Prior to having kids, I had this vision that running my own business would be the perfect (and easy) fit with raising a family. I’m going to go ahead and say that I was wrong. But I will also say that the pursuit of creating a successful photography business (really, my first baby) balanced with being the best Mom I can be to my kids is a very meaningful purpose in my life. But I wish the challenges were talked about more often. Part of my mission with Day in the Life of a Mom, is to help Moms see their own beauty within the messy reality of parenting through heartstring-tugging family films and photos. Through asking others to be real, and feel all the feels, I am constantly reminding myself to do the same. So let me share a bit about my journey, the challenges, and some of the lessons I’m learning along the way.

Lesson One: Self-care isn’t selfish!

I hear this dream from so many women, that they want to be a stay-at-home Mom AND to run a successful business. But, that makes us work-at-home Moms, which I am learning is quite different. I find myself working in the cracks of time. I have a 1.5 year old and a 3 year old and have been surviving off of an afternoon nap overlap between them that is soon to end. I am not saying it is not worth it, but I am saying that it can be tough. And where does the self-care fit? When all those cracks of time are taken up with bettering my business, learning, growing, trying to succeed, I very nearly lost myself along the way. Why do we have this feeling of guilt around the idea of putting ourselves first as Moms? I needed to shake myself a bit at the end of 2018, but I am finally starting to remember that self-care isn’t selfish. I was putting so much into being great at everything I was doing: Mom, wife, household manager, nurse, photographer, business owner that I was starting to forget about all of the parts of my identity that require some time in my life for self-care: outdoor adventures, exercise, reading, or just relaxing with a latte and my feet up. For the first 18 months of adjusting to 2 kids while trying to run a business, I dropped almost all self-care. This was a huge mistake and I was starting to feel burnt out. So in 2019, I am committing to fitting in self-care, not with time leftover (because there never is any), but by putting it in my calendar as a priority. As Moms we are so good at looking after everybody and everything else, but I really believe that self-care should be the foundation to all of that. And I can now say the few nap overlaps I still get, involve sitting with coffee FIRST, and then getting stuff done.

…. for the rest of the article that I wrote for The Mothering Vine, and remaining two “lessons” along my journey, go here: https://www.themotheringvine.com/lessons-of-an-entrepreneur-shirleys-journey/