Sick of Disappointing Mother’s Days? 10 Simple Traditions That Can Change Everything (E39)

Mom's Guide to Finding Herself
Written By Mom Identity Project

If you’ve ever ended Mother’s Day feeling more tired than celebrated, you’re not alone.

So many of us go into the day hoping someone will plan something meaningful—only to wind up wiping butts, making meals, or managing other people’s feelings. Again.

That’s why in this post, I’m sharing 10 simple, no-pressure traditions that you can start this year. These aren’t big, complicated plans. They’re tiny, grounding rituals—ways to connect with yourself, reflect on your journey, and finally celebrate Mother’s Day in a way that actually feels like yours.

Redefining Mother’s Day

I haven’t been a mom for decades—just about four years. But that’s all it took for me to realize I didn’t want Mother’s Day to be built on expectations. I didn’t want to keep waiting for someone else to plan something that made me feel seen.

I wanted it to be something I had a hand in building.

That small shift changed everything for me. I started thinking less about what the “perfect” day might look like and more about what would make me feel like me. It wasn’t about scheduling events or hoping for surprises. It was about finding moments I could count on—because I created them.

And that’s what I want to help you do too.

Managing the Mental Load

But let’s be honest: when we decide to take things into our own hands, that often just means adding more to our list. More ideas to come up with. More things to plan. More tabs open in our brain.

As we’ve talked about in episodes 33 and 34 with Dr. Morgan Cutlip, the mental load is real. And Mother’s Day? It’s supposed to be for us, not another task we have to organize.

So I created two simple tools to make this feel lighter, not heavier.

Two Tools to Make This Day Yours (Without the Stress)

1. 25 Creative Ways to Celebrate Mother’s Day Without All the Pressure

This free PDF is packed with quick, realistic ideas you can skim and pick from—no big decisions, no perfection required.
👉 Download it here

2. Mother’s Day Made Simple — Free Custom Chat Bot

This one is so fun. Take a magazine-style quiz and get a personalized Mother’s Day plan in under five minutes—including a ready-to-send wishlist message for your partner.
👉 Try the bot here

Because sometimes all you need is someone (or something) to just hand you the plan.

10 Simple Traditions That Can Change Everything

Here are ten traditions that take minutes—but feel like a gift to yourself.

1. Capture Your Mother’s Day Reflection

Record a 1–2 minute voice memo or jot down a note about where you’re at in motherhood right now. Raw and unfiltered. This becomes a private timeline of your growth.

2. Prioritize Candid Photos

Skip the posed pics. Ask someone to snap a photo of you mid-moment, just being you. Or hand the phone to your kids—it’s wild to see how they see you.

3. Document One Way You’ve Grown

We obsess over our kids’ milestones—what about yours? Write down something you’ve learned, changed, or healed this year. That matters, too.

4. Choose a Tiny Annual Luxury

A donut from your favorite shop. Buying plants. A solo trip to a bookstore. One tiny ritual that’s just yours, repeated every year.

5. Plan a Micro Escape

Even if it’s just 15 minutes alone with your coffee—plan it like it’s non-negotiable. Because it is.

6. Start a Gratitude List (For YOU)

Not about your kids or your family—about you. Who you’re becoming. What you’re proud of. What you’ve carried.

7. Build a Mother’s Day Playlist

Each year, add a song that represents your current season. It becomes a soundtrack of your motherhood story over time.

8. Save a Tiny Object for a Memory Capsule

Start a small box for mementos. A scribbled note. A ticket stub. That one sock you couldn’t bear to toss. The little things are the big things.

9. Write Yourself a Permission Slip

Permission to rest. To feel joy. To not do the dishes. Cut it out, tape it up, use it when you forget that you’re allowed to feel good.

10. Plan a Meal That Feeds You

Not what your family wants. Not what’s expected. What you want. That might mean takeout, a picnic, or three kinds of cake. Go wild.

You don’t have to wait for someone else to make this day special. You don’t have to earn rest or joy or reflection. You don’t have to settle for another year of disappointment.

Mother’s Day can be whatever you want it to be.

And if you’re ready to build in tiny wins like this all year long, I’d love to welcome you into the More Than Mom Community. We’re kicking off a 10-day challenge on May 12 to fight burnout—one powerful micro-moment at a time.
👉 Get on the waitlist here

You deserve more than one good day.
You deserve a life that reminds you—you’re already enough.

Happy Mother’s Day, my friend. You are doing an incredible job.

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For Your Binging Enjoyment…

Mother's Day

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[00:00:00] If you've ever wished that Mother's Day could feel a little more personal, a little more yours, you are definitely not alone. In today's episode, I am sharing 10 tiny traditions that you can start this year. Simple, meaningful ways to honor your journey through motherhood. Even in the middle of all of the chaos, these aren't big complicated plans.

They are little moments that ground you remind you of who you are and make this day feel like something you actually wanna celebrate your way.

