Business and Babies!

Y’all know I love a good garden analogy so you had to assume I’d have at least one blog about having a newborn and having a business, right?

As you may have noticed we welcomed little Gracie into our family on November 30th and like most new things it’s a roller coaster of highs and lows. At least for us as everyone has a different experience. 

This new addition is keeping us on our toes.

Due to being 3 weeks early she’s just a tiny gal and gets tired pretty quickly. So, when it comes to eating she completely falls asleep at the “table”. Like - do the chicken wing, tickle my feet, take my clothes off, it’s not going to work and I’m going back to sleep.

Obviously, eating is important so it’s been some work for all of us - which leads to more feedings which leads to a lot of sitting and thinking (not exactly clearly, but maybe that’ll come back in 2023 #newyeargoal) 

So what went through my brain? 

Support system: I preach and preach about not asking for help. Whether you think you’d come off weak or someone will think you’re not smart enough because you asked for help is actually your mind playing tricks on you. When you find a solid crew of people who have who have actually opened and ran a business, who have been through what you have, who have been through their own struggles, or who simply have empathy - they won’t look at you as weak or dumb. They will more than likely be proud of you for asking. For being vulnerable. They’re going to be proud of you for being brave enough to ask for help because they probably had the same thoughts go through their head at one point or another. 

So, was it hard for me to agree to do a meal train when someone offered to help with it? Not going to lie, my ego tried to deny the help. I didn’t want to be a burden. But, I pushed my ego aside and said yes. We’ve been so incredibly blessed as it’s one thing we simply don’t have to worry about and I’ll say…our friends can cook!

And vulnerability? The number of times I’ve cried in front of my support system in the last 2 weeks… hi, hormones, I see you…so many! Did they laugh or get really awkward? Nope - they’ve encouraged us and asked how they could help. I’m telling you - there are some really nice people out there!

Control: Isn’t it fun when you have a plan to execute and you feel really good about it going smooth and easy and then a dumpster fire lands right in the middle of it? 

Haha, one day we’ll learn our lesson, right? 

There’s nothing wrong with creating a plan and working through it, but don’t let yourself hold too tight because there’s a good chance it’ll change. When we allow the dumpster fire to land, then take a pause to put the fire out and then move the dumpster out of the way it’s important to also take a step back and look at why it maybe happened…which is so much easier said than done.

Obviously having Gracie 3 weeks early was not the plan. I had to move my master class, put a pause on current clients until after the new year, schedule out as much of December's social media as possible (Instagram at least - sorry FB!) knock out as much Christmas shopping as possible, and prep my brain. All manageable stuff and shoutout to my clients for being amazingly patient! 

It made me prioritize my projects and be okay with things getting pushed back. And as we were getting settled at home Sean and I made the comment that having her early meant Ellie would still have 2 full weeks of school before break winter break. 

So, while she’s an amazing big sister it would have been a lot to bring her home at the beginning of her 2-week break… 

Time Management/Realistic Expectations: This can be a bit touchy as some don’t love talking about time management, but here we are. There’s only so much time in the day and usually only a certain amount of things you can accomplish. And if we’re all living in a perfect world we’d never get distracted and we’d work only on the income-generating activity to knock out those KPIs to be able to hit all the goals. . 

But, let’s be real. We don’t. 

We get on social to take a quick break or go in to just check “one” email and then it’s been 45 minutes and then we’re annoyed that the client work has to be done at night. Or you just simply thought you’d get 15 things done in 2 hours and that just wasn’t realistic. 

While there’s been a lot of resting being done here (yes, probably should be more) there are also things to do - laundry, washing/sanitizing bottles and pump parts, get ellie off to school, restocking diapers, getting QT time with Ellie, walking the dog, etc. And this has been a little more for Sean than me because I planned to put down my business until I felt okay to pick it back up in slow phases - but there was a point of overwhelm for both of us.  

That feeling that you have 34 things to do and they’re all super important. Well my friend, they can’t all be important. So we each had to make a list and determine what actually needed to be done and what would be nice to get done and what just was going to sit at the bottom. 

What did this do? Well, when we did have a moment of enough sleep and Gracie was napping we could look at the list and know exactly what to do - our brain didn’t even have to search as it usually searches for something easy and not necessarily what’s important. And some normal tasks do help as it’s one thing that feels normal :) 

So, there you have it - do any of these resonate with you?