105. How to Stop Letting Summer Slow Down Your Doula Business

What if the thing standing between you and the doula business you want... isn't time...it's the story you're telling yourself?

In this episode, I'm pulling back the curtain on one of the biggest mindset shifts I've made as both a mother and a business owner.

We're talking about the guilt, the expectations, the pressure to "do it all," and why so many ambitious doulas unknowingly build businesses that compete with the life they're actually trying to create.

I share the practical changes I've made to protect my time, create more presence with my son, and build a business that supports my family instead of stealing me away from it.

If you've ever felt torn between being the mother you want to be and the entrepreneur you know you're capable of becoming, this conversation is for you.

You just need a business designed to make both possible.

✨ Ready to make this your breakthrough season?

Join me LIVE for my free workshop, 10K Months Start This Summer, where I'll walk you through the exact 90-day roadmap to create more consistent inquiries, stronger consultations, and predictable revenue—without relying on referrals.

Reserve your free seat here.

By September, there will be two kinds of doulas:

The ones hoping referrals pick back up...

...and the ones who spent the summer building the business that changed everything.

I know which one I'm rooting for.

Struggling to grow your doula business? Tired of chasing prospects online? Imagine effortlessly attracting your dream clients and consistently generating a steady income month after month. 

⬇️ START HERE ⬇️

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Transcript

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Asking yourself, are there places in my life where I'm telling myself that I want something? But then my actions aren't actually reflecting that. And all that's really doing is increase guilt, increase shame, or make me feel like I'm failing on both fronts. Summer brings a specific energy. And I keep talking about this because it is real. It is real, and we don't talk about it enough. It is cyclical, it is seasonal. And so what I don't want for my doulas is for summer to feel like a backtrack. Because that is not what it is, my friend. It is a build phase. Welcome to the six-figure doula podcast. This is where confidence becomes currency. If you're a birth worker who's ready to stop overthinking, stop undercharging, and start leading like you mean it, then you're not here by accident. Every week we talk sales without the ick, money without shame, and building a business that actually holds you and your clients. Welcome home, Doula. Happiest Tuesday, my friends. Tuesday after a holiday. We just wrapped up July 4th weekend. And man, is it my favorite weekend of the entire year? It is like sacred boat season. It is 4th of July, fireworks on the water, night rides, you know, tying off to 15 boats, being in the water. It is magic. And it makes me feel like I want to take steps to get to the ultimate dream, which is like snowbird life. So that's six months in Florida, six months in Buffalo. And the idea is we're escaping the winter full force, owning a boat in Florida at the secondary house, having the family and enjoying the Niagara River in Buffalo when it is nice out. That's a vision. And it's really not that far off. And it's kind of incredible to think about how that dream could be reality sooner than I ever thought possible. And I was on the boat and I was just soaking up the peacefulness of being on the water. If you are a boater, if you grew up on boats, if you live by the ocean, or you have water at the ready, and that is something that you are used to, you just know. If you know, you know. Because there is something about the sound of the water, the sun on your face, the quiet, being unplugged, being in nature. There's just nothing like it. And I really have been able to soak it in a different way this summer than ever before. And I very much attribute that to so much of the work that I've put in and the self-discovery. And I want to talk about that for a minute and what that really looks like. Because I think we hear coaches and mentors and gurus talk about this like work-life balance or what that version of perfection looks like for them. And that's so individual. But I think that it's a different story when you can actually hear how it's been done. So I'm just gonna like share some of that and hope that that reaches somebody who is in the thick of trying to work this out for themselves. What I did about six months ago is I sat down with a pretty Canva calendar and I time blocked out my days, my schedule, my energy, and my tasks. So, long story short, what that looked like is I've dedicated certain days to coaching. I've dedicated certain days to selling. I've dedicated certain days to content creation and recording, and I've dedicated certain days to admin tasks, etc. I also then plugged in my workouts, I plugged in my dance classes, I plugged in time with my family, and then I even mapped out a half day on Fridays to kind of just go do something for myself, catch up with friends, meet my dad for coffee, things that kept falling to the wayside because Friday would be the day, the like catch-all day, the catch-up day. And now I am intentional about not letting that happen. And this has really reserved so much of my energy. And I always understood it in theory, but then like had such a hard time putting it into practice. I also recognize for someone like myself who loves a challenge and likes to mix it up, likes to be spontaneous, go with what I'm feeling and flowing in, opposed to having rigid structure, is that calendar is going to shift and be altered on the regular, and not even just like the Tetris of fitting all the pieces in, but even just like the colors and the way that I see it and visualize it has to change, or I will just burn the whole thing down out of boredom. And that's something that I had to learn the hard way. In addition to this calendar, and obviously I'm not saying that's perfect, like maybe 90% of the time I stick to it, which is loads uh light years from what I used to do. So that's progress. In addition to that, I have been more intentional with the time that I have with my son. And what I mean by that is instead of having separation between like work time and family time, I was instead better with my boundaries around the hours that I was choosing to fit those things in. So it wasn't like spend the evening with my son, have dinner, put him to bed, do all of that, and then go work for six hours and be up until two in the morning, like I used to. Now it is like I am not working in the evenings at all. And so I was able to dedicate certain times throughout the week where I would allow myself to work those crazy hours, but