I haven't been a mom for very long. It's been about four years now, but in those four years I realized something. I don't want Mother's Day to be about expectations. I don't want it to hinge on whether somebody else [00:01:00] remembered or planned something for me the way that I was hoping that they would.

I want it to feel like something I had a handed building, something small, simple, meaningful things that can become traditions just for me. And once I started thinking about it in that way, not planning a perfect day, but anchoring it in tiny rituals that made me feel like myself, everything shifted. But it's not always as simple as that, right? When we're starting to take things into our own hands, we have to then become the ones that make the list and make the ideas and put them out there. And the mental load, as we talked about in episode 33 and 34 with Dr. Morgan Cutlip. It is exhausting.

We have so much on our mind. So putting Mother's Day on our list is the last thing that we want to do. This is something that's supposed to be about us, not extra work for us. So I sat down and said, how do I make this easier? and then I decided to create two resources for you because I wanna make this as easy for you as possible.

I don't wanna just give you this advice without giving you a [00:02:00] tool that you can use. The first one is a free PDF guide called 25 Creative Ways to Celebrate Mother's Day Without All the pressure. It is packed with tiny, doable ideas that don't require planning a big event or pretending that you are not exhausted.

They are realistic things that you can look at and pick from and decide whether or not these are things that you might like to do. But even that might sound like a little too much work. So I also created a customized chat, GPT chat bot called Mother's Day Made Simple.

This tool is really cool. I am so excited about this. It's customized and it helps you create this. Personalized, ready to share Mother's Day Plan in just a few minutes. So it starts off with a quiz. It's like a 17 magazine type quiz where you pick from multiple choice questions, the things that you might like to do,

and from there it creates a customized plan for a two hour segment of time of things that you might like to do. It creates a full day's worth of ideas that you can sprinkle in throughout your day that would fit the vibe that you chose from your [00:03:00] quiz. And it also creates for you a wishlist email or text that you can literally copy and paste and send to your partner, so that way they know exactly what ideas and things that you would like during your day. So it makes it easier for them to plan something you actually want without you having to do the thinking.

All you have to do is answer a couple questions, like multiple choice questions, give it some feedback about what sounds fun and what doesn't sound fun, and it's going to put it all there for you ready to go so you can create this day for yourself without having to sit down and have it be another party of your mental load.

Like this takes five minutes. I am so excited to share these resources with you and hear what you think about them, because I like, I had this creative burst of energy and put it together and my soul is so filled from making them.

So I really truly hope that you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making them. And then today's episode, I'm also going to give you. 10 of my favorite tiny little traditions that [00:04:00] you can start building into your Mother's Day. These are simple ways to honor who you are and the journey that you're on, and you don't need anyone's permission to start them.

They're just little things you can build in. They don't take a lot of planning. They don't take a lot of time. It's about anchoring yourself and your life and not chasing someone else's version of a perfect day. These are things that are gonna make it your perfect day. So the first one is capturing your Mother's Day reflection.

Maybe it's a voice memo or maybe it's a note in a notepad or a journal. Just take two minutes. To record what your life in motherhood is like right now. Put down the messy and the honest thoughts about what your mothering is like in this moment in time. And before you know it, you're going to have a private timeline of your growth over the years, and it's just gonna be a really special thing to look back on.

Right? And maybe you're. Note right now is just a two minute voice memo or maybe even 32nd voice memo of mothering is hard right now. I am doing the best I can. And then later on you're gonna look back and you're [00:05:00] gonna sigh your future. You is gonna give yourself some grace that you'd so desperately need, but no matter what, even if it doesn't sound perfect and polished, it's by you for you.

So it doesn't have to be anything. And if even the idea of like. Coming up with what to say sounds stressful. You can use the Mother's Day made simple GPT, and it will give you some easy prompts that you can use to get started, right? You don't have to overthink it, just record your real life. Another idea number two is.

Prioritizing taking candid photos or asking someone else to take candid photos, right? I'm not talking about the posing and the prepping, because that usually ends up as a disaster or some sort of disappointment. So maybe you are taking candid photos of your kids and your family throughout the day, but you can also ask your partner to be intentional about taking candid photos of you by yourself or you with the kids,

moments that they see you in your element, that they see the joy coming out and even asking your kids to take the pictures. It's so amazing to see what our kids think of us through a [00:06:00] photographic lens. The third idea I have here is writing down one way that you've grown this year.

We take a lot of time to record the milestones that our children go through because they're. Pretty obvious and they go pretty quickly, right? Sometimes it's speech or gross motor or social skills that they're developing. But what about us? We are learning how to parent. We are learning how to be a human throughout all this time.

We're still doing this for our first time too, and we grow and change so much each year too. So think about what are the things that you've learned that make you proud? Write it down, celebrate it. How have you changed? How are you showing up for yourself differently this year?

How are you showing up for your kids differently this year? Maybe you've made a shift in your parenting that you think makes a difference, or maybe you've adopted a personal habit that you know is really effective for you. Celebrate it. Take the time to celebrate your growth. Number four, choose a tiny luxury that you're going to repeat every year.

