My formal apology to all the moms I coached before becoming a mama

I wrote the first draft of this post from my phone while nap trapped under my smallest after negotiating naptime (won that battle) with my biggest. The second pass came in my first few minutes of quiet time for the day… at 8pm while watching the littlest one nap on the couch next to me. He’s going to wake soon for his final window before bedtime, but hopefully I get to at least finish drafting before then. This is real life as a mompreneur, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

How times have changed since every minute of every day was mine.

The 2 hour morning routine.

The wind down to reset after work routine.

The lunchtime gym sessions… When I had no one’s schedule but my own to slot around the 2-3 hour window away from my desk.

What a luxury time is.

I remember that being my life, but I don’t really remember what that feels like. You know? All I know for sure is that I wasted a ton of time before becoming a mom. And when it came to my clients, even though I tried to show compassion to their situations, I didn’t really get it until experiencing motherhood for myself. Being a mompreneur is hard.

The juggle of little schedules is an art. And even if you’re lucky enough to find affordable, reliable child care… It’s still a lot to manage business building with motherhood. Daycares send kids home sick. Nannies need days off for appointments. Shit happens.

Much of online business gets it wrong for a mompreneur of littles

A lot of the common advice in the business coaching world is not conducive to life as a mom with little(s).

It just doesn’t work.

With babies, you can’t just try harder or do more.

You can’t time block around a toddler refusing naptime for an entire week, or with a newborn going through a (developmentally normal) phase of short solo naps. You can’t get B-roll of your morning routine if the first few hours of the day are a scramble to get kids dressed and fed. You can’t film reels while nap-trapped for hours. Well, maybe you could. They’d be stagnant and repetitive if that’s the only content you can capture though.

You can’t convince yourself to show up more when you’ve been nursing, walking, and rocking between the baby and the toddler all night long. And even if you do have a unicorn sleeper, the littles need and deserve your attention during their wake windows.

Consider this my formal apology to all the clients who came before I was a mama. The ones who I encouraged to “take 20 seconds to get content throughout the day” and “post on your lunch break.”

It’s ironic too because the online business world attracts so many moms who want to work from home. How are we not kinder and more accepting of the extra hurdles they/we face every day?

I get it now. And I’m sorry.

My “lunch break” now looks like inhaling my food so I also have time to switch over the dishwasher, clear out the sink, and chop veggies for dinner while the toddler is trapped in his high chair and the baby is asleep in the wrap. Something about the dishes piling up creates a backlog in our entire house. The dishwasher is the bottleneck, and I’m just here directing traffic.

A heavy head rests on my collarbone. I have to be careful to not move too quickly until I can get him tucked in tighter now that he’s fallen into a deep, floppy sleep. My oldest and I sing Wheels on the Bus a few times to delay the end of lunch, which gives me up to 10 more minutes of dinner prep time without worrying about someone crying or someone else getting into shit they shouldn’t.

Yes, I often snap photos of the finished product. Yes, sometimes I take videos while I work too.

And there’s lots of days where I don’t have the capacity for that. Or if I do, that video gets posted the next day (if at all).

Maybe this is an instance where my multiple daily outfit changes from spit up milk and mystery toddler fingerprint stains works in my favour—a single activity can look like multiple days in my world.

Regardless, I’ve removed the expectation for myself to “show up” in the same way that I used to. And I’m sorry I ever added to that pressure for others too.

Where online business coaches can lead a mompreneur off track.

If it weren’t clear by this point of the story yet, online businesses and the traditional advice that’s given within them leads a mompreneur off track. At least moms to kids young enough that they have little to no control over their days.

Even the typical coaching agreement setup doesn’t work. Think about it.

Most masterminds have packed schedules. Weekly check-ins. Additional book clubs that are framed as a fun bonus, but are actually just more work because you don’t want to read another business book right now—you’re too busy reading about how to potty train or reminding yourself of baby milestones to look for and encourage. Then there’s the coursework. And the 1:1s, hot seats you don’t know what to say at because your brain feels like a runaway train, networking speed dating, virtual happy hours. People love an excuse to be on Zoom still. Isn’t that so 2020?

If you look at a standard coaching agreement, it’s often a biweekly or weekly call that leaves you thinking something is wrong with YOU if you couldn’t and didn’t take the action you talked about last time. If you haven’t seen results this week, it’s because you weren’t consistent or high vibe enough. Maybe your mindset is the problem.

If only you worked harder or pushed more or fit these things into your schedule, you’d finally get ahead… Right?

But when you don’t have a chance to engage with the group for one week—you miss a few calls and forget about the Slack prompt—you blame yourself. You apologize to your coach.

Sounds wrong to me.

Because this should be about you. Your needs. Not your coach and the boxes they’ve built their agreements around. Those boxes often skip the empathy required for coaching humans with real lives.

Replace unwavering consistency with optimization and acceptance

Yes, I push my clients to aim for consistency. Yes, I want to hold them accountable. No, I do not want them to feel like shit after every call because life happens.

