00:00:01 You are listening to the Scaling to Freedom podcast and if you are an online coach or course creator, you are in the right place. I’m your host, Christina Bernhard. I’m an Ads agency owner that gets an inside look every day on what’s working and what doesn’t in the online coaching space. I’m here to share with you what we see works in our agency as well as what we see happening and changing in the industry. Stay tuned to up level your coaching business to have the freedom you want. Let’s get started.

00:00:31 Welcome to episode 191. In this episode I’m going to be talking about what I’ve learned in my first year of balancing motherhood and entrepreneurship and I’m really excited about this episode because I’ve done a few just talking about my journey. If you missed it, I have talked about my maternity leave as an entrepreneur, how I prepared for it. I did an episode before maternity leave and what I was doing to plan it. And then I also did an episode after maternity leave and talked about what I did well, what didn’t work and what I would change and what I would do differently next time.

00:01:06 So definitely check those out if you haven’t already. If you are expecting just to hear another story I remember that I really wanted to hear as many stories as possible of mothers that were entrepreneurs and specifically about maternity leave. But also the journey, especially of the first year because the first year can be pretty challenging. And it’s also just like this huge adjustment to going from being someone who if I needed to, I could work a twelve hour day, I could pull all nighters. There wasn’t a lot of stress with workload and things like that because I didn’t feel like anything was holding me back from being able to just go for whatever or to finish my crazy to do list.

00:01:50 There was just nothing in the way I had all the time in the world. I personally was single also, so it was just like all of my time was mine, right? All of my energy was mine, all of my mental capacity was just spent on me and my business. And so it was definitely a big shock. Like I knew obviously that these things were going to be very much split apart and not necessarily in an even way, but it’s just been a crazy journey. I put together a few lessons that I learned after the first year and my absolute favorite lesson that has transformed what I think about being a mother. I’m going to leave for the end, but it is one that has actually made me super excited to have another baby because I definitely want a second baby and I’ve even toyed with the idea of having more than two. I don’t know, we’ll see. Definitely no more than three. That’s like absolutely no way.

00:02:44 But maybe three, I don’t know, we’ll see but these are just lessons that I’ve learned. Again, this is just my experience and I will share with you a little bit more about the details of that too, as I go through the different lessons. So let’s go ahead and get right in. The first lesson that I learned was that I needed grace for longer than I expected. So I didn’t think life was going to become normal again or anything like that, certainly not right away, but I did think that I would have gotten into the groove of things a little bit quicker than I did.

00:03:18 And I have heard people say this, but it was just different experiencing it. So it took longer than I thought to just adjust to motherhood and especially with owning your own business. Because at least for me, my workload, it kind of fluctuates, especially based on calls. So weeks that I have a lot of calls, I’m doing a lot more ad strategies. And then also whenever we have a new ad strategy get approved, we have more campaigns that we’re building and creating. And so some of that, if there’s a week where there’s just not a lot of calls that week and the following week is, well, depending on calls, again, it might be lighter. And then there are weeks where for whatever reason, all the calls fall in the same week and it’s just insane. So sure, there’s probably things I can do to even that out, but for me, that’s kind of my situation. And so that’s been a little bit challenging because again, before I could just work for however long I wanted to and that’s not the case anymore. It’s not my life anymore.

00:04:15 So it took me longer to adjust than I thought. And I was thinking maybe like a quarter, maybe two quarters. I’m going to speak in quarters because we’re in business, but to just kind of get into the groove of things, I was just going to coast for a quarter or two and just really focus on motherhood and all of that. But it took more like this whole year. And so I will say that I don’t have a partner, so that’s going to sway my experience. But also I do have a baby that is healthy too, so I was very lucky with that as well. But I am alone, so maybe it’s going to take people different times for sure, based on all kinds of variables, so many variables about postpartum and motherhood and the baby and all of that. But for me, I think it took I mean, really, I felt like I was starting to get the hang of things around like nine months. Around like four months. It did start to get a little bit easier, but it was still incredibly hard.

00:05:19 My daughter didn’t sleep very well, which is common story, but she didn’t even have her first night where she slept for even a long stretch until nine months so it just felt like it was never going to end and I didn’t feel completely human until then. But now we’re at eleven months actually, at the time that this podcast will go out, she will be turning one in a few days. So now it’s fairly I feel like we have a good groove and things feel good. She does wake up in the night, but it’s no big deal. It’s not like I have to pick her up and feed her or anything like that. Sometimes I just rub her back and she goes back to sleep. It’s not really a big deal. It doesn’t affect my sleep. I still feel fairly rested, especially in comparison. So that’s the biggest thing is that I needed grace for longer than expected, for sure.

