Most people would probably tell you that starting your first business with a newborn baby might not be the best idea — but that’s exactly where I found myself in 2010.
In that way, motherhood and entrepreneurship have always gone hand-in-hand for me — and whilst it hasn’t always been easy — these invaluable lessons I’ve learned from life as a mom have taught me so much about myself and how I want to show up for my family and my clients.
- Set your goals based on the life YOU want — not someone else’s
In the age of social media, it’s so easy to fall into the trap of basing your life goals on someone else’s version of success rather than your own. We’re especially vulnerable to this when we’re super committed to bringing the future we dream of for our families into reality. To put it simply — when we want it bad.
This takes me back to the days in my first business when I opened my boutique. I’d imagined what it would feel like to be an entrepreneur for so long. The time flexibility, lifestyle freedom and travel plans — I couldn’t wait.
Except — it didn’t really turn out that way.
Looking back, I can see that even though I’d followed the cookie cutter version of retail success, it didn’t feel like successful for me — because a bricks and mortar store could never have given me the independence I was craving.
From this, I learned that goal-setting is meaningless if they aren’t in alignment with YOU. Having my daughter made this crystal clear to me, and having her by my side helps me stay super close to my ‘why’ in every single decision I make to this day in my business coaching practice.
- Resilience, resilience, resilience
All new moms will agree when I say that motherhood can sometimes feel like Groundhog Day — but over the years, it’s taught me that no day is ever truly the same.
Just like entrepreneurship, whenever you feel like you’ve got something nailed in mom life, another challenge will come up to test you. Everything’s a phase — constantly changing and evolving — and it’s all about learning to roll with it.
For me, the key lay in working on my mindset. Without that, there’s no way I would ever have learned how to pick myself up, dust myself off and carry on moving forward as well as I have.
If you’re new to mastering your mindset, I always advise that gratitude is the best place to start. When you’re grateful for everything — and yes, I mean everything — you start looking for the lessons each day. All experiences — successes and challenges — have something to teach us if we open our minds to them.
This curiosity and willingness to learn from the ebbs and flows of life is where true growth and momentum comes from — and you’ll soon see the quantum leaps forward in your life and business if you make this a regular practice.
- Perfect the art of time management
I know, I know. You’re already wondering how you ended up in another essay on time management — but hear me out.
As effective as they can be, this isn’t where I’m going to start teaching you about time blocking, monk mode or batching your tasks. Yes, they work — but they aren’t what helped me to take care of my daughter and run my business without being consumed by mom guilt.
I’m talking about how to prioritize your time. I learned how to decide which tasks were essential, and which could wait. I let go of the pressure that I could have put on myself to try and get everything done in a day and released the guilt that could have come with it.
The trick is to become super aware of the activity that will drive your business forward, and which won’t. That way, at the end of each week, you won’t be caught up in the disappointment that comes with feeling like you’ve worked yourself into the ground with nothing to show for it — and you won’t have missed out on any time with your little ones either.
Cut to now…
Almost ten years later, the lessons are still coming.
My daughter is fast-becoming a vibrant little soul, and her hobbies mean we still have extremely busy lives — but I take all of that in my stride.
This life is for living — and being her mom and running my business has taught my how to do it on my terms.
Photo by Daria Obymaha from Pexels