Starting a business seems to be the go to thing for many stay at home mums. And quiet frankly seems the right thing to do considering the vast amount of spare time we have, right?
If I only I knew how much time this would actually take, I would have thought about this twice. Especially starting a divorce and buying a house 4 months after I started my online store and of course I never pictured my marriage failling so soon after starting my business.
I had no idea how to start a business let alone how to run it. But all I knew was that I wanted to achieve 3 main goals, which were:
To work from home and spend more time with the kids.
To be my own boss.
To have a source of income.
And now let me tell you what in reality happened during the first year:
(To work from home and spend more time with the kids) I didn’t have time to spend with my kids because I needed all the awake time that I had to invest in my business.
(To be my own boss) Yeah I was my own boss, that’s right, nobody told me what to do, in fact, nobody told me anything, because I was on my own. The whole time. Literally.
(To have a source of income) About that, well unless you have an amazing product and are amazing at promoting your business then you’ll be stumped, because apparently you don’t make much money if any in the first year. So far I think this was the only point I was good at.
Ok, so we have established that I had no clue of how to start a business, and very little more on how to run it and so I began to worry that I was going to have to quit. And I did’t want to. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. After all everyone else was doing it and they all looked so busy and so successful. What was I doing wrong? Perhaps I wasn't advertising enough.
I decided to start a social media management course to learn how to promote my own business the very same day I moved into my new house. Literally the same day (because I didn’t have enough on my plate). By the time I finished the course 6 months later it turned out that I sucked so much at running a business that I decided to stick with the social media.
Was it scary quitting the online shop? Was it embarrassing? No fricking way! We put so much pressure on ourselves that we don’t allow room for improvement, or defeat for that matter. I was defeated, I sucked at running my online shop. I didn’t know how to or have the dedication to run it and so what? Did that make me a horrible person? A looser? No way, I took it as a stepping stone that has brought me to the job I’m doing today. That gives me freedom to work around my children and now I can tick all the boxes.
I work from home, I am my own boss, I have a source of income. At the moment it is still a learning curve and not every moment is fun and glamorous, but every little achievement fillls me with joy and that you cannot put a price on. That I have achieved something, without the need and support of a partner and that I don’t need to rely on anyone.
So the moral of the story…
Don’t just keep going because it’s what everyone says you have to do, do what is right for you and don’t be afraid of failing. Successful people are not those who do not fail, they are those who do fail more than once and simply refuse to accept it as the conclusion.
Cristina Suarez is a Social Media Manager and the founder of Digital Mother Hustles, an ingenious company depicted by bright and bold colours. She is based in Kent where she lives with her two children.