Look, you can’t just “hope” it works out and your kids behave or your team steps up or your husband knows exactly what you need as the biz owner.
You have to ask for it. Or better yet, structure it.
‘Cause no business owner worth her salt is going to just leave her conversion rates of her funnel up to chance, right?
I just hope this registration page leads to the right link, and that all my emails are going out, and that the Zoom link is for the right day….
I mean, no! Come on! And – let’s just think of this for a moment – would you leave all your team structures and conversations up to chance? Your SOPs? You better hope not!
So, then why are you allowing your daily structure, and your routine, and your Asana, or your Trello board, to be all out of whack and “nobody knows what’s going on when” and “who knows if the due date got moved” or worse, “nobody pays attention to my due dates ‘cause they know I’m just going to change ‘em”….
How much more chaos is all that going to be?
And it was totally avoidable chaos, is the thing.
You don’t need to sit there on the weekend wondering if your kids are going to do their chores or not.
You don’t need to sit there after work wishing your contractor was going to get right to this and get back to you.
You don’t even need to sit there, on your lunch break, thinking that you could really use a house manager, not a housekeeper, but you’ve got to keep doing all this, ‘cause the only people who get house managers are the people who’ve filled up every single portion of their day….
Like, you get to choose if you want to plow your business profits back into making your own life easier! It doesn’t have to be this big “I can only use my profits to add to my bottom line as a family or to scale my business” type of thing – what are you, the revenue police??
So, look. You’ve got to come up with exactly what you want, exactly how you want your usual Tuesday to run, and then you’ve got to ask for it.
Hire the support for it.
Build the SOPs for it.
Train your kids to do it.
Let your husband know about it.
Any or all of those things!
‘Cause if you just go into Q4 thinking that maybe this is hustle zone, but for sure next year (how is it 2027 already?!) you’re going to get everything all nice and streamlined and it’ll somehow magically happen for you….
Uh, I’ve got news for you. It ain’t going to.
‘Cause you know what happens? What always happens?
January hits, you get this big surge of energy, you run promos and launches and all the things challenges….
And then you input your new clients, and take a look at your marketing, and make sure you scale up the back end of things to handle all your new clients or students….
And then come spring you’re going to do it all over again, to get it in before the summer slump.
And summer you’ll be too busy at the pool with your kids.
So we’re looking at next school year, in September, right? Uh, like that’s going to work.
You’re going to be knee deep in “yay I have quiet work hours again,” and “where’s all their school stuff,” and “what schedule do we all have to get used to,” and your brain’s not going to be in “streamline my life” mode.
Heck, you’re probably going to be “gearing up for another launch” mode!
‘Cause then there’s Black Friday, and then you’re slowing down for Christmas, and pretty soon it’s 2028. Like seriously.
And not once – not once did you place “hire the house manager” and “get her onboarded” and “get all our house routines worked out” on your to-do list. It never made it to the priority list.
So guess what? It’s not going to happen.
You know that by now – same for any other hire you’re making for your business. You have to prioritize getting that new podcast editor, or an additional social media person, or maybe that LinkedIn coach, and let’s be honest here – you usually wait to do that till you’re hair on fire.
10 dozen things waiting on you, swamped, urgent fires all over your inbox and your client Slack and your own coaching hotline….
Then you hire. ‘Cause it got too hot for you.
But “getting too hot” in a personal context usually means something like “had to have hernia surgery and I’m laid out for 6 weeks, no grocery shopping or cleaning or even cooking” and we still have to eat (true story, that’s happened to me) – and now what are you going to do to manage this.
‘Cause you’re still the house leader – still the person who gets everything done – still the mom, for goodness’ sake – and all this kind of health problem exposes is that you are still holding the lion’s share around the house.
And no, your VA doesn’t know your exact thinking process around customer service – she just was Slacking you every day about it.
And no, your YouTube contractor doesn’t feel empowered to make thumbnail decisions without running every single one of them by you – ‘cause he’s still not quite sure he’s got a handle on your brand guide.
Whose fault is it? It’s yours, right?
