The Covid-19 lockdown in New Zealand has been making me think lately – maybe too much. I decided to write a blog on how to juggle motherhood and business. This has been brewing for a while, like one of those super dark cups of tea that have been keeping me going recently. I haven’t felt myself – probably lower in mood than usual – but it brings up how I’ve felt in the past about my business and motherhood together. Both of these things are extremely rewarding – but can also be like hanging on to a crazy ride.
Motherhood | How to juggle motherhood and business!
Motherhood is a roller coaster. No one tells you this. I think in the old days (I’m thinking my own childhood in the 1980s) things were a bit slower. Don’t get me wrong, my Mum worked like a Trojan. She did the cooking, cleaning, ran a whole lifestyle block and raised kids. But she didn’t work in paid employment with a boss looking over her shoulder. She also didn’t have a business or side hustle (as people now seem to call small businesses).
She didn’t go anywhere either so there wasn’t this busy busy feeling she had overwhelming her. Her life wasn’t easy in other ways. She didn’t have a car, or a telephone when I was a small child and was was sitting daily in the middle of this 10 acre lifestyle block with a newborn and no way out but on foot. What if I choked? She would have had to run down the driveway to the neighbours about 500 metres away and pray they were home that day.
No rush!
The downfall of this period in time was that communication wasn’t as good and you just had to tough it out on your own if you lived rurally. However no one rushed and there was a slight juggle of a few daily and repetitive tasks – but not the horrific juggling act that goes on these days with a lot of mothers. I can’t say its fully self inflicted either – everywhere you go are new demands on mothers. The school wants you there all the time if you can. There are multiple social functions and things to remember on a daily basis. Arghhh!!!! I often forget things – often. There are too many things for my brain to cope with.
Imagine the juggling act!
Can you imagine a current day mother juggling the following: a photography business (imagine a camera being juggled above my head), three children skipping from hand to hand, a husband that needs feeding (see chicken legs flying up and down), a rental property (a bunch of keys), a part time job at the University (big wad of paper going up and down), the dance school (pair of shoes), a chicken and three guinea pigs (ug!), the school that needs a costume made for muffty day (sewing machine, up and down), two other schools (how did I end up with three separate schools), and finally this darn phone of mine that keeps pinging me! The chicken has now died (poor Freckle) and I quit the part time office job, so this helped a bit. Just how do you juggle motherhood and business!!
Should I throw the phone in the rubbish? | how to juggle motherhood and business!
I could choose to throw the phone in the rubbish, but that is where the calls and emails come for my business. My business has a load of juggling in itself – I’m the accountant doing the tax, I’m the marketing guru (or not), I’m the social media expert, the stylist, the hairdresser (curling a little girls scraggly hair), the dressmaker for costumes, and don’t forget I take some photos somewhere in there.
I’m not complaining, I LOVE, my business.
What I’m trying to talk about is how to juggle motherhood and business. Can it be done?
Of course it can!
However you have to be prepared for a lot of tears and mess in the early days and even later on. You have to be prepared for not being able to cope a lot of the time. Chuck in a “mild mental illness” now and again triggered by the chaos. Throw in a child not being able to read who reduces your business to nothing for six months because you have to sacrifice moving the business forward temporarily for his sake. It seems that you can have a business, but you take two steps forward and one step back constantly. This is MY experience.
Feeding young minds
Others will have a totally different experience. My kids are pretty easy kids really, but they have very inquiring minds and I don’t want to neglect those minds. I feed these minds constantly with new and exciting stuff, because that’s the way my own brain is wired and that’s what I feel I have to do, constantly. It feels right to me and these times have been some of the best of my life. Plus these times won’t last forever and my kids will be gone and I’ll have oodles of time, but none of those early days will come back.
An Adventurous son!
My son is into biking and fossils, so we go on hours of fossil hunting trips and bike rides. I love it too. But it doesn’t feed my business, it feeds my child’s mind and emotions. This is my choice. These are the times I wonder how to juggle motherhood and business. This wonderful child of mine needs his mother. Whenever I’ve neglected him, even just for a short time, he starts saying he is dumb and stupid. Whenever I take him out on adventures, he gets his confidence back.
I CAN not and WILL not sacrifice my child’s wellbeing for a business at this stage. So my business ticks along in the background and sometimes makes leaps forwards and then sometimes steps back again when it has to. My main problem is remembering why my business is a slow burning beast – that the children always come first in my world and the business second.
A rollercoaster ride | how to juggle motherhood and business
Business is also a roller coaster on top of motherhood. I don’t really like rollercoasters, they hurt my head and make me nearly pass out and I have a photo to prove. One time I went down the most giant rollercoaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain near LA and it was not pleasant.
