Getting to know yourself again after having a child can be tricky. 

It can be a long, hard slog and many women find themselves caught between missing some of the simplicity of their before life and pure joy at the exciting years ahead. And what makes it all the more complicated is that there isn't any one way to be a mother. We have so many choices available to us today, and with that can come a haze of confusion.

It took me a while to work out who I was after having my daughter. I was stuck in the fog of post-birth trauma and depression for quite a long time, and when that finally lifted: BOOM! The pandemic arrived. Every plan I had crafted for my daughter's first year went out of the window, along with the plans of millions of others, and everyday life was stripped back to basics. I had a lot of time to myself to think about who I was in that moment, who I was in relation to my husband and my daughter, and who I wanted to be.

For a long time, I was content just being mummy. The Giver of Cuddles, the Dryer of Tears, the Middle-of-the-Night Comfort Blanket. But after my daughter turned one and I didn't return to my previous career, I started to crave more. And that craving was a little difficult to decipher to begin with because it took the form of a vaporous cloud rather than neat little bullet points in a journal. I just wanted something more. More for me, the mum, and more for me, the woman. I needed a plan, and I needed a purpose that was just mine, that had nothing to do with my daughter or my husband.

So the planning began, and is still going on. I have ideas, some practical and some not, but in working out where I want to be I'm finding a new sense of self and discovering parts of me that I want to pay much more attention to. That feeling of drifting, rudderless, has dissipated and now I'm goal-oriented and getting so much pleasure from just living in the moment and thinking about what the future could hold.

So if, like me, you felt totally at sea and needed something to anchor yourself to, here are some suggestions to start with:

Strip it all back. What do you want from life? What do you want for yourself, for your baby, for your family? And how can you tie it all together?

Make a five-year plan. Made one before the baby came? Great. Do it again, and compare it to your first. What's changed? What's stayed the same? This will help guide you towards a new focus. 

We can't forget about finances. If you've gone back to work happily, that's great. If not, how do you plan to earn a living? What skills do you have that you could make use of? Do you want to find new employment, start a business, become self-employed? Or do you want to think about that later, and focus on being at home with your baby? There are no wrong answers here. 

Make a list of goals. Try making some for the next six months, the next twelve months, and the next three years. Make them achievable, so start with something small so you have the gratification of ticking it off. Then go bigger from there. And, I dare you, put something totally wild on there. Want to run 5k? Put a marathon on your three-year plan. There's nothing holding you back from reaching for the stars.

Cut your hair. Hear me out: this will give you a new sense of self. If there's a style of colour that you've been desperate to try, why not try it? I cut about a foot off my hair three months after my baby was born and donated it to the Little Princess Trust and on New Year's Eve I dyed it pink on a total whim: both have combined to make me the happiest I've been with my hair in years. So dare to do it, or dare to have a bit of a trim. Either way, you'll feel good and all mums need a bit of pampering.

Follow your passion. You don't have to make a career out of your favourite hobby. Some schools of thought suggest not doing that as it can take away some of the fun and enjoyment if it's all about the money. But I believe that if you love what you do, it doesn't feel like work and you don't mind pushing yourself to the best of your abilities. For me, my future career has to combine both passion and practicality. 

For me, it’s all about balance.

The balance between me, the mother, and me, the woman. Having a child turns your world upside down, and when it finally rights itself again there are things that will never be the same. But that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. For many mothers, having a child is the start of something new in a million ways. And there’s no time like the present, so let’s make it count.