One Momma’s Perspective: Running a Business Without It Running Your Life.

Many of you have asked me how I balance my life between work and being a wife and mother. What my work hours are like? How I run my business? Why and how we came to decide how much I work? This post is for you! 

I think there is a common, unspoken notion that the only way to run a business is to have it run you. This is not true. You can choose otherwise. I have found encouragement in knowing this, and I hope you will too. Before I start to talk about how to run a business and balance family, I want to say that you have to work at your own business. Entrepreneurship is hard work, and it is flexible, but not optional. You have to work, you have to work hard, but you don’t have to choose business over everything else in your life.

The truth is that, no matter what, my family comes before my business. It is not a balancing act between family and work, but of fitting my business around my family. Keeping my business in its place. Recently I have been reflecting a lot on this, evaluating my business in relation to my life as a wife and mom. To help me figure out where I want to be with my business, I have been looking back to where it first came from, how it is now, and what my priorities are. 

Why I Chose to Become a Business Owner.

I started my business because I eventually wanted to work for myself and have a flexible schedule so I could be home with future kiddos. I love natural health and I loved working as a chiropractor, but practice life is a hard life. There’s no flexibility when you have patients on your schedule. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to balance the practice life with mom life; some can, but I didn’t think I could do that well. But I needed to work because we had so many student loans from going to Chiropractic school. 

I also wanted to use my skills I acquired in practice as a chiropractor to continue to teach women about health. I love it, and I wanted to steward my gifts well. An online business seemed like the perfect way to combine staying at home and still working and teaching in the natural health world.

Now that I have an established online business and am a Beautycounter consultant, I am grateful each day I get to do this business; it has blessed our family with flexibility and finances. But I continuously evaluate whether this business fits where it is meant to or if I need to make any changes. 

The Balancing Act of Business.

Owning your own business means you call the shots. You make the decisions. That means that business is often on your mind. I love creating content and setting a vision for my business, but my real life, the one lived with my husband and kids, is more important. It has to be.

We can do business well and keep it within our capacity to do our life well too. I love doing business; I honestly value each and every one of you who read my blog, listen to the podcast, subscribe to my newsletter, follow me on social media, and are a Beautycounter client. Your support is not lost on me, and I am grateful daily. 

But I want to keep my business in its proper place. My relationship with God and my faith come first. My family is second, and then comes business. Over the years I have chosen to work less in order to be the most present for my children and to feel like I am being the best wife and mom I can be without living frazzled and crazy. 

I knew the feeling of racing around and being constantly burnt out all too well in chiropractic school. I am so familiar with that feeling of adrenaline racing when you have too much to do and not enough time to do it in. And I try my best to stay away from that feeling, that burnout, as much as I am able to. 

Let’s Talk Logistics: What my Work Life Actually Looks Like.

I love my business, and I say yes to putting out content and information within 10-15 work hours per week. I have 7 hours of childcare every Wednesday. This is where my husband and I feel the most comfortable with childcare. Our kids stay in our home when I work, and we don’t want any more childcare than this (even though of course I could use it and get more done, but that isn’t the point). 

My ideal work time is from 8am-1pm. I’ve always been most productive in this timeframe, but I don’t work when the kids are awake and with me (except the occasional IG post or answering a Voxer). So, right now I have my one day a week where I can make the most use of that productive time. Then I fit in a little bit here and there during the girls’ nap time/rest time. And a lot during early mornings, in the evening, and little bits and pieces of time when I can. I don’t love the 5-minutes here and there type of work, but sometimes that is what I need to get everything done. And that’s ok. It is 7:00 am and I’m at Starbucks now as I type this… it just works! 

And I don’t do it all. I have help behind the scenes in my business; I don’t deep-clean my house (we hire that out). I want as much time as I can with my girls. I crave those slow moments, the ability to be present with them and play, the quality time needed to train them in Biblical character. I want to be home with them witnessing their growth and learning with them at their pace. These years are so precious; I don’t want to miss a thing or be rushing around all the time. 

My business keeps growing year after year (all the glory to God on this!), and I work fewer hours at a much more efficient, productive pace than I used to. The work isn’t easy; it isn’t optional, but it has been doable even while raising kids with little childcare. 

I do want to share something else. This running a business thing is hard work. I don’t talk about business balance to say that it’s easy and it is for everyone. I love the job I get to do. But it is often not glamorous. I am re-evaluating things a lot, I step out of my comfort zone. It takes a long time to build up an online presence, and email list, customers, and systems for your business. I spent years and years as a one woman shop and just in the last couple of years have had some help in my business. Running my business is so worth it. But it takes sacrifices and I wouldn’t trade this for a second. I feel very called in this season to do business and I want to use these gifts to share health and clean beauty with women. 

And if you have zero interest in owning and running a business, that’s perfectly fine too. You don’t have to! I know a lot of moms are starting online or home-based businesses (many in the direct sales field) and this post is mostly for you. I run a team of Beautycounter ladies myself. This is simply me giving you “the ok” to not have to run yourself crazy in your own business just because it feels like you’re supposed to. It doesn’t have to be that way.