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The struggles I faced when planning for maternity leave

Are you the type of person who tries to plan for their busy periods of life? When I had my son, Ezra, I didn’t. I mean, I of course organised maternity leave and help from my mum, but overall, I kind of winged it.


Honestly, when Ezra was born, my life was a sh*t show. So much chaos and so little sleep.

Now that I’m pregnant with my second child, I wanted to plan a little more. I wanted some kind of idea on how I was going to manage two businesses, a toddler, a newborn, my household and keep myself in check.


I had a call with my coach last week and she asked what I had planned. I knew I wanted to make a plan and be more organised this time, but I hadn’t actually started anything yet. After a few minutes of talking about how I hadn’t even made any changes yet, I felt stressed and overwhelmed. I was wondering how the heck was I going to survive? How were my businesses going to survive? How were my children going to survive?! I was a big ball of mess.


Now, realistically, some things you just can’t prepare for. I know that and I’m not being unrealistic, so I wanted to focus on what I could prepare for and what I could ‘control’. I came up with two main areas of my life.


The first were my businesses. The second was my household (literally the house – not the kids).


My coach and I made a list of things that I could outsource in these two areas. A few examples from my business list were: uploading new stock, creating social media content, ordering new stock. The two examples for my household came to so easily and naturally: cleaning and our lawns.


After the call, I continued making lists and considering what else I could pass out to other people and other businesses. A few hours later, I actually felt quite bad. I literally felt guilty and even now, I don’t get it. I don’t understand why I felt this way.


I slept on it.


The next day, I wanted to think a bit more about these feelings and figure out why on earth I was holding myself back. I realised it was my own limiting beliefs.


I had the thought that only ‘rich’ people had cleaners and it was a waste of money to hire somebody to clean my home. I felt like I’d be a considered a ‘bad’ mother because I couldn’t keep my own home clean and tidy. I was scared to release control to other people within my business because they won’t care as much as I do and again, it was a waste of money.


I wanted to work on these limiting beliefs so I asked myself how true these things actually were.


I realised that I knew lots of people with all kinds of income who had cleaners. A lot of these people were also incredible mums. I knew that my virtual assistant had been doing an incredible job so far and I was always happy with her quality of work, so why wouldn’t that continue? She definitely cared about my business too.


Yes, it would cost me physical money. But it also saves me a LOT of time, stress, frustration and stops me from being annoyed when my partner doesn’t help or do something that he said he would.


At the end of the day, sometimes we just need help and that’s okay. I knew that I was going to need help when my second child was born in a few months, but I wanted to have the right team in place before then so I would feel comfortable and happy during that crucial busy period of my life.


Since that phone call last week, I have hired cleaners to come fortnightly, somebody to come and do our lawns fortnightly and my VA has taken on a range of new tasks that will save me hours and hours of time each week.


This plan is priceless because I know the unexpected will still pop up, as it always does with children, but I at least know that my household and businesses will be taken care of.


With love

Shorina xo

Counsellor + Wellness & Mental Health Coach

 

Hi, I'm Shorina and I'm an Australian Counsellor + Wellness & Mental Health Coach. I'm here to support you to redefine your relationship to self and life! I incorporate a mind, body and soul wellness approach to my work with a focus on healing and mindfulness ♡


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