How I Manage the Summer Months as a Mumma and Entrepreneur
Subscribe Now: Apple Podcast | SpotiFy
As July approaches, a topic that comes up every year for those of my clients who have children is 'how will I make this Summer work'.
There is absolutely no one approach or right here BUT I do know there are strategies and processes that can support you so that you are able to step back and enjoy those precious days and moments. I know for me being a co-parent and running a multi-6 figure business that holds up to 50 women at a time, I have to approach the Summer with both my CEO hat on and feeling into my desires as a mum.
In this episode I share:
- How I personally make it work and how this has changed since last year
- What I'm thinking when making decisions that support both my life, and my business
- The trade offs I consider and acknowledge
- Mindset support around getting comfortable with the season of business you're in
- A few tips and tools to create more space for yourself
I love the structure that bringing these plans make in my business, knowing that year on year it gets to change and evolve. I hope this inspires you to do what feels right for you this Summer and know that you do have the capacity to hold it all.
LINKS:
Find me on Instagram here
Find out more about my masterminds here
Book a connection call here
Previous episode mentioned: How I Mapped Out the Second Half of the Year on a CEO Retreat
TRANSCRIPT
Hi, and welcome to this episode where ironically, I'm going to be sharing a little bit about how I am managing the summer as a mama and entrepreneur. And I say that it's ironic because as I record this episode, I'm actually hiding in my daughter's room because there is some sounds coming from the kitchen space where I normally record, so I'm feeling really in the mother vibe right now.
I'm in the mother energy and really wanted to share this episode because it has come up a lot for many of my clients over the last two to three weeks of our coaching sessions. Having been in business now coaching for five years and in business for seven, I have had this conversation many times.
It’s also a personal journey that I have been on myself and so I wanted to share with you how I map out the summer, how I manage being a parent and an entrepreneur and how I ultimately make that work.
So what I will say first of all is that nothing that I'm sharing today is ground-breaking. It really really isn't.
A lot of this is mindset and pieces around energetics really anchoring into trade offs and for me, the essence of it is really understanding the bigger picture of where I'm at right now and knowing ultimately what is right for me and sharing with you what's right for me and giving you some inspiration to trust what is right for you at the end of the day.
What I want to start with here is not making yourself wrong
What I mean here is I think there's a big narrative that certainly myself and a lot of my clients are looking to change which is that childcare falls on the female within the relationship, that's if it is a male and female relationship.
I personally have been in same sex relationships and there's definitely been some roles that have played out in those relationships, but I certainly feel like that narrative that I'm the one or she, in the relationship, is the one that then has to navigate childcare is ultimately old paradigm.
Don't make yourself wrong if you have a desire to work in the summer. Now, for many of you listening, you might be thinking, no, I don't have any desire to work in the summer and I want to be with my kids, in which case that's great because that is your rich life, right? That's your value system and how you want to live.
What I'm speaking to here is that if there is a desire for you to work, if there is a desire for you to keep the momentum that you've built this year to date, don't make yourself wrong for wanting that and wanting to create the time and space for you to do that.
This leads me to my next point which is we have to get really okay with our trade offs.
What I mean by this is, I'm personally not in a position where I can take the entire summer off. I'm the only one who pays the bills. I'm the only one who pays the rent, the mortgage, and ultimately what that means is I've set my business up, yes, to have a steady stacking, a steady reoccurring income, but I also have clients to serve and a cause to do and I'm really okay with that trade off
That right now in this season of my business I am not able to take as much time out as maybe I will at a later moment in time and sometimes those trade offs are really small trade offs. Like I am going to have to work a day every week in the summer holidays to keep that momentum and sometimes it's like I'm going to have to work the whole summer.
Ultimately when it comes to trade offs, as long as you know what they are and you accept them, you're going to be able to hold that. And also you don't have to feel like you have to validate it. When we are so deeply anchored in this is what is true for me, this is the trade off and that's the decision that I've made, it means that if there is that fear of someone judging you or having a comment on how you're living your life and running your business, you can come back into that anchored space of this is what I'm choosing and I don't need to have that validated by anyone.
So second point is, you know, get okay with your trade offs and this is also going to help you to not make yourself wrong.
I think that not making yourself wrong can go one of two ways. It's either, I really don't want to work this summer and I want to be with my kids, but, I'm worried that I'm going to lose the momentum in my business. That's your trade off.
I might lose momentum in my business because I'm choosing to be with my children, but because I've made that trade off and I'm okay with it, that's the decision that I've made and I've anchored into no need for validation, right? The other side of it is I do have to work and I do desire to work and that is a trade off based on the current season of my business.
So don't make yourself wrong and get okay with your trade offs.
Now what I will bring here is a bit of an overall strategy, structure, process invitation to you.
The questions I ask myself is:
What do I need to ultimately prioritize for the duration of the summer holidays?
For me, prioritising my clients is my is number one. What that means is I looked at the overall calendar and made sure that all of my client calls were within two days of the week, knowing that then if I have the capacity, I can take the remaining three to be with my Little Cub. So number one priority clients.
Second priority for me is of course visibility. It's content. So this is where I started to look at:
What could I batch create? What could I record now in terms of podcasts? What could I do to be able to have everything set up to create even more space in that season that I would want more space?
What I'm going to share here is that, actually I used June to map out the second half of the year.