Two rollercoasters
For some reason I’ve taken on two roller coasters in my life. Why you ask? Because it’s darn scary and I love to be scared, by jumping out of a plane or rock climbing or things like having a business and motherhood. The gains you get in your life and the insights you have from these things are totally AMAZING! I have learnt what I’m good at and what I’m not good at. Then I choose to either upskill or accept that’s the way it is. If I’d stayed fulltime in an office job with no children or business, I would have died inside. Sometimes it’s better to choose to live and be daring!
Business isn’t always easy!
My own mind is often distracted by shiny things. My business coach picked this up straight away. A new shiny prop. A new method of marketing or business that just might work. When I try it and it fails, then I blame myself and give up for a while, up and down, up and down like a very fast and crazy rollercoaster. But then I get a zest for my business again. Often it will be a random booking by some random person that fires me up again. Maybe it is the Iris awards – I win something, and think I’m the best photographer in town for a while.
I keep telling myself I need to keep my emotions on an even keel. I’ve managed it in some areas now. I finally realise how things work, in a more scientific manner. There is a formula and you have to follow it. But other parts of the business are very fluid and constantly changing and can foil even the most business savvy person.
Marketing. I bomb a LOT!
I’ve learnt over the years that it’s just because I don’t have my brand built in a solid way where other’s do have a solid brand. I could do the exact same marketing as a friend of mine and their marketing works and mine doesn’t, but it’s because they’ve built a brand and have a massive following. I don’t yet. I’m working on it but it’s only been a year really that I’ve had a strong style and message coming through – all thanks to my business coach. And it’s only been about a month of constant posting on social media after learning a new trick last month. When I talk of how to juggle motherhood and business it all stems around having the headspace and time to learn new things.
Thanks to my business coach, I’m now all about art work on walls and making your house amazing with creative and original portraiture. Before that, I was just about taking some nice photos. This new and improved message on my website has attracted one or two amazing clients who get what I do and I’ve LOVED these people. They may not realise just how much they’ve made me happy! I just need ten more of these people per year and I’ll be humming!
My final point
My final quip is that one day all my input into my wonderful children might help them to support their parents in old age. Maybe they will actually come and visit me and give me a hug. Maybe we will still walk on the beach and find fossils. Then I will know it’s been totally worth it to not push my business to the max right now.
Anyway my top tips for how to juggle motherhood and business are:
-
Family support, family support and more family support.
- If you don’t have this, it’s going to take you a LOT longer to get the business moving forward. This also includes family just saying how well you are doing and “keep it up.” Business is hard enough without children in the mix, but if you have supportive people around you, you will move forward.
- It helps if you have a family member who has had a successful business. I don’t have that. However I’m not letting it stop me. I was the first person in my family to get a University degree and the first to start a business. I’m a trail blazer, but with that means a LOT of learning on my own.
-
Change their thinking
- If you don’t have that support, then demand it, over several years. Tell people you need their support and that this is not a business you are going to ever give up, so they’d better get used to it. Ask them why they can’t support you. It might be a money thing – they can’t see the money coming in yet, so they think the business is worthless pursuing. Or it could be they didn’t have the same get up and go themselves to have their own business or had their own business failures and are unconsciously holding you back because they couldn’t do it themselves. Or it just might be that they find watching you swimming against the tide too exhausting – they want to see you happy and maybe the business isn’t making you happy 100% of the time – so they see it as evil to the family. As I said, this whole journey is a roller coaster and some people won’t understand that unless they’ve been there themselves.
- You need to change their thinking – but it might take several years. Some families go a step further and help in the actual business or do a ton of babysitting. It’s much nicer to think a family member has your back and your children, than a childcare centre. Some of the most successful business people I know have HUGE family support behind them with multiple family members helping in the business.
-
Chip away at the old block – keep at it.
- It might take you ten years, until the children are grown up, but that doesn’t matter. You are learning all the time and gaining knowledge without really realising. In ten years you will look back and go, woah, I was a terrible businesswoman back then. It pays to chip, chip, chip, so you don’t erode other things like your relationship with your partner or husband, or let your teenage children get terrible druggy friends while you have your head in your business. You have to learn how to juggle motherhood and business in a way that works for your whole family, not just for you. You took on motherhood so you do have to own it. This can look like different things to different people.
-
Save money where you can.
- The money you sink into your business doesn’t necessarily equate to a better business. Sometimes it’s just working smarter on the little money you have, in order to make more money. You have to start somewhere, you need basic equipment (in my case a camera), you need a business card, possibly. But sometimes cheap is good enough. Social media is free. You can listen to others in business who are further ahead of you, they may have the latest swanky stuff and have paid thousands for an amazing website, but it doesn’t mean it’s right for you at the early stages. Yes, you want to look very professional to clients but there are ways to do this without costing you an arm and a leg. Remember you are running a family as well, and that costs a LOT of money.