00:06:11 But a year does seem long, but it’s not being on the other side of it, it went incredibly fast. So there are a couple of things that I would do next time that I want to do with my second baby and just having more support for longer. For one, I didn’t do I’ve talked about this on other episodes, but I didn’t have a lot of support postpartum, which was a mistake, but now I know, whatever. But other things too. I did eventually start doing a meal service and I started that maybe when she was around like seven months or so. And I’m like, I should have done this from the beginning. It is pricey for sure, but that would have been just really helpful. I did freezer meals and stuff like that. But the thing that I learned is just having that support for longer because honestly, for me personally, early postpartum was kind of a whirlwind, but I was fairly fresh. Like I had pregnancy insomnia and stuff like that.

00:07:08 So I wasn’t sleeping well in pregnancy, but I didn’t have severe chronic sleep deprivation or anything like that. So I was going into it fresh, so I didn’t actually I feel like when I really needed support was like later, like three months, four months, that’s when it started getting really difficult. So just having that support, whether it’s childcare or meal service or cleaning service, like whatever it is, having it for just longer, like doing it for a year is what I would want to do next time. The second lesson is one thing that I’ve really learned and just have taken in is that everyone’s experience is so different and so just learning to listen to myself as a mother and also I have my own unique business. All of our businesses are businesses that we created, so they’re all unique to us and how we built them.

00:07:58 We built them from scratch. We created these things from the thin air. So of course they’re all so different as far as what kind of boundaries you have in your business, what the workflow looks like or workload, what kind of mental capacity your tasks take, there’s so many different variables. And then when you’re balancing that with motherhood especially or new motherhood because I’m a new mother, also balancing that with the fact that every baby is different. So it all depends on the baby.

00:08:28 I have friends that have had a really easy newborn period. Like their baby started sleeping longer stretches and they were good eaters, they had a smooth breastfeeding journey like all these things. Some of them started sleeping through the night at three months, like no big deal. And then other babies are just so different. So if you ask that person they might say, oh no, you don’t need help or you don’t need this or no, you don’t need meal service or whatever.

00:08:51 It really just depends on all those different variables. So I think for me it’s been a great learning experience to be able to get in tune with myself and knowing if something is right for me or what my needs are. Which did take some time because early postpartum I had no idea. I had no idea what I needed. I was just in tunnel vision. I was just focused on that specific moment and what was needed that moment. We need a diaper change, we need a new onesie, we need milk or we need whatever. It was all just like moment to moment. So I didn’t know that. So I’m referring to more of like later and the reason I’m making that differentiation is because I kind of wish that I heard more of that.

00:09:32 I know people joke about how hard motherhood is and stuff like that, but I would have liked to know how difficult it would have been to understand what kind of support I needed. Early Postpartum and how different that is from six months, like a six month old. So just being able to lean in and know what’s right for me and doing that same with the business too, if I needed to change something in the business, like not going with just what everyone else has done. I mean, I loved listening to other people’s stories, what worked for them, and then just gathering all of that and figuring out what works best for me, my business, my daughter and me. I already said me in my life.

00:10:14 So just that lesson of being able to trust myself, it’s also, I think, a little bit easier for me too because I don’t have a partner. So every decision has to be made by me and only me. So it’s not like, well, what do you think? There is none of that conversation happening. So the third thing that I learned was that organization and systems are everything.

00:10:39 I wouldn’t say I didn’t know this pre motherhood because I’ve always been pretty organized and I am very big into systems in my business but also in my personal life. But really, honestly, I would not have survived this year in the way that I did anyway without being so organized and having the systems that I do. So I did do a podcast episode on what these systems were and how I was keeping up with things and that was just basically scheduling all of my at home tasks. I actually put things on the calendar of when I’m going to do laundry and all that. I don’t necessarily have to do that as much anymore, but there was a time where that was incredibly helpful to get things out of my brain.

00:11:23 Especially with entrepreneurship, if you are the visionary of your business, you need that creativity. Maybe not at all seasons of the business, but for me, I run ad campaigns so creativity is incredibly important. So I need all of this other stuff. Like nothing can be bouncing around and floating in my head. I have a whiteboard in my kitchen and I also actually have two whiteboards. One of them is on my fridge and it’s like separated by days of the week and I literally have which chores I’m doing on which week, on which day of the week. I still have that, I still use it. And I know it seems silly, but it is just a way that I don’t have to think about when I need to do laundry, or when I need to prep bottles, or when I need to mop, or just all these things. None of that is floating my head. It just has a designated day and I just follow that and I just don’t even have to think about it.

