I used to say “I don’t have time” like it was a personality trait.

Honestly, it felt true. Between work, kids, school forms, appointments, grocery lists, sports schedules, and trying to remember whether I moved the laundry to the dryer or just imagined that I did…it felt like time was this slippery thing that everyone else seemed to hold onto while mine just ran straight through my fingers.

But here’s the thing I finally had to see for myself:
The problem was never the amount of time.
It was how quickly — and quietly — I handed it away.

Most of us don’t even realize we’re doing it. We were raised, conditioned, and rewarded for it. If motherhood had a handbook (it doesn’t, but if it did), the first chapter would basically say:

“Welcome! Here’s how to give away your time, energy, attention, and sanity. Good luck.”

And we would all nod and highlight it because we’re high achievers, right? We want gold stars. We want to do it “right.” We want to be reliable, capable, caring, available. We want to hold it all together — even when it stretches us past the point of recognizing ourselves.

So we say things like:

“I don’t have time to rest.”
“I don’t have time to think.”
“I don’t have time to breathe.”
“I don’t have time to do something for myself.”

And it makes sense that it feels true. It feels true because it’s familiar.
It feels true because it’s practiced.
It feels true because for most of our lives, we’ve measured our worth by how much we can hold.

But when you start paying attention to your actual days — not the ideal day you fantasize about, not the hot-mess-highlight version you beat yourself up over, but the real one you are actually living — you start noticing something else.

There are pockets of time everywhere.

And once you see them, you can’t unsee them.

I’ll never forget the moment I started realizing this. It wasn’t dramatic. No bolt of lightning. No heavenly choir. I was just scrolling on my phone — endlessly, pointlessly, the way you do when you’re tired but wired and your brain is begging for a moment of escape.

And out of nowhere I thought:
“I had time for this.”

That single sentence hit me like someone gently tapping my shoulder…after I’d been convinced no one even knew I was there.

Because I did have time. Ten minutes here, twelve minutes there, random gaps between tasks where I grabbed my phone like it was oxygen. I wasn’t resting. I wasn’t recharging. I wasn’t enjoying anything. But I had time.

I just wasn’t owning it.

Around that same season, I also started noticing how quickly I said yes to things without even thinking. Committees, favors, helping out “just this once,” adding one more thing to a calendar already packed like a storage unit where nothing else should legally fit.

I said yes automatically because that’s what I’d always done. Habit is powerful. Expectations are even more powerful. But autopilot? Autopilot is the quiet thief of a woman’s time.

When I finally began intentionally spending my time on things that actually mattered to me — not everything that mattered to everyone else — something shifted. A kind of lightness. A kind of breathing room. The mental weight of constant decision-making got smaller. The noise got quieter. There was more space to think, to feel, to be.

And no, this wasn’t because my circumstances got easier. They didn’t.
Work was still work. Kids were still kids. Sports still existed. Laundry still multiplied like it was getting paid to do so.

The shift wasn’t out there.
The shift was in me.

This is the part most moms never get told:
We are not running out of time.
We are running out of permission to hold onto our own time.

Somewhere along the way, we learned that everyone else’s needs come first. That our time is optional. Flexible. Negotiable. The thing we’ll get to someday, maybe, if everything else is handled.

But here’s the truth I want every mom to hear:

Your time is not a leftover.
Your time is not something you earn only after you’ve taken care of everyone else.
Your time already belongs to you.

We just forget that because we’re so practiced at giving it away.

The myth of “I don’t have time” keeps women overwhelmed, overextended, and disconnected from themselves. And it’s not because they’re doing anything wrong — it’s because they’ve been trained for it. They’ve been applauded for it. They’ve been expected to keep doing it long after it stopped working.

But the moment a woman starts reclaiming the minutes and hours that were always hers?
Everything — truly everything — starts to feel different.

She becomes less reactive and more intentional.
She stops running on fumes and starts running on purpose.
She shows up for her life in a way that feels meaningful again.
She remembers who she is outside of the constant doing.

And here’s the beautiful part:
Once a mom starts recognizing where her time is going — where she’s giving it, where she’s losing it, where she’s leaking it — she naturally begins to reclaim it. She starts choosing. She starts deciding. She starts owning.

And when you own your time?

You own your life.

This is exactly why I created Own Your Hours, my group program that helps women finally reclaim the time and energy they’ve been unintentionally giving away for years. Not through pressure. Not through hustle. Not through trying harder.

Through clarity. Through boundaries. Through choosing what matters most.

If you’re ready to shift from feeling stretched thin to feeling anchored, intentional, and in control of your days again, I would love to have you in the program.
We start January 5 — and it is powerful, transformative work.

Join me in Own Your Hours.
Your time is yours. Let’s reclaim it together.

Learn more and register here.