When you work with good, intelligent, driven people, you don’t need to patronize them when life genuinely gets in the way of progress. Because it’s about progress, not perfection. And when you’re a mama it’s all about the marathon—it’s little lives you’re shaping, not just about what happens today.

This is why The Inner Circle Mastermind has lots of space built into the schedule. Personally, I only take calls biweekly, so the group fits into that flow too. We don’t have 1:1s every single month we’re together, and that works out well. I make sure to not pack the calendar, but provide ample prompts to start conversations via Slack. We fill any potential gaps with  DM/VM support in order to work around schedules and encourage members to design a work calendar that truly fits around their lives.

That’s actually where we always start: Getting clear on your ideal calendar.

It’s challenging to take advice from those who aren’t parents.

Personally, I’ve found it challenging to take advice from those who aren’t parents in my current season as a mompreneur. I’ve been extremely intentional about my chosen mentors in business to this point. I search for diversity in all areas. I’ve worked with coaches 1:1 and in group settings, through masterminds and memberships. I choose males and females of all ages and races. I dig into their professional backgrounds and search for those who have mentored others whose careers I admire. I draw from a range of personal and professional experiences, and I believe that’s helped my growth to this point.

But over the last 2 years, it’s been a challenge to connect with those who aren’t parents. There are plenty of amazing mentors out there who I’d probably want to work with in the future. But in my current season, I’ve found it necessary to surround myself with others with recycling bins packed with flattened diaper boxes too.

A mompreneur is just in it.

Clients come to me specifically because not only do I have the professional background, but I get what they’re going through right now. They can bring their baby to a zoom call. We can work around the chaos as best as possible. We can work together to create space to live.

There’s multiple goals at play when I work with other moms. Not just to grow their businesses—make more money. But also to work smarter, in fewer hours. To minimize the Mom Guilt by giving 150% when they’re on and unplugging when they’re off. To work on detaching their worth from their business.

Because you are worth so much more than how much money you bring home. And your babies know that.

How my coaching style changed in motherhood.

Before becoming a mama, I was so focused on things like strategy and consistency. I thought you needed to show up daily in order to see results. That’s what I was most comfortable with recommending: Consistent effort. Every day.

Now?

Now I’m more interested in optimized effort.

It’s no longer a matter of doing things because you should, but doing what you can—do it well, strategically, and maximize your ROI. Don’t do anything that wastes your time, distracts you from your goals, or doesn’t promise the biggest bang for your buck.

I think this approach gives the smallest bit of control back to mamas who’ve lost control in every other aspect of their lives. Of course you can’t really decide when the littles nap (or how long, or if they do at all). But you can control what you choose to focus on each day, and that’s empowering in a season that can feel chaotic.

Business advice I give to a mompreneur as a mom

One skill I’ve gained in motherhood: The ability to prioritize efficiently, but also task shift as needed when the plans inevitably change for the day.

I’m always accounting for interruptions. Every day is a crash course in how to go with the flow. A practice of self forgiveness when things don’t go my way and I’m not actually on top of my list. Because even though I try to make the rules, the babies are clearly in charge. 🤪

Some advice I often give to my clients is to always return to the foundations of their business. This is where you’ll find a path through the chaos. Think about things like when you do your best work. What type of work feels easy for you, and what services are the most profitable. When you want to work versus when you need to unplug. Then design offers that align with all of the above—next, your job is to sell them.

And most importantly, if things don’t work out along the way, ask yourself “why?”

Maybe it’s not that you didn’t do enough or need a new strategy to try to get there faster, but that you need to change your trajectory to align with your life right now.

Affirmations for the working mompreneur

Sometimes it’s not necessarily that my clients need advice, but acceptance and affirmation. There’s a lot of trial and error and experimentation that comes with learning how to work as a new mom. Here’s some of those affirmations I like to remind myself of often. Save these for yourself for later.

My worth isn’t defined by how much I work.

I’ll never regret time spent with my babies.

I know how to prioritize, and my present moment requires my full attention.

It’s crucial to overall recognize that you have multiple important jobs. Mama, business owner, spouse, friend—all of your titles deserve space to breathe. And I firmly believe that you can have it all, whatever “it all” looks like to you, with careful and intentional planning, perseverance, and forgiveness along the way.

No one’s mompreneur journey is perfect

Even though it may look like others have figured it out on Instagram, remember that no one’s journey is perfect. Birth stories and trauma, feeding challenges, sleeping hurdles—we navigate all of these while trying to return to our sense of self and our work that once fueled us. Sometimes work might feel really weird and foreign, and that’s okay. More often, it’s probably going to feel chaotic.

Maybe that’s the trick to all this though. Maybe we just need to let go and let the chaos lead.

From there, you can learn to act strategically and intentionally to build foundations that fit your life—your new life that requires you to make more in fewer hours. If you want help with that, check out The Inner Circle Mastermind. Being a mompreneur isn’t a requirement, but about half of the participants are in the same boat as you if you are one.