I'm going to refer to a podcast now (episode 84), which is basically how I mapped out the second half of the year on a CEO retreat.
I very, very purposely did that in June knowing that then I was able to use July to lock pretty much everything required for my launch in September, so I didn't have any back to school blues.
And also based on the priorities of the business. So servicing clients and you know content and visibility. I had everything locked. I was able to get everything locked, batched, recorded, planned for July and August. Knowing that I was going to be stepping away from the business a little bit more than normal.
So the invitation here is really to look at:
What is it that I need to prioritise? What can I do to support that now? And what time will I need during the school holidays in order to, to execute those things?
At this point, that's where I started looking at automations, what I could schedule, what needs doing in real time, and making sure that I was creating the space for that.
The way that that looks in the kind of entirety of the six weeks that my daughter's off, I am actually able to take three weeks off. Now one of those is actually a week that I'm going to be spending with my partner and then the second two weeks I have scheduled for my daughter to be in childcare one of those days.
I do get two solid weeks with her, with the exception of that one day and that's really because for me, being able to have that day for me to have a little bit of space and time, but also to be able to check in with the business, check in with my emails, just check in with the backend systems, check in with the team.
I need that day for me to feel like I'm really on top of everything.
What I'm going to share here is that you might feel really differently. For me, I really like to just have those anchor points every week where I'm in the business and it's not to say that obviously on this occasion I'm actually out of the business a lot more than I would normally be.
But for me, what I know makes me feel safe and alive and joyful and in trust is that I've got those anchor points to check in. So that's three weeks off, two of which I am with my daughter. One of those days of two of the weeks she's in childcare so that I can have those anchor days back into the business.
Now, in terms of those other weeks, I have given myself some space to spend time with my daughter, and it looks like a couple of days of those weeks. My business now has been set up to a point where that's possible and for me, what felt really, really good was sort of, knowing that those three weeks were mine and then knowing that there were three weeks where I know I would be more in the business, but I would be able to zone out and lean back and see my daughter if that were an option.
I’ve kept some spaciousness within those plans, knowing that we never quite know what's going to be happening in our worlds. If I have a client who's going through something really, really big, I might need to prioritise that over my daughter, but knowing that I've got those three weeks that I have prioritised for her just means that everything feels really in its place and really, really safe.
What I think is important to add to this as well for any of you who are listening who do have clients, you are in a service based industry where your clients do have access to you in between your sessions, what I will share is that I will be pinpointing one of the weeks that I have with my daughter where I will be completely offline and non contactable and then within the week that I'm taking off to go away with my partner I will be pinpointing specific days that I'll be offline then.
I share this with you because I think when we do have contact with our clients in between sessions it can certainly feel like we get to a point where we can't go offline, we can't say no, we have to be available and for me, I find that creating those really solid boundaries means that as long as people are aware, like, hey, I'm going to be offline, 10 times out of 10 here it's never ever been a problem.
Actually I find that a lot of my clients feel quite inspired by the boundaries that I keep because for them, I know that actually, it's an opportunity for them to potentially go offline as well. And listen, we all need a little bit of rest and a little bit of offline time from time to time.
The last and final thing I'm going to say here is don't let the timeline contract you.
Wherever you are in business right now, you're in that season for a reason.
You're in that season of business for a reason.
For me, something that really supports me when the mum guilt comes or I feel stretched because there's stuff I want to be doing in the business but I also want to be taking time out, I just zoom out and look at things from that bird's eye point of view.
So when you're thinking back on last year, I took a few days off with my daughter. I didn't really have a lot of time with her because I was in a season where I was in massive, massive scaling and we were also pulling together for the first time the launch of not just one mastermind but two, so I had to be really in the business at that time.
This year I'm taking three weeks off and additional days in the other three weeks. So massive progress from last year which means that everything I have done since this time last year has been building towards this level of spaciousness and listen next year could I earmark a month and take my daughter to Ibiza for a month? Well, absolutely, because anything is possible.
I know that everything I'm doing today, everything I'm doing this week, this month, is building towards the future that I desire to live and I really, really want that for you too.
So don't let the timeline contract you.
So just to recap how I'm making it work:
Number one, I am not making myself wrong in how I desire the next two months to look like. I'm getting super super okay with those trade offs and then I'm looking at what the priorities are and of those priorities what I can bring structure or a process or an automation to now, in order to create even more space for those summer months, and then that final piece of not letting the timeline contract you.
I hope this has been helpful.
If you've enjoyed this episode and you know that there is someone out there who could benefit from listening to it today, please do share it. Please tag me in if you're going to share it on the gram.
And, of course, if you love this podcast, if you enjoy this podcast, if you enjoy me and my little ramblings every week, please do give me a review. It's so helpful to get those reviews up so that there can be more and more people listening to this podcast which for me really is a space to support women in their empowerment.
Thank you so much for listening and I hope whatever you are planning for the summer months you have a really delicious time.
If you have any questions, you can come and find me over on the gram @pandorapaloma_
Have a beautiful, beautiful rest of your day.
Recent Episodes
.
Recent Episodes .
IF IT’S TIME TO MEET YOUR NEXT-LEVEL IN BUSINESS, WELCOME TO MY WORLD
Whether you’re new to business, got a side hustle that you’re ready to make your full-time reality, building to your first 6 figures, or scaling to a million, I have a coaching container to hold and support you