- Often clients will appreciate your creativity in your business in order to run cheaply. I used to go to a passport photographer who ran out of a garage and had old shop dummies in his windows and crazy hand made signs. I LOVED that guy and his crazy personality!
- For me my website and logo was made by a student and cost me very little. She took 10 months to finish it which was a long time but it still looks wonderful to me. I’ve now up-skilled my website editing and SEO skills to make it a kick arse website – but she got the template right in the early days and I am so grateful to her. And it cost me a tenth of what some other people pay!!!
-
Don’t compare yourself to others with kids.
- I’ve done this a LOT. But everyone has different support networks behind them. Some have SOOOO much support they are literally floating on air. Others don’t have any support, a horrific illness which stops them from doing much, are a single parent with no family in the same town, have no money to put into the business – they are literally heroines even thinking about having a business. Most people are somewhere in-between, but we are all at different stages and have different circumstances.
- Some people you think are geniuses in their business, but they have a whole network of brains behind them, or they were an A grade student in their University marketing degree – a bright cookie. Hmmm, yes they are geniuses!! Not all of us are fast on the uptake or that well supported. You have to find out how to juggle motherhood and business using what you have at the time, and it might not be a lot!
- Don’t put people on pedestals. You don’t know what their struggles are. Some people hide them well. I’ve talked to a couple of photographers who have said the lockdown has been a huge relief – that they can now spend quality time with their kids. Online they might look like the boss, juggling everything so well, but in reality they may not be coping as well as it appears.
-
Don’t compare yourself to those who have no kids.
- This is a sure fire way to go into a fit of depression. Remember what your life was like before kids? Totally different with so much time you didn’t know what to do with it!! You literally wasted time! Now you have kids, you have less time but also lots of fun hopefully! Some people, all they do is run a business. They have no hobbies, no house, no partner, no kids – just themselves and their business. And they love it. It’s so true that what you feed, you grow. What you pay attention to is what thrives in your life. These people have full attention on their business 100% of the time. You can’t compare yourself! No way! Don’t do it! They don’t even have to learn how to juggle motherhood and business – they may not even have the word “juggle” in their vocabulary!
-
You may run your family different to others and that’s ok. | how to juggle motherhood and business
- Are you the mother who relies on after school care and babysitters in order to run your business? There is nothing wrong with that – you will have more time to move forward and earn for the family. But please don’t feel guilty for not being there as much for the children. This is the worst thing you can do for your mental health!
- Then there is the mother that wants to be hands on, may have demand fed their baby and just can’t let their child go into after school care. That is actually ok too!!! You have to do what aligns with your own morals and beliefs.
- For me, this is the main reason I haven’t moved my business forward as much as I would like, because I spend SOOO much quality time with my children. The main problem is accepting that this WILL slow down your business and to take a chill pill and realise that there WILL be a time for you and your business to fully thrive, but maybe not right now. It might be in another ten years – accept this and you will do a lot better mentally and emotionally. Society has HUGE expectations of us these days and we are told we can do it all, but the reality is that this is challenging to be able to do and have it all! Having your cake and eating it too can be done in some cases, I fully believe that – but for many people this is not the case.
-
Get systems in place and stick to them
- If you have solid systems in place it can cut down the time you are spending on tasks so that you can get more clients in or spend more time on marketing or more time with your kids, you choose. This should move your business forward faster. In the photography business there are those that spend a LOT of time on editing and those who get it right in camera and do a quick Lightroom edit over all the photos in a batch, then show the photos right then and there to the clients and do the sales session and get them out the door. This saves so much time and means freedom and more time with your kids! You are not up until 3am editing photos! This is probably the biggest lesson on how to juggle motherhood and business! Us mother’s are often time poor so we need to get systems to maximise our output without burning out!
-
Don’t burn the candle at both ends | how to juggle motherhood and business
- I had a friend die at 50 suddenly. She was a burn-the-candle-at-both-ends-person. Don’t do it! Don’t stay up all night working, as your health will suffer! The human body needs sleep! Enough said.
-
Try to be positive most of the time, but don’t beat yourself up if you have a bad day/week/month/year.
- We all have to take it easy on ourselves. If you only get one booking per month, really treasure that booking. When you don’t have any work and feel too exhausted because all the kids are sick at once, do NOT push your marketing that month, take a break. It will affect your business, yes, but your health and wellbeing is more important. Take care of yourself and the kids first. If you can see a pinch point coming up, like December madness and you feel that pushing your business will push the whole family into a bad place, just don’t do it.