00:12:16 So I’m just doing different things, having different systems to open up and free up that mental capacity so that I can focus it on my business or even just like white space and personal time and just having a break and things like that super important. And then I already mentioned the meal service that has been huge, a huge help because things with her, she’s gotten older so things are a lot easier now. I have taken that meal service and I think I have like I do six meals a week now and before I did twelve. So I’ve been just slowly having less and less meals because I’m able to cook a little bit more than I did before. I personally love to cook, so I’m able to just do that more and more.

00:12:57 As far as my daughter’s food, I still cook all of her food and I actually meal prep for her. So every Monday afternoon, I don’t know what I would do if I had to figure out for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day what to feed her. I don’t even know what she is, what kind of meals I would be handing her. But again, it’s that mental capacity and just protecting that for myself, especially as a business owner who really needs like my income thrives on my creativity, my clients incomes thrive on my creativity because I’m running their ad campaigns and so it’s really important. We are part of launches that only happen for a few times a year, so it’s very important, right?

00:13:39 So just having the meal prep for my daughter is huge. So I can just do that once a week. And then I have other things that I put on the side of her meals and stuff that I kind of just throw together last minute. But there’s a plan for all of it. So another thing that I started doing, which I don’t do anymore, there’s not a need for it anymore, but in the beginning of my daughter eating solids, I would meal plan for her a month at a time.

00:14:09 So that was super helpful. So I would just do it once a month and I would have a plan for the entire month. I know it seems crazy, but again, the mental capacity to not have to think about these things, so helpful. Another thing being really consistent with night and morning routines, I actually have my routines written out. Again, it probably sounds silly, but it is so helpful to just look at a whiteboard and just see the list of things that you need to do and just do them and not have to think about it.

00:14:37 And then another thing that has been really helpful, which some people say that it’s not a priority for them, which is fine, but it is for me, which is to keep my house very organized. And the best way that I can do that is just not own a lot of things. So I’m not like a minimalist, but I do try to not have a lot of duplicates of things and just have more minimal things, which is actually very doable with a baby. They really don’t need that many things and as soon as she grows out of something or we don’t use something anymore, we absolutely get it out of the apartment. And so that really helps with keeping things organized because I can organize the pantry in five minutes or whatever.

00:15:15 Just constantly cleaning things out. It actually doesn’t take a lot of time if you do it regularly. So that has just been helping my just mental state and being able to keep up with everything. And again, that creativity like that mental space is so, so important. So those are some of the systems that I’ve used and a big reason why I’d been able to survive this first year, at least in the way that I did. Without these things, I would have survived, but it would have been really difficult. The last lesson that I’ll go over is by far my favorite lesson. But also it’s kind of the saddest and scariest, but that is how fast it goes. I absolutely cannot believe that the first year is about to be over a few days after this episode airs. And it’s crazy because everyone says this and I’m only a year in, so I’ve only gotten a small taste of this, but it is just going so fast.

00:16:16 And I remember just thinking like, oh my gosh, am I going to be able to have a baby in my life and be a business owner? And how on earth am I going to keep up with the things that I love to do and keep up with the business? What’s going to happen to the business, all these things. I have all these goals and I’m very ambitious and am I going to have to give that up? All these thoughts, right, that we all have when we’re trying to weigh out whether this is right for us. And what’s crazy is that I fixated so much on what it was like to have a baby, what it would be like to have a baby in my life and she’s already about to not be a baby anymore. It’s such a short time.

00:17:02 For the amount that I focused on it, it’s kind of insane. The season is so short and so I’m just so glad that I did it and I’m so glad that I did it when I did. And by it I mean have a baby is because I am just realizing it’s just such a short season. That’s rough. Now, I can only speak from my experience, but it’s just the fact that I can sleep now. My daughter still wakes up in the night. She’s not this fantastic sleeper, but the fact that I can get six to 7 hours of sleep and yes, it’s broken, unfortunately, but I can still get that. I feel rested again. And there are many nights where she does sleep through the night and she doesn’t wake up at all. So having that already is just kind of insane.