‘Cause that’s the uncomfortable thing. It’s not your team’s fault that you can’t hand everything off smoothly when you want to take a vacation (or God forbid, have that back surgery) – but it is your fault that you never set up the systems for them to do so – never gave them a trial run to practice it – never sat back and decided to see what came up if you had the household manager doing everything, and you were just hanging out with your kids and family, and then what sort of “am I allowed to be doing this” shit came up…. You didn’t set everything required up.
Whether that’s your first VA’s “when I’m on vacation” inbox Q&A policy, or you’re on your 8th team member and you’ve got your OBM down in all the hiring. Whatever. You have to take responsibility as the business owner – the company owner – step up – and actually admit what you need here.
‘Cause maybe you don’t need the YouTube thumbnails – but you do need somebody to drive your kids to school.
Maybe your kids are out of the house – for the most part – but you could really use a lawn care service (‘cause actually, your boys were the ones doing it for you, and you haven’t quite thought through all the ramifications of empty nesting).
Maybe you’ve got one still in the baby stage, and it would be so nice to have a mother’s helper just coming in and doing the spit-up laundry and playing with her and reading to her (ok, and feeding her all that super messy/so necessary baby food stuff), while you could be off doing VIP days with clients once or twice a month to bring in the extra income!
Whatever you need. I can’t guess it for you.
I mean, I’m going to be able to have a few pretty good ideas, based on your Human Design chart, but I’ve got to know all the details of your family and business setup and then where you actually want to go from here, to suggest all of that.
You can do this right now, for yourself.
What do you need?
Where did you want to be by now?
What’s happening in your business day-to-day that you really thought wouldn’t have to be handled by you?
What are you secretly getting resentful about? (And telling yourself you should just be more mature about this.) Doesn’t matter if it’s with your kids’ room cleaning or with your clients not showing up to calls on time.
What. Do. You. Need.
I’m serious here. Go all the way to the “ideal unicorn” end of the spectrum, too – ‘cause “just slightly improving things” is a whole ‘nother set of hires (and it is actually one) than “everything I want to change and would love to be different about this season for us.”
Like, those are two whole new directions. You aren’t going to have the same hires for this at all. But, we’re down to where you want to go in this.
‘Cause I can’t magic carpet my way over there, and write “hire your new housekeeper” in big letters on your to-do list – you have to decide when you’re willing to do that. When you’re “hair on fire” enough to do that. (Preferably, before you get there, but that’s just me talking!)
So, honestly now, when do you think you’re going to get around to hiring for your next level?
Discussing some new chore standards and layouts with your teens?
Going over the “kids to sports games” schedule with your husband, with a clear expectation that you aren’t going to be the one doing all this?
When is busy enough going to be too busy for you?
Because “busy” was never meant to be your operating system in all this. And you’ve been treating it like one.
(Oh wait – I just cleared some space again. Better pull up the Busy SOP again and see what else I can fill….)
So I think now’s a good time to come to God about this.
God, we come to You today. We admit that we’re busy. We like being busy. It feels like a badge of usefulness, sometimes, being busy. Here, look at all the things I’m doing. I’m worthy. I’m a good person. I’m Martha-ing my way through life, and here, aren’t You happy with me. ‘Cause my friends and family sure are. But Lord, You’ve already told us You aren’t. You already showed us You prefer Mary. And so what do we need to change about our day to day, God, to make time for that rest like Mary. To not be always tied to our to-do lists – like Mary. To soak up the time with You and everyone else who’s important to us – like Mary. Not running around tidying up. (That one’s for me, here.) Not running ‘round managing everyone else’s to-do lists. Not scuttling around the house looking for things out of place, that need doing, that need somebody to come in and take care of them. ‘Cause that’s not what You call us to. And how different would our schedules be, how different would our families be, how different would our client relationships and our businesses be, if we made time for stillness each and every day. Like it was the most prized, important part of our day. We ask it of You. Show us how to make this change, how to follow You even when rest feels hard, when we want to get sucked right back into doing – ‘cause it’s easier for us, Lord – and when we need to just drop everything and listen to You. Let the to-do list rest and listen to You. Let the marketing shortlist rest and be with You. We want this from You – we want to be closer to You – we just get conformed to the world’s structures sometimes, Lord. And so we ask You to totally revamp this in us, so we can bring pleasure and honor and delight to You in our daily conversations. ‘Cause we’re there for You. We ask this in Your Name as we pray, amen.
