Erin Thomas Wong (00:00)
Hello and welcome back to the Life-Friendly Business podcast. I'm Erin, the Life-Friendly Business mentor, and I help female solopreneurs to build successful businesses without sacrificing time with their family or their own wellbeing. And in this season, we're looking at a different way to think about your entire business.
In the last couple of episodes, we've talked about building your strategy around your capacity and about redefining success on your own terms. But even when you start to shift those things, there's something else that still creeps in.
That feeling of, I'm behind. Looking at what everyone else is doing and feeling like you should be further along by now.
And I hear this all the time and I felt this way myself. Women saying I should be further ahead. I feel like I'm behind everyone else. I've been in business for X amount of years. I should be further on by now.
But here's the thing, behind who? Behind what timeline? Behind which version of success?
I remember this so clearly from when my boys were really little. I would be with them, trying so hard to be present, pushing them on the swings at the park, wanting to be in the moment because I felt like that's what I should be doing. But at the same time, I was building my business and I was so excited about that. I wanted to create things. I wanted to go and work on my own in a cafe. I had ideas, energy and momentum.
and I'd feel so frustrated that I couldn't get that time, especially when I knew I was in the zone. And what that led to, if I'm really honest, was me feeling really quite snappy, quite irritable, and then the mum guilt would come in. I'd feel bad that I'd snapped at them because of course it wasn't their fault.
And then on top of that, I'd feel like a bad mum for even wanting to be working. Like I should just want to be with them all the time.
And this was a constant push and pull between wanting to be present with them and enjoying the moment and wanting to build something that really mattered to me. And to be honest, it left me feeling really dissatisfied all around, like I wasn't getting it right in either place.
And I think what shifted for me over time was acceptance. I realised I had a choice. I could keep pushing against my reality, feeling irritated and annoyed that I didn't have the time that I wanted to work and then beating myself up for not being fully present with my kids.
Or I could decide that I wanted both, that I wanted to be the mum I wanted to be and the business owner I wanted to be.
And instead of looking around at what everyone else seemed to be achieving, I had to come back to what actually felt right for me. And this brings us back to our three jars of beads. My lovely analogy where we talk about our capacity and you've got your business jar, your family jar and your you jar. And there are only so many beads to go around. Each bead represents time, energy and capacity. And when your children are little,
more beads are going into that family jar. But it doesn't mean that you're behind. It means that you're making intentional choices based on your life.
And this is exactly what I mean when I say you're not behind. You're measuring yourself against something that doesn't take your life into account.
Because if you're measuring yourself against someone else's business, someone else's capacity and someone else's life, of course it's going to feel like you're behind.
You don't know how much time they have, what support they have in the background, what their responsibilities look like, what's going on behind the scenes.
And yet we compare ourselves as if we're all playing the same game, but we're not.
We are all building businesses alongside completely different lives. And when you build your business in a life friendly way, your timeline is going to look different. because you're not sacrificing everything else to grow faster.
So what if you're not behind, you're just building your business in a way that actually fits your life?
And I also want to say something here because I know this can feel really, really hard. I know it's different when you need the money, you need the income. I'm not going to sit here and say that it's not about that because it is. you've got bills to pay, you've got responsibilities and that matters.
And this is where having a realistic business model becomes so important. If you're building a business around family life, you have to check with yourself, is it actually viable to make the money I need from the way I'm currently operating?
Because sometimes the gap isn't about effort, it's about the model.
And also, we don't really talk enough about how long it can take to build a business to the point where it's generating the income that you want and need and the level of work that's required to get there.
especially when you're not working full-time hours. And often, by the time you get there, your life has changed again, your priorities have shifted, and your definition of success has also evolved.
I've seen this happen with my clients too. One woman I worked with realised that even though she absolutely loved what she did and the service she provided, she simply didn't have the capacity to do everything that was required to build the business side of it. There were other things in her life that needed to take priority and she wanted to give them priority and that was a really honest decision.
And that's the key point here. That is her choice. And this is your choice. Because this isn't about telling you what you should do. It's about helping you make decisions that actually work for your life.
so instead of asking, am I behind? Start asking, does this pace work for my life? Does this direction feel right for me? Am I building something I can actually sustain? Because when you understand your capacity and you define success on your own terms, you no longer need someone else's timeline.
So I want you to think about this. Where are you telling yourself you're behind and what are you measuring yourself against?
And if this is resonating with you, if you're ready to stop second getting yourself and start making clearer, more confident decisions in your business, Then the Cocoon is where to start. It's my membership for female solopreneurs who want more clarity, more focus and a way of doing business that actually works for them. You'll find the link in the show notes.
And remember, you get to do this your way. See you next week.
