Imagine this
Saturday night and you’re feeling tired after a hectic week. You suspect you have a cold coming and want nothing more than to get your children bathed and into bed so that you can relax with a glass of wine in front of a no-brain-cells-required movie.
Now, imagine your dismay when your girls decide that TONIGHT is the night to play silly monkeys and pretend that they are being golden children when in reality they have decided to destroy your plans, hopes and dreams of a quick and easy bedtime routine.
Bath-time goes okay. Perhaps there were a few hints about what was to come with an argument about who had the most bubbles.
Perhaps, had I been more wide awake, I would have noticed the link between a game which involved pretending to be feral dogs foaming at the mouth during teeth brushing time and what was to come.
But I didn’t. I’m a single mum. I run three businesses. I have a cold. And I’m knackered.
Into bed. 2 stories become 3 and then 4. Lights out. Night night.
Miss 3.5 gets out of bed.
“Stay in bed. It’s bedtime. Goodnight.”
Miss 3.5 gets out again. Jumps on her bed and then on her sister.
Return her.
“Bedtime” (I’m channeling Supernanny)
Giggling. Shouting. In bed. Out of bed. In bed again. One bed gets moved across the room.
“Bedtime. I’m going downstairs now. Goodnight”
Sit on the sofa. Put the movie on.
Miss 3.5 appears.
Take her back upstairs to bed and this time I sit with her for a while in the hope she will nod off. (Supernanny’s advice is out the window)
She does.
Go back downstairs. Sit on sofa. Turn on the tv.
Miss 3.5 appears. (She’s persistent. I’ll give her that)
Take her back upstairs to bed. Tell her very firmly (read: yell in a sort of gritted teeth whisper) to “Stay there. or else” (Or else what I don’t know, but it sounded good at the time!)
It seems to have done the trick! An hour has passed. It’s now 9pm. Finally they are both asleep.
So I sit down, feeling frazzled and as though I could inhale a tub of ice-cream let alone drink several glasses of wine.
I decide to watch Bad Mom on Amazon instead – it seems appropriate right now. I’m stressed, feeling guilty and wondering about the long term negative psychological effects of shouting at your children when it seems as though they cannot. hear. a. single. word. you. say.
So – over to Bad Mom – if you’ve seen the film, you’ll know it’s not full of academy award winning acting. Or even a plausible plot.
But what it is full of is TRUTH.
Truth about what it’s like to be a mother, juggling work and life and competing priorities whilst trying to love and play and raise your kids in a way that means that they grow up to be amazing adults. That they grow up happy and safe and confident and loved.
It’s about not being perfect, but doing the very best that you can – one day at a time – one foot in front of the other. Learning lessons every day. Knowing that what worked one day may not necessarily work the next.
And that’s okay.
Watching Bad Mom helped me to get back in touch with some of the reasons I established my business(es) in the first place – essentially to
- Be THERE
- To be at the school gate
- Take them swimming, to dance class, to singing
- To be home with them when they are ill without having to call ‘the office’ and take time off
- Spend the school holidays exploring, laughing, building dens, being with my girls
When I officially left the corporate world in 2006 to start my own business consultancy, NLP training, coaching and retreats businesses it was part of the vision I have for a life where I have the freedom and flexibility to be who I want to be. Where I want to be. And to play all the roles that I fulfill as a mother, sister, daughter, friend and business owner in the best way I know how.
To have the freedom of choice to pursue my dreams. To make my goals and desires happen. To make mistakes. To 
not be ‘perfect’. To always be doing the very best I can, even on the days when it seems as though the wheels have fallen off. And to just keep going.
To be able to use my skills, qualifications and my passion for helping other women to do the same.
And it got me thinking about some of the amazing and talented women I’ve been chatting with during my 30 Calls in 30 Days experiment.
And it got me thinking about Aly, my cousin’s daughter, who has recently given birth to her second baby boy and wants to be able to stay home with him and his brother rather than return to working for someone else .
And it got me thinking about other ways in which I can help other women out there – be they mothers or not – who want the time, the freedom and the satisfaction that comes from running their own businesses.
And so the free, 5 day Design Your Business challenge was born.
If you’re ready to pull together all of the skills you have to come up with an idea for your own business that gives you flexibility, freedom and funds to be with your family, then click this link to participate now.
See you there
PS. To access a range of free resources and courses to help you to make it happen in life and in business please join our Member’s Lounge