-
Choose a friend who will help you through the bad times.
- I have several friends that can work through things with me and still put up with me. LOL! Sometimes they say things I don’t want to hear, but that is what makes me realise it’s a “mild mental illness” talking and not my true self. This “mild mental illness” has reared it’s ugly head a few times while in lockdown recently and makes me talk like I have a lack of confidence in myself. I have to push it back and tell it to go away. My friends help with this and send me graphs that say lockdown is a time for comfort and looking after oneself. They tell me that there will be a time for me to get back to business and that I’m a great Mum. Yay! I so need that!
-
Celebrate your successes!
- I’m very bad at doing this as I don’t drink alcohol, well very rarely, and I’m frugal, so don’t really go out for meals unless it’s a birthday. But I can do something like buy myself a delicious butter chicken pie from the bakery around the corner, or a peanut slab from the petrol station. I also think we should all have a list of high fives that we can read over when we are in the depths of despair (like the current lockdown – I needed that list but forgot to write it!). List all your business strengths, awards and even simple things like, “I make a mean omelet.” Or just celebrate that you are now learning how to juggle motherhood and business successfully, through a learning process of several years.
-
Use business coaches and education wisely. | how to juggle motherhood and business
- There is a time for a business coach and then there is time to not push yourself too much. A business coach needs to understand your situation fully, including what kind of family support you have, how much time you actually have, what your morals are, how much income you are trying to earn. Then they will work with you, giving you the strategy that they think will work for you. They need to match your personality type and get you! If you don’t gel in the first five minutes, then don’t sign up with them.
- Also beware of huge online courses which have so much information you feel like you are drowning. There is a reason that Universities still operate – the information is fed to you over a long period of time – three to four years for an average degree. This is so your brain can cope and you don’t get overwhelmed. If you try to digest a whole online education program in one sitting it is sure to make you either burn out, or you will waste the money you spent on it and never look at it. The pay monthly sites are the worst. You can spend a whole year paying someone and not even look at it. This person in a far flung country is driving a Porsche and eating flash food while you don’t even look at their coaching. Muahahahaha!
- You are better to very carefully hand pick what education or business mentoring you need and have a yearly budget for it. Maybe one course or one coaching session per year. The coach has to understand how to juggle motherhood and business successfully in a way that suits your family. If they don’t understand, don’t book them.
-
Accept that you don’t know what you don’t know.
- Unless you pay $4000 up front for a business coach (some people have this money and invest early) you will not know a LOT of things. Even with a business coach you may need to be spoon fed for a long time. A coach can tell you things, but often the brain doesn’t click in until 2 or 3 years later. You suddenly realise why it is important to do certain things in your business, but it takes a while to get to this point. If you find out something important after 5 years, please don’t beat yourself up about it – you literally don’t know what you don’t know. It’s not your fault. Sometimes you just miss an essential piece of information that everyone else seems to have. Don’t worry about it – move forward and utilise that new found resource.
-
Beware of other business people coaching you for free. | how to juggle motherhood and business
- Some other business people in your own field might offer to coach you out of the goodness of their heart, but remember their journey is not your journey. They may suggest things that won’t necessarily work for you. They may even make you feel bad that you can’t achieve their level of glory! Or that you don’t have the right mindset. Mindset is dependant on many conditions around us at any given time. If you are already successful, of COURSE you’ll have have a great mindset. Plus, often they won’t tell you the key to their own success – they keep it close to their chest. You are better to pay someone to coach you who understands you. In saying this, ALWAYS accept free coaching. Just take the bits that might work for you. Just being around someone successful might start to rub off on you. But use it in conjunction with a paid coach, if you can afford one.
-
Get in home help. | how to juggle motherhood and business
- Pay for gardening and housekeeping if you can. This is how to juggle motherhood and business for a lot of people. This will only work if you are actually earning something in your business. It’s dangerous to pay others so you can try to earn an unknown sum of money. What if your business fails and you earn nothing to pay for the home help? Maybe you are better to run a slightly messy household. If you can afford help, it will give you more time to work on the business. The school day is only 9am to 3pm – that is a very short day. Not all of us want to work well into the evening whilst raising a family.
-
Pay others to move your business forward. | how to juggle motherhood and business
- This would be my dream! With such a part-time income from the business right now, I can’t look at paying someone else. This can be a wonderful idea though. If you are terrible at marketing and getting bookings, pay someone who is outgoing. Get someone who is great on the phone and loves your business and they will get the work for you. This is the ultimate support that you can hopefully rely on.
-
And if all else fails, go crazy and chew food like a guinea pig. It fixes everything!