it was intentional, which felt different. And that was something that I actually worked out with my therapist, believe it or not. Her and I had this breakthrough discussion where she challenged the story that I was telling myself. She came to me in a session and said, I am hearing you struggle with wanting to be a present mom and wanting to grow your business. And we like broke that down and go, went really deep in what that meant. And then she started asking me some questions around like, what would it feel like to allow yourself to blow this thing up, scale this thing, and hit some of those goals that you have for yourself on the business side without the mother guilt. And we talked this through at length, and so many things were revealed for me, specifically around the lies that I was telling myself. I literally would say things out loud, like, I want to cap my revenue at X because I feel like that is more manageable with my childcare situation, my son, and our family schedule, being that my husband is super, super, super entrepreneurial, always reaching, always building, and has no um no plans to slow down. And I'm there to support that. That is 100% okay with me, and I love it. But one of us has to be available to kind of drop everything and handle my son if he is sick. Like one of us has to be able to do that. And right now in this season of life, that is me by choice. And once we started to kind of get into what's underneath all of that and kind of talk about a reality where I could still do my thing on the business side, grow it, scale it, reach for the moon, but then also be a present mother by putting some things in place, specifically outsourcing some things that I had a lot of guilt around outsourcing, like cooking the meals, keeping my house organized, grocery shopping, pickups for certain activities, things that felt like they were taking up a lot of my time, but not really moving the needle on either end. And it was a game changer, a true unlock. And so I think what I want you to take from my personal experience, if anything, is asking yourself are there places in my life where I'm telling myself that I want something, but then my actions aren't actually reflecting that. And all that's really doing is increase guilt, increase shame, or make me feel like I'm failing on both fronts. And really analyzing that for yourself, especially at this pivot point where at this halfway mark in the year, there is something charged about this period of time. Add on top of that, this layer of in the doula industry, things tend to quiet a little bit in the summer when kids are home, when we want to be outside. Summer brings a specific energy. And I keep talking about this because it is real. It is real, and we don't talk about it enough. It is cyclical, it is seasonal. And so, what I don't want for my doulas is for summer to feel like a backtrack, because that is not what it is, my friend. It is a build phase. And there is so much power in being able to recognize when we're telling ourselves stories that are untrue, that we can easily debunk if we just take a moment to ask ourselves what we do really want. And then ask ourselves, now how am I gonna get there? And maybe that means hiring support to get there. Maybe that means outsourcing things that you would have never dreamed of outsourcing in the past. Maybe it requires sitting down and doing some math to figure out what makes sense. I couldn't believe it when I did that exercise. What an eye-opener. For me, like, and obviously it depends where you live and all the things, but just to give you some like raw, transparent numbers, it was really incredible to see on paper what it would cost me to pay my nanny, my house manager, $25 an hour, okay, to help me file mail, to help me fold the laundry and put it away, to help me load and unload the dishwasher, to make sure that the food that I bring home from the grocery store is prepped and cleaned and ready to go. These things were adding up. And somewhere along the line, I told myself, this is my job. And if I don't do these things, I'm falling short as a mother. And now when I say that out loud, I want to laugh. Because I'll tell you what really is the truth here for me personally. And I know this is different for everyone. Like I have a best friend who loves cleaning on Sunday. It's her absolute favorite thing to do. She wants to deep clean her whole house all day. No effing way for me. That is the last thing that I would want to do on a Sunday. In fact, that right there is the fastest way for me to resent house chores, resent owning a house, feel like my time off is getting sucked dry by chores and things that I absolutely despise. So that ain't it. That ain't it for me. And so I am, I'm challenging you to step into that CEO role because if you are here, chances are you are building something real. You are working towards sustainability. You are working towards having the ability to be a present mother while also building your dream, to allow that dream to fund your life the way that you want to mother. And I am asking you to look at what your day-to-day entails right now and have some curiosity, have some questions for yourself. And then look at those answers and decide: is there room to pivot? What could make more ease, more flow? What could help me achieve those goals? And if you haven't looked at those goals in a minute, now is the time. We are at the halfway mark. 2026 is not over, not even close. If you are at a stage in your life, in your business, and you know you're ready to make a shift, but you're not 100% sure on where to start, I want to invite you to my upcoming live experience on July 21st. That's a Tuesday at 2 p.m. Eastern. And I'm gonna walk you through the exact 90-day roadmap that I use to help doulas create consistent, predictable revenue month after month. This will be the very first time that I'm gonna walk you through the three skills that actually create booked-out doula businesses. Because here's what I know Summer has this funny way of slipping through our fingertips. And before you know it, it's Labor Day. And the kids are back to school and you're telling yourself the same story. I'm gonna really hunk her down. I'm gonna really focus on my dual business this fall. Or you can have a different story and you can spend the next 90 days becoming the woman who built the business that she has been dreaming about. If you are ready to step into that CEO energy and start striking a balance that you feel good about between being a present mother and building the business of your dreams, and you're ready to stop waiting around and actually start building that, I would love to have you there live. Head over to the link in the show notes and reserve your free spot or register at six figuredoula.comslash workshop. I cannot wait to teach you live. Seats are limited, so act now.