YES, You Can Be a Full-Time Mom and Successful Entrepreneur!

How do I balance being a full-time mother and a full-time entrepreneur?  After five+ years of doing both, I can say it's been crazy, fun, and worth every minute!  I started by creating the life that I wanted, and then I worked my business into it.  If you want to be a mother and entrepreneur without sacrificing either, start by asking yourself these questions:

1. What transitions do I need to make in light of being a mother?  There's nothing like a child to make you do a 180 with your business.  For me, I was inspired to get smarter and work less. Being a mom forced me to get real about how I was spending my time.  Not in a time management sense, but in the sense of how I wanted to be of service with my life's work,   which leads to the second question.

1. How do I design my business around my most profitable activities?  Let go of what's not working and get support for what is.  At first I needed to just pare things down.  I was working five plus days a week before I had my daughter.  After Bella was born I was able to cut back to one or two days a week with no change in income.  I was just working off of the momentum that I had created.  When she turned two and started preschool, I still only wanted to work three days a week, max.  It took a huge mind-set shift, and I took some big risks, but by focusing on my most profitable activities, I was able to triple my income again. 

1. What are some of the action steps I can take to make a full-time business model work with part-time hours? First, I changed the way I was charging for my services.  I had to get out of the whole “economy” conversation, because it gives people an out instead of really taking a hard look at the way they do business.  Look at what you really want to do.  Try charging by the project instead of by the hour, or experiment with value-based pricing where you create service packages.  Maybe you need to leverage your programs instead of doing so much one-on-one work.  For myself, I went straight to the leveraged model.  I keep it very simple, with just a few highly impactful programs.  I created programs that I believed in, I set an implementation date, I enrolled people in the program, and I went for it. 

1. Where can you give yourself a raise?  Here's an exercise.  Think about the last time you raised your rates.  Make a list of the reasons why you did it.  Now think about doubling your rates today.  There is no difference between where you were when you last raised your rates and where you are now.  So why can't you do it again?  Any reason you come up with to not justify your true value is just an excuse.

If being a full-time mother and a full-time entrepreneur is your goal, take action now.  Find a mentor who shares your values and vision for your life and don't leave their side until you make the change. Investing in a mentor when Bella turned 3 gave me the courage to take those steps.  Even now that my daughter is in First Grade, I still work only three to four days a week, because I'm willing to do what I need to do to create the life I want.  You can too!