Listen – you can’t keep doing ALL the chores AND building your business as a work-from-home mom.
Chores + business + 0 kids? Fine.
Chores + business + 1+ kids? Too much.
So why are you pretending you can be a full-time stay-at-home mom AND a crazy ambitious CEO AND keep up everything around the house, plus do your workouts, plus have oodles of time to spend with your husband…..
When we both know that’s insanity??
It’s because you think you HAVE to do it all (in the bad sense) to “deserve” the title of work-from-home mom.
When really, the only reason you deserve anything is the simple fact that you CHOSE to.
- You chose to build a business.
- You chose to stay home with your kids.
- You chose to do family dinners each weeknight.
- You CHOSE to build the “time for my kids” life of your dreams WITHOUT sacrificing your monetary or purpose-driven ambitions.
You chose, you chose, and you chose.
And that means there’s nothing else you need to do to “deserve” a break from the chores.
- To “deserve” asking your tweens to start cooking supper two nights a week for you.
- To “deserve” hiring an every-other-week housekeeper.
- To “deserve” teaching your 8-year-old how to do the family laundry.
It’s not up to some committee on “work from home mom worthiness” or some such rot. It’s purely up to YOU.
What do YOU need to offload – outsource – so that you have enough energy to take care of everything you LOVE seeing on your calendar for today?
- Maybe it’s the walk to the park with your elementary-age kids
- Or the 9pm “here’s what my friend group is up to” chat with your 13-year-old daughter
- The Friday half days at your local coffee shop as you write your social media content for next week
- And the 12:05pm catchup call with your wonderful OBM
- Plus the 2:30pm yoga class (because you feel like taking a break from your computer, and you can)
These are the building blocks of your “so wonderful I keep pinching myself” WFH life – so notice what’s NOT on there, that you should think about outsourcing!
- Cooking 21 meals a week, every week
- Cleaning the toilets every Saturday
- Folding everyone’s laundry
- Doing the school pickup twice a day
- Scrubbing spuds every time you want mashed potatoes for supper
NONE of these are part of your “guaranteed can’t miss this” business mom life – so why are you holding onto the story that they need to be?!
And don’t give me any of that “but on a good day I can handle this, so I’m not outsourcing it yet” nonsense.
You’re SUPPOSED to plan for the pop-ups and the kitchen messes and the bad traffic coming back from grocery pickup.
I.e., you shouldn’t be doing it all yourself!
Like that Wednesday when I woke up sick out of the blue – and still needed to show up for my business.
So because I had the margin already carved into my schedule to defer the “good but not necessary” tasks till the weekend, I could make myself a cup of elderberry tea, and curl up on the sofa.
Because I needed to rest more than I needed to hit those “checked off 3 line items” metrics today.
(And yes, you better believe I swapped dinner plans on the fly so that my teens were cooking for me plus asked my 7-year-old to dump in the laundry for me because mommy was sick.) Your kids will give you grace if you ask them.
But the key is – you have to ASK them.
So no, it’s not physically possible for you to check off all the tasks around the house, plus all the client projects, and still keep up with all your marketing as a CEO mom.
But if you lean on the power of delegation to give you that confidence that everything I needed got done – plus slash the housework on your daily or weekly plate – then you’re GOING to have the mental margin you need to show up as the powerful business owner you are.
And STILL be a great mom and wife and daughter.
THAT’S the power of delegation, applied as a lever, to your work-life balance.
All it takes is moving out half the things on your to-do list so that YOU have the time you need to show up as the present mom and do your workouts (and actually feel like cuddling with your husband tonight!).
You’re going to be okay – more than okay. You’re going to thrive.
But only if you STOP mom guilting and START outsourcing. Okay?
So what do you need to quit “should-ing” yourself about today?
