she has polished her consistency armory in a different setup, still she has more than enough to account for. One thing is certain, though: consistent or not, she surely brings along a superpower, and it’s up to you to figure it out and tailor her professional development around it!

Feeling the Consistency heat, Momma? You got this!

Featured Photo: Mat Brown (Pexels)