Now, I don't mean going out and buying something expensive, like maybe you're going to get a special treat that you absolutely love every [00:07:00] single year from the same coffee shop, right? Maybe it's that specific bagel or a specific kind of donut that you go every year or maybe go to a bookshop. That you love a tiny bookshop that you never go to and buy yourself a book or just sit and read.

You don't have to buy anything. You could just be there. You could just make it a part of something. Or maybe it's like a walk in a special location that you never get a chance to go to build in those tiny things. I know on Mother's Day, every year I go and buy my plants for the year because of where I am in New Hampshire.

That's a good time for planting. So I go and get my flowers on Mother's Day. Number five, plan a micro escape. Right? Even if it's just 15 minutes, just give yourself some breathing room. Plan it into your day. Make sure that you don't skip this. Number six, start a gratitude list for yourself. Take a moment to write down all of the things that you are grateful for. Maybe it's you're grateful for who you're becoming, not just the things that you're doing, or maybe it is some of the things that you're doing. Maybe you're grateful [00:08:00] for the things in your life, or some of the supports and people that are in your life.

Take that time to reflect on everything else around you as well. Number seven, add a song to a Mother's Day playlist. Pick an anthem every year. Build a playlist that mirrors your motherhood story over a time. What are the songs that are meaningful for you right now in your motherhood journey? And start adding to it.

Maybe it's a special song you dance with with your kids, or maybe it's a song that really speaks to your soul or lights you up. Put it on a list and then one day you're going to have this really long list of songs that have shown your motherhood journey over time.

Number eight. Save a tiny object for a memory capsule. This one's so cute because I don't know about you, but I have things like everywhere that I've been saving and I don't know what to do with them. So if you go and you get like a special box, your specific Mother's Day mom memory capsule, you're going to get rid of some of the clutter and you're gonna have a special place to put it.

And remember, it's not about the size of the memory, it's about marking it. So maybe it's a place to put in the ticket stubs or the receipts from a [00:09:00] special dinner or that one special shirt that your child grew out of, that you just can't get yourself to get rid of. This is a really great place to start building those memories and having an intentional spot for them.

Number nine. Go back old fashioned and make yourself a coupon book, except it's more of like a permission slip book. So give yourself permission to rest, permission to dream, permission to be proud of yourself and keep those make physical slips. And when you see yourself starting to spiral. Literally cut out one of those coupons and save it for yourself.

Let it be an anchor for yourself to come back to. And then number 10. You can go to the brunch if you want. You could go out to the lunch, you could pick the dinner, you can pick out whatever special meal you might wanna have, or. Multiple meals. I mean, you can pick out every single meal of the day.

You could go out with your friends, you could go out with your own mother, you could go out with your children. It can [00:10:00] be whatever you want it to be, but food is a really great way to celebrate. So maybe it's planning just takeout or the meals that you're making at home that bring you joy.

It doesn't have to be anything fancy. You don't have to be making the reservations. But you can. You can do whatever you want. So just give yourself that permission to live the Mother's Day. You want to live. You don't have to go to the brunch, but you can. You can say no to the brunch too. If you're being invited to a brunch that doesn't sound fun to you, give yourself permission to say no and do something else instead.

Now, these are just a few ideas of things that you could start to build into your day. Maybe some of them speak to you maybe some of them don't Remember, mother's Day is yours. It's however you want it to be. But if you are looking for more ideas like these, you can grab that free 25 Creative Ways to Celebrate Mother's Day Guide that I have linked down here in the show notes.

And if you wanna make it a little more customized, a little more cut and paste with ideas that are gonna be custom made for you, go ahead and grab that custom GPT Mother's Day Made [00:11:00] Simple. I made it for you. It's like having a. Friend to sit down with you and help you name the things that you're craving and hand you this ready to go wishlist that you can actually use.

And if you are feeling that craving for small, tiny wins all year long, come join us inside. The more the mom community, we are kicking off on May 12th with a 10 day challenge designed to help fight off burnout. One tiny powerful moment at a time with a group of moms that are there to cheer you on.

I have a link to the wait list inside of the show notes that's going to give you access to 50% off of the membership cost for the life of your membership.

I would love to have you be a part of this. You deserve more than just one perfect Mother's Day. You deserve a life where tiny moments and moments that you've built for yourself remind you that you are already enough. I am so proud of you for being here.

Happy Mother's Day, my friend, and remember, you are an amazing mom, just the way you are.

In case you missed it. I just celebrated my 40th birthday, which got me thinking do birthdays [00:12:00] as moms. Just feel like another Tuesday. It's weird. Right? In the next episode, we're going to talk about why we often feel forgotten on our special day, and more importantly, how we can take back the joy of celebrating ourselves.

Until then, take a moment for yourself and remember, you are an amazing mom just as you are.

Mom Identity Project https://momidentityproject.com
Next

3 Insider Secrets to Avoiding Burnout in Motherhood with Michelle Grosser (E38)