00:17:51 Like how much easier it feels already. And it’s almost like as if I used to think that that was going to be my life forever when it was just a season. And I intellectually understood this, but I didn’t prepare for it in that way. And when I thought about having a kid or a baby, I just didn’t think of it as like I pictured the unmanageable time, which is obviously manageable, but it’s difficult. It’s really difficult to be woken up all night long for months at a time. Now, I will say that again, I don’t have a partner so I can only speak to that experience. So every single wake up of my daughters in her first year of life fell on me and I had to respond to every one. And so it has been really difficult, but it happened so fast and I am honestly really excited to have a second baby. And even all of the other challenges that are coming our way with just all of the different milestones and all of that, even all of that is going to go so fast. The first five years, they’re not a little toddler baby anymore.

00:19:03 It’s just insane. And if you think about the length of your entire life and how little five years is and the fact that I’m putting in five years and I get to have this being that I created and when I’m old. I get to have children and hopefully maybe grandchildren if they want that for them, and just have this little family like I imagine myself in my older age, just like at Thanksgiving and Christmas and just having this little family that I created when I was younger. And that’s what really keeps me going because I don’t feel like it’s an either or and there are many women who have proven this over and over again.

00:19:47 It’s not a surprise that you can own a business and be a mother. There’s so many examples and so it’s definitely very proven and most people agree that it’s possible, but it’s always like, well, at what expense? But even if it is really difficult, it’s just such a short, fast season and it’s almost scary to think of how fast it goes, but it has really put things into perspective for me as far as what it means to have children. It’s just so fast and the season is just so worth it. Even with what we just went through, it was really challenging.

00:20:29 But I was able to keep the business going. And also my second time around, I will have way more support in place already before I have the baby. That’s going to be key and very important and just it’s a done deal. And so I truly believe that I will be able to be more equipped and more capable the second time around to have it be more manageable than it was. So I’m really excited about that. But the whole process has just made me so excited to do it all again, honestly, which is crazy, but it does require so much growth. And I love that about life. And I’m just so excited to be able to, just for one, be able to balance both, because that was really cool to see what I was made of, what I could accomplish and handle. And so that was really cool too. But also just to see that the baby part is already over.

00:21:30 She’s always going to be my baby, but she can feed herself and do all these things and she’s still really young, but everything is just so much more manageable, so much more. And a lot of days, honestly, I would say most days right now, we’re in such a good season, it’s been such a nice break and breath of fresh air because most days are pretty easy. Now when I have her all day, even on days that I have to work with her now, I cannot do calls with her. She’s like climbing me and screaming and it’s impossible. But if I have to work, I can easily work during her nap times and it’s just manageable and she’s happy most of the time.

00:22:12 She does throw out a little bit, which will happen more and more, but it’s just been so beyond worth it and so doable. And even the times that I felt like it wasn’t doable, where I felt really challenged, by the time I had processed that, it was really hard. It was over. So it was just like I loved going through this experience and having that lesson come out of it. So these are the things that I’ve learned in the first year and I’m obviously just getting started and I’m so excited for the future. I’m excited to have another baby and do it again. We’re a little ways from that. I’m not going to do that right now. And I hope that with fertility and everything like that, that’s a possibility for me. But I’m still fairly young, so I feel like I do have a decent chance of that happening.

00:23:04 So those are the lessons I’ve learned, though. So basically just needing grace, like giving myself grace for longer than expected, if I think about a whole year of focusing on being a mother and just having grace and stuff like that, a year is really not that long, especially when you’re in the thick of something like this and it goes very fast. So just needing that grace for longer, knowing how to listen to myself and knowing that everyone’s experience, everyone’s baby is different, everyone’s work is different and business is different. It’s all just something you have to listen to yourself and know what’s going to be right for you and your baby. Organization, systems, everything.

00:23:45 I should probably add in support there, which is kind of a system that I did not have enough of, that I should have pre planned. So I definitely plan on doing that as well. And then the last one, which is that it goes so fast, but yeah. So that is what I have for you in this episode. If you missed my other previous motherhood entrepreneurial episodes, definitely check those out. I think this is maybe the fifth one I’ve done, and they’re always our most popular episodes, but they’re really fun to do and fun to share and record. And I know that whenever I was pregnant or also infertility treatment, I really wanted to hear all the stories and I just felt like I didn’t hear a lot of the stories of what it was really like, the details of it and how to do maternity leave and stuff like that. And I think hearing the more stories the better because everyone’s experience is so different. So, yeah, that is what I have for you this week. I hope you all have a wonderful week.

00:24:45 I will see you all next time. Thank you for listening to the Scaling to Freedom podcast. If you are a seven figure coach looking for ads management with an agency that partners with you to get your work out into the world and amplify your impact see if we are a good fit by applying for a spot in our agency at christinbernhard.com/apply find the link in our show notes.