The WHY behind your business.
I know, you’ve heard this so many times you could probably barf.
But we’re going to take a different approach because I really want to pose the question to you;
Are you making choices that line up with what you say your why is?
The “Why” Behind Your Business
The majority of the mompreneurs that I speak with say that their kids are the “why” behind their business.
My question to you is, are you actually treating your kids like that’s true?
And that might sting, but I’ve been there, so that’s why I can say it.
We say, my kids are my why. They’re the reason I’m doing this. But, you’re on your phone 24/7. You’re crabby because you’re taking extra client work that you didn’t really want to take anyway instead of taking care of yourself.
You’re committing to everything. You’re trying to show up everywhere, even stuff that doesn’t actually make sense for your business. You’re just doing it anyway because you feel like you should. You’re showing up in all these different areas of your business, in the half-ass version of yourself.
When I talk to other mompreneurs, and this might be true for you, too, it’s like the two sides of the coin aren’t matching up.
I’m not saying this to you so that you feel mom guilt, but I’m saying it to you and bringing it to your attention because I’ve been there, too.
That’s what was happening to me in the Fall of 2022. I was making more money than I ever had in my business, but I was so overcommitted. I had so much on my plate. We had childcare fall through and I just kept getting further & further behind.
My kids started a new preschool, which you know how it is when your kids start school, they basically are sick every other day. I was overwhelmed to the point where I was cracking, where I was sitting on the floor of the shower several times a week crying because I was at my breaking point.
I was not a great wife. I was not a great mom. All because I was maxed out.
So I’m saying this to you from a place of, Girl, I have been there. I have done that. I have made all the mistakes. I’m hoping that by sharing some of these things and what I’ve learned from it, if you’re in this place, we can snap you out faster or even prevent you from going down this road at all.
The Importance of Balance
If you’ve been feeling burnt out, if you’ve been feeling overwhelmed and you’re overcommitted, are you even seeing the business success you want?
You’re not showing up as the mom that you thought you would.
You’re not having the time freedom you thought you would. That’s frustrating and that’s when you feel like you’re on the hamster wheel.
Usually, it’s because you’re doing too much. You’re over filling your plate. You’re saying yes to everything. I don’t just mean everything in your business. I mean, you’re saying yes to every single opportunity, invitation, volunteer thing. You really have to take a step back.
You have to go back to basics and really think about why you’re doing all of this. Are you doing it because you want to? Are you doing it because you have to? Or are you doing it because you feel like you should?
When we start to let the shoulds control our decision making and control what we say yes to and control how we go throughout the day, that’s when we run into trouble because we’re not showing up the way we want to at our core.
We’re letting all that noise get into our heads and our brains and control our decisions for us.
So when you’re feeling all this, when you feel like you’re on the hamster wheel, when you know you’re not showing up as the mom you want to be, when you’re not seeing the business success that you want, or maybe you are, but it’s at the expense of you’re getting a new gray hair every single day, it’s time to scale back.
It’s time to slow down, and really think about what you want your life to feel like. A really great exercise to do that is to put on a feel-good playlist and lay on your floor or sit in your favorite chair at a time when it’s quiet. Try to do this at a time when you’re calm, too.
It’s hard to think about these things in the middle of the day when you’re getting texts and phone calls and everything else. In the morning or evening, sit in a quiet place and really think about how you want your days and your weeks to feel.
Realigning Your Actions with Your “Why”
I saw this post the other day that said,
PSA: 20 years from now, the only people who remember that you worked late are your kids.
Somebody replied back to that post and said,
My old boss told me this; I’ve missed so many birthdays, plays, and events for work, and I can’t tell you why. I don’t remember what I was working on. I can’t tell you why it was important, but I can tell you how my not being there made my kids feel. Don’t be like me.
I’m not saying that you’re on that level. I’m really not. But I’m saying if you’re not giving yourself space to finish up work and then go back into your life and show up as a mom and play with them and hang out with them however you like to do it, you’re doing yourself and your kids a disservice. You really are.
I’m not perfect about it either. There are days where it’s hard for me to check out of work or I don’t have any patience with my kids.
I’ve really made an effort since last Fall to truly build this business in a way that fits into my life and really does prioritize the things that I say are my why. I know that can feel scary because you love to work and you’re ambitious and that fear creeps in like, if I’m not on the hamster wheel, if I’m not keeping the momentum, if I’m not working, working, working, that very much old-school mentality, if I’m not working from 9:00 to 5:00 every minute that I can get in, I’m missing out.
That’s just not true in this day and age. I know that the fear creeps up that you are working hard and that you have all these balls in the air and if you take a step back or if you slow down, you’re going to drop them.
This is where you make a choice and you start making small adjustments for yourself and for your kids that allow you to show up in your life the way you actually really want to. So that you don’t feel salty when summer is over and you didn’t spend it the way you want to, or the holidays come and go and you didn’t do the things that you wanted to do.
It’s absolutely possible and realistic to plan your business around what you want your life to look like. You don’t have to take calls every day. You don’t have to open up your calendar completely to your clients. You don’t have to post every day. You don’t have to show up in stories every day. You get to decide what your business looks like forward facing. You get to decide what it looks like behind the scenes.
A lot of times, especially in those first couple of years of business, you’ve allowed yourself to be so in it that you forget to take a step back and do that bird’s eye view. We start by doing this exercise of what do you want your life to look like? How do you want to feel? How do you want to go throughout your week? How do you want to spend your time? From there, you can really start to create a plan and look at your business. This is working for me. This isn’t working for me. I love this part of my business. I hate this part of my business.
You can do this on a big scale, but you can also do it on a small scale. You can build your business without mom guilt. I literally have a webinar, Build Your Business Without the Mom Guilt, Grab it HERE. It gives you some really good tangible tools to use day to day to compartmentalize mom life and business life. You also need to look at that big picture and decide what is and isn’t working for you.
Take this with you
If your kids are your why, but you’re not treating them like they are, then do those two exercises:
Think about what you want your life to look and feel like, and then take a bird’s eye view of your business and decide what stays and what goes or what needs to be adjusted.
Those two things, just becoming aware of them, can be the difference between continuing on this path of being overwhelmed and burnt out to showing up in your business, still making money, still having momentum, but also showing up in your family life the way that you want to.
Just know that I have been there before, so there is no shame if you’re just reading this like, dang Giana, now I’m feeling all salty. I’ve been there before. I have clients that I could count on both hands and toes that have also been there, you’re not alone.
It’s hard when you’re ambitious. It’s hard to balance all your goals, dreams and ideas, and that’s okay.
But let’s course correct and make sure that we’re really prioritizing the things that matter the most to us and the things that will matter more to us in 20 years than anything that we’re doing now.
Helpful links:
Follow me on Instagram HERE
Listen to this podcast episode HERE
Grab my Build Your Business Without the Mom Guilt Webinar HERE
