Mum, What Do You Do When Dropping a Ball Isn’t an Option?

You know that feeling when there is too much on your plate, but you can’t let go of anything? So you keep pushing through, hoping you’ll somehow make it all work. Often you do, but at what cost? And sometimes you don’t, because you are simply too exhausted to keep everything together.

Personally, I’ve often pushed until the last minute, only to realise that I should have let something go much earlier. At work, I’ve spent hours collecting extra data for a presentation when it was absolutely unnecessary. As a result, I found myself anxiously putting together my PowerPoint late at night. If I had let go of the idea that I needed to show new research results sooner, I could have approached the presentation with a much clearer mind.

The same thing happens in mum life: think about the cake you baked at 2 am instead of getting one from the bakery or the event you volunteered for when your day was already full... In this blog, I want to come back to the analogy of glass and plastic balls to explore how we set priorities, and whether there is a better way for mums to juggle it all.

The plastic and glass ball analogy applied to mum life

Imagine that all your responsibilities (work, family, household management, health, friendships) are balls that you’re juggling. These balls are made of either glass or plastic. If a glass ball is dropped, it can crack or shatter, and the damage may be very difficult to repair. These balls represent the most critical aspects of your life: if you neglect them, the consequences can be long-lasting or even irreversible. By contrast, if a plastic ball is dropped, it will bounce back or roll away without major consequences. These balls represent tasks or responsibilities that might seem important but can be postponed, delegated, or even fully dropped without anything falling apart.

So, how do you apply this analogy to your own life? If you’ve decided to prioritise your kids over work, does that make work a plastic ball and your kids a glass one? Well… yes and no. You might not want to let work eat into family time, but if you lose your job, that’s a problem, isn’t it?

The analogy becomes much more useful when you apply it to individual tasks rather than whole areas of your life. For instance, replying to work emails in general might be a plastic ball, but getting back to your boss promptly about a specific high-stakes project might suddenly become a glass ball. The same applies to your children. Making space for at least 10 minutes of fully present one-on-one time with them each day might be a glass ball, while spending hours sewing the perfect Book Week costume might be a plastic ball.

Of course, these are only examples. You are the only one who can judge which balls are made of glass and which are made of plastic in your particular situation. And what counts as glass or plastic will look different for every mum (and may even change from one week to the next).

What happens when mums try to keep all the balls in the air?

Usually, when we refuse to drop any ball, the glass ones are the first to hit the floor.

What I’ve observed is that mums rarely drop the balls related to their children or work. At the same time, they try to keep countless others in the air: a tidy house, balanced home-cooked meals, ageing parents to care for, friends to check in on, school volunteering, and so on. So which balls end up being dropped instead? Very often, it is self-care and quality time with partner. But that’s counterintuitive, isn’t it? Shouldn’t your health and your relationship be among the glass balls?

Let’s look again at what we mean by a plastic ball: something you can drop without serious consequences and pick up again later. And yes, if you miss one workout, it’s no big deal, you can exercise tomorrow. But what happens when you keep skipping workouts so you can keep everything else in the air? Over time, your health may start to crack, because it is a glass ball after all. At first, those hairline cracks may be so small that you barely notice them. But if the same ball keeps being dropped, the cracks can deepen until the damage becomes much harder to ignore.

That’s why glass balls like your health need some level of ongoing protection. One way to do this is to decide on a minimum you’re not willing to compromise on, even when you have a lot on your plate. That might mean protecting a certain amount of sleep, some daily movement, or a little time to unwind. For instance, you might normally aim for three workout sessions a week, but when work becomes exceptionally busy, your minimum might be one.

Another way to look at this would be: before you take on any new ball, assess whether it will force you to drop a glass ball. For instance, let’s say you’ve been asked to volunteer at your child’s school fete. The question isn’t only whether you can find space for it in your calendar. Consider what saying yes will cost you: your time to recharge that weekend, a late night catching up on work, or a date with your partner that gets pushed aside? As Nina Holle beautifully said,

“Our best is what we can do without harming our physical and mental health. Not what we can do by disregarding them.”

Why it is important for mums to drop plastic balls early?

I thought a personal story might illustrate this point best. The inspiration for this blog came a couple of months ago, when I had to remind myself of the glass and plastic ball analogy and apply it to my own life.

I had decided that I was going to hold my first webinar. I had even set the date, chosen the topic and main message, and started creating a sign-up page. I had one month to prepare, which felt like more than enough time. However, I also had the full draft of my Honours thesis to write (even if it wasn’t due until the end of the following month) and of course, my family to take care of, among other glass balls.

And then it hit me: the webinar was a plastic ball, and it could wait a few more months. Delivering the webinar would have meant postponing my thesis writing, which was a glass ball. More importantly, it would also have meant skipping a few workouts, sacrificing downtime, spending less quality time with my husband, and declining coffee catch-ups with friends. From that perspective, dropping the webinar ball didn’t feel like giving up, it felt like protecting what mattered more.

The old me would not have given up so easily, because dropping the webinar ball meant delaying the growth of my business. Surely I should have been able to keep that ball in the air? I can imagine how it would have unfolded: I would have started putting together slides and advertising the webinar, and as the date approached, I would have panicked because the presentation would not have been polished enough for my perfectionist self. I’m almost sure I would eventually have postponed it, which means I would have dropped the ball anyway.

The difference is that the old me would have waited until I felt completely overwhelmed before dropping it. As long as there was still a chance that plastic ball could stay in the air, I would have felt that I should keep trying. This time, I was able to say, “It’s not worth it.” I decided that I would rather give myself the time and space to work on my thesis and keep my wellbeing ball in the air. By extension, that also helped protect my family and relationship glass balls, because they didn’t have to put up with a grumpy mummy who was so exhausted that she didn’t have an ounce of patience left.

A few takeaways

Balls are never easy to drop, even the plastic ones. There is always a part of us that wants to keep them in the air. Here are a few questions you can use as a framework to decide whether something is safe to let go of:

• What happens if I don’t do this today, and does this actually need to be done? For many mums, postponing a task is not always helpful, because it simply moves to tomorrow’s list and adds to the overwhelm. So ask yourself whether something can wait, but also ask whether it really needs to be done in the first place. What if you skipped the grocery shop for that missing ingredient and ordered takeaway instead? What if you cancelled the family outing nobody really wanted to go on? What if you left the beds unmade?

• Can it be done less perfectly? This is my favourite one. Completely dropping a ball can sometimes feel unrealistic, but can we keep it just above the ground instead of trying to hold it high in the air? Maybe you do want to organise playdates for your child, but only once a month instead of every week. Or perhaps you can keep the house tidy enough while allowing a few messy corners.

• What am I sacrificing in order to keep this ball in the air? In my opinion, this is the most important question. Mums can be very quick to sacrifice their own health and wellbeing in order to keep everyone else’s balls in the air. Remember this: if your family is a glass ball, your health needs to be one too. You cannot take care of the people you love if you are falling apart.

In summary, the earlier you identify a plastic ball, the less energy you waste trying to keep it in the air. That leaves you with more time and attention for your glass balls. Protecting your own glass balls also helps you show up for the people you love.