Returning to work after giving birth isn’t easy, and many women prefer to stay at home. That doesn’t mean that they don’t still want to earn money, or utilize the skills that they have learned before pregnancy. In fact, many women are taking up the mantle of being a mompreneur: a mother who launches their own business from home. Here’s how to be successful in this field.
Know the implications
In order to succeed at anything, it’s important to go into it with your eyes wide open. While many women are choosing to become mompreneurs, they aren’t giving up their involvement in childcare or household duties. That means you could be working three full-time jobs at once: childcare, cleaning, and your actual business. That’s before we even take into account the fact that running your own business often means working more than a 40-hour week. If you are willing and determined to take this on from the start, you might find it a little easier to juggle.
Have a (flexible) plan
The first thing that you need to do is to work out how you are going to spend your time. A good model is to work out the hours around your existing commitments. If your children are old enough to go to school, this will be easier, as you will have those free hours while they are out of the house. If not, it’s trickier. Try to set aside time during every week for the following commitments: marketing, writing and replying to emails, finances, social media management, planning, and actually doing the work you need to do. Be flexible so that when things come up, you can deal with them. So long as you have that schedule in your mind, you can move around blocks: when you have to pick up someone from school early because of sickness, just know that you still have an hour’s work to do after everyone is in bed.
Work together
Making this all work as a family is very important. You can talk to your partner about sharing duties such as childcare and cleaning to make a more reasonable schedule that you can realistically stick to. You might share cooking duties, or agree to cook a big meal on Monday which will work as leftovers for Tuesday and Wednesday. If you’re a single mom, think about asking family members or even friends for those few hours of scheduled support here and there. You can even arrange things with older kids to make sure that everyone is happy. The family that works together is a family where everyone gets what they need.
Make it happen
Don’t just follow this course of action for a couple of weeks and then let it all crumble down. Stick to it. Even if you mess up your schedule one day, take a deep breath and plunge back in on the next. If you give up, you’ll be giving up your dreams and your hopes of earning a living as a mompreneur. It takes time to succeed, so keep pushing forward until you can make it happen. Once it happens, set yourself a new goal and forge full steam ahead to keep that momentum flowing.
As a mom, you probably already know what it’s like to work full-time, look after the kids, and keep up with the housework. Being a mompreneur is more of the same – except you actually get to enjoy it. Turn your passion into your business and work won’t feel like such a drag.
