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Running a business is hard. It takes long hours, financial risk, and lots of stress. While you're trying to navigate your way through that, you're balancing motherhood. So the question is, how do you keep everything under control?
You need to understand the problem before you start working on a solution. For example, many mothers who run their businesses find they don't have enough time for other chores. Instead, they feel overwhelmed by a list of never-ending tasks.
However, when you take a step back and think about what is causing this situation, you will see that there are four leading causes:
You manage too many things at one time
You do not prioritize your own needs enough
You don't outsource anything
Your tasks or projects lack clear goals or deadlines.
1. Delegate Duties
Once your business plan is in place and you're making progress on things that will help you stay afloat, it's time to find ways to delegate some tasks.
When you're just starting, there are a million tiny tasks that need to be done every day:
Answering emails and phone calls
Managing paperwork
Researching new opportunities for the business.
Once your business grows and becomes more successful, these things become less of a burden since you can afford to hire help or outsource. But when you first start as an entrepreneur, this is the kind of thing that can make it feel impossible to balance work with family obligations.
2. Take Time for Yourself
To maintain sanity, you need some self-care. Stay healthy and ensure your business runs as smoothly as possible. Even if you only have a few minutes a day to spare, it's essential to take some time away from your usual activities. Always strive to have some alone time.
You can:
Take a walk around the block or the neighborhood
Do some stretching or light yoga
Read a chapter of a book
Clean out your inbox
The point is to engage in an activity that will help you relax and disconnect from everything else.
3. Be there For Your Kids
Forget multitasking. Multitasking makes you lose focus on both things you're doing and increases your chances of making mistakes or forgetting something. Instead, try focusing on them entirely when it's time for a conversation.
Give them undivided attention and let them know they're essential. Make sure that you hear what they say without missing anything important.
Here are some other ways you can be there for your kids:
Read with them: Take the time to sit down with your child and read together every day, even if it's just for a few minutes. Reading to Children regularly helps them score higher grades in school.
Listen: Sometimes, kids need someone willing to listen without blaming, judging, or interrupting with advice, no matter how small the issue may seem.
Be an example: The best way we can teach our children is by being good examples ourselves by showing our kids how we live out our values every day through our actions rather than just talking about matters during conversations.
4. You Don't Need to be Available for 24 Hours
Especially as you're growing your company. It can be tempting to keep your phone constantly open and respond to every request for help or advice.
But if you want to balance entrepreneurship with motherhood successfully, one thing you'll need to do is make yourself unavailable from time to time. Feel free to say "no" when others ask something of you. It's okay not to commit to everything that comes your way.
5. Work with Reasonable Deadlines
Life is full of challenges, and as a mom who's also an entrepreneur, you need to understand that you can't do everything all the time. You just can't.
Things will get done when they get done, and it's okay if some things don't get done at the allocated time. It happens to us all!
Set reasonable deadlines for yourself and make sure that your clients know your situation as a mother and an entrepreneur so that they don't expect too much from you.
Takeaway
While it can be challenging to balance being a full-time mom and a full-time entrepreneur, it is possible. You need to find the right balance between work and family. There isn't a one-size-fits-all solution to this problem. Every situation is different depending on your business, family, and lifestyle.