Sustainable Mompreneurship Ep. 5: Pushing through is always the wrong answer as a mom & business owner. Period.

You’re not supposed to force yourself to get up and do one more thing.

What you’re supposed to do is stop BEFORE it gets to be too much as a mom. (Or homeschooler or business owner.)

Not make yourself get up and go through the motions again on empty. 

Here’s the reason you feel like you’re always playing catchup….

You’ve got this!

Alyssa

Free up your time as a work-at-home mom: https://yourunbusylife.com/

And if you need the right answers (both for the kid side of your life AND your “what’s next” project list), I’ve got two intensive spots open this month - where I’ll help you free up 3 hours each day!

‘Cause there’s no need to hold onto every to-do + commitment in your life (when you’re sick of the calendar jenga game).

And right now you feel like you’re in conflict - with your clients, your kids, your partner, or even yourself (because of your own needs). You fear the next family season - the parenting issue that’s going to crop up - the marriage breakdown behind the scenes - the feast-and-famine cycle in your clients - the next issue with team that’s going to unexpectedly explode.

Which is where I come in to help you create win-win solutions for yourself + your family that support business growth, team scaling, & client operations without compromising any key part of your life.

Book your Free Up 3 Hours package when you’re ready to reclaim 3 hours every day: https://yourunbusylife.com/free-up-3-hours-pod/

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Transcript

This is the Unbusy Mom, and today we’re talking about why pushing through is always the wrong answer as a mom. Period.

You’re not supposed to force yourself to get up and do one more thing.

What you’re supposed to do is stop BEFORE it gets to be too much as a mom. (Or homeschooler or business owner.)

Because the only thing I want you to force yourself to do… is take another break.

Not make yourself get up and go through the motions again on empty. 

(Exception granted when caring for newborns - but that’s it!)

• You don’t prove you’re a good mom (even though you’re working) by spending all day on your clients, then all evening on your husband and kids. (With downtime for you conspicuously absent from that list.)
• You’re not supposed to “see how much you can get done” in a day. You’re supposed to LEARN how much reasonably fits and stick to it.
• The measure of your entrepreneurial success is NOT how much revenue you made last month with how high a profit margin - it’s how good you felt (or didn’t feel) while earning it.

Listen. The reason you’re feeling permanently behind or like you’re always playing catchup or that you can never get ahead and STAY ahead is because you dished too much on your plate in the first place.

Too many client calls; too many web design projects; too many podcast episodes; too many social media posts; too many coffee chats; too many kid activities and still keep on top of your household to-do’s.

But if you never change the mental “chore container” that you overfilled in the first place, you’re always going to keep loading too much on yourself and never getting it all done.

The solution? Is to shrink that “how much can I get done in a day” container and force yourself to pare WAY back on the number of list items on that to-do list.

Because if all 3 client projects have room to fit in your day - with margin - then it’s impossible to fall behind. 

Whereas if you put 3 client projects AND 2 podcast episodes PLUS 2 coffee chats and tried to do laundry, too…. Well, you already know how that goes. You’ve lived it.

And you don’t ever want to go there again, thank you very much.

Which is why I want you to flip your “work worthiness” mindset around from “how much of a break do I deserve” to “I deserve a break, period”....

And cut back your work hours to match (so that I never catch you sneaking in a full 8 hours’ worth of work and trying to fit in your selfcare break on top of all that).

Because you get to - and in my program, you’re required to - take 1-2 hours a day for yourself. Just for you. Your hobbies, your movement, and your faith activities.

But the only way you’re actually going to give yourself PERMISSION to take this much time off from your to-do list is if we change your MINDSET around worthiness and taking breaks.

You can’t force yourself into rest; you have to relax into it.

And that’s exactly what we’ll work on together in my work/life balance program. Rewiring all those neural connections that told you for YEARS that you weren’t worthy of rest yet. 

And so you never did.

Whereas when you take your planned breaks - even if they feel uncomfortable - you hit the reset switch on your own rejuvenation EVEN if you don’t think you need filling up yet.

Like the time I took my planned week off over Christmas, because I’d scheduled it in my calendar (not necessarily because I felt I needed it), then realized on my “back to work” day that I was actually resenting opening up the inbox again. 

And when I dug a little deeper, I realized that what I REALLY wanted was another week off work. So I took it.

Because my break hadn’t been long enough yet.

But if you’d have asked me ahead of time, I’d have told you that taking 5 days off work was plenty and more than I needed. ‘Cause I’d gotten in a rhythm of work-work-work and was just used to making myself push through.

But when you’re your own boss, YOU get to rework the rules on the fly - even if that means setting your autoresponder to have a different set of “back in office by” dates than you’d originally set up.

It’s okay. 

You’re allowed to go with the flow. 

And you GET to do what you need.

So, I know it isn’t Christmas time yet. Thanksgiving vacation is coming up (for Americans). And however much or little you let yourself take off for that is up to you.

• But with that in mind, how much are you leaving on your to-do list as we roll into the holiday season? 
• Where have you been forcing yourself to keep chugging through a too-long project list BEFORE you’ll let yourself (or your team) take time off?
• What do you WISH you could do this November, this December, about break time for you and how long you’d work if nobody was expecting anything from you?

Journal through those, and see what changes about how much you’ve put on your “must get done by” list.

‘Cause I can guarantee that SOMETHING’S still in overload about your workload - either in the daily, the weekly, or the monthly view of it.

All YOU have to do is find it.