Post written by Sherri Kruger. Follow me on Twitter.

I’m going to come out and say it: Being a stay at home mom is hard.

I say this not for sympathy, pity or to commiserate but as a statement of fact. There are days where I feel like supermom and I get an incredible amount of “stuff” done. Occasionally I have days where I don’t do a darn thing. If I’m not careful these days can extend into two days or three days or even a whole week. It’s at this point that I think “Wow if this was my job I wouldn’t keep me around!”

Being a stay at home mom is the ultimate self-employment gig of course without the pay check or health benefits.

Being self employed is tough and it takes the right kind of person to successfully pull it off. You need discipline to stick to deadlines since almost all are self imposed, you must set your own standards and live up to them, your time is yours to manage and if you don’t do something there’s no one there to cover for you.

I know I’m not alone in this. There are days when I am just completely exhausted. No excuses beyond that I’m just tired. It’s on these days that I force myself to re-group, re-focus and re-evaluate.

What is your role?

Take a few minutes to think about what your responsibilities are in your role, be it a stay at home parent or other wise. For me it includes the following:

• General house keeping
• Meal planning and preparation
• Child care
• Teaching my kids

Four points that’s it? … anyway.

Once you’ve listed out your duties, much like on a job description in, dare I say, the real world evaluate where you are.

Revisit your goals. What did you think you would accomplish in this role? Are you still on track? Have you slipped a little? Are you not living up to your own or mutually agreed upon expectations?

What’s going really well? What do you enjoy doing more than you initially thought you might? This may help you get a clear picture of what you’ve done, what direction you’re headed and if what you are actually doing is in line with the role you’ve taken on.

Get help when you need it. What do you need to be successful in this new role? Is there software, notebooks, or reference materials that could help? Remember that people are a fabulous resource as well. Seek out people who have been there before, who have built on or expanded an idea that can help you out. There’s no point in reinventing the wheel.

Now ask yourself based on all of the things you’ve listed out and had a chance to examine, would you fire you?

It may come across a bit harsh but look at it objectively. If I hired a house keeper, a personal chef and a nanny, looking at the state of my house right this very second would I fire any of them? Likely the housekeeper. :) Other days it would be the chef and on the rare occasion I would fire the nanny.

I like this little exercise because it gives me a chance to see what’s not working, where I may need a bit of help or inspiration, and where I need to pick up my game. My warning on all of this is to not be too hard on yourself. Life ebbs and flows. So while you may be rocking one aspect of your life another may not be so stellar. That’s okay. Go with it and check in occasionally.

Finally, celebrate. Celebrate your victories no matter how small. So you haven’t accomplished all you’ve set out to do. So what? Maybe you’ve finished some small yet significant task. Celebrate!