I used to be the woman that did it all. I had dinner on the table most nights by 6 pm, exercised multiple times a week, tended to the needs of my family, poured into relationships, had a morning routine, hosted people in my home, kept a clean home AND ran a successful and thriving business. All of this on 6-7 hours of sleep every night, lots of caffeine and a weekly meltdown that usually landed on a Friday afternoon followed my an SOS text to my husband begging him to come home.
I felt a prompting this past spring, a nudging telling me that I needed to slow down. My body was keeping score too: insane acne breakouts, emotional highs and lows, hormonal imbalance, struggling to sleep at night. Summer showed up and I took that as my opportunity to pull back from work. After all, the kids were home, we were renovating our house @skytopcottage and I really needed a break from promoting, selling, strategizing, producing/achieving (things that are required to successfully run my network marketing business).
Lots of social media breaks ensued, I had to re-learn how to BE ME, how to truly be present and play with my kids and not think about a to do list. I chose to throw away my to-do list for a majority of the summer. My planner sat in my office untouched for almost two months. I stopped caring about what I wasn’t doing and thanked God for what I COULD do. What a gift to be home and present with my two children for the summer!
I slept in and didn’t set an alarm consistently for the first time in 2 years. I stopped living in a place of fear that my business would crumble or that I was majorly letting other people down. I stopped making decisions based on what people expected of me and made decisions based on what authentically I needed and what my family needed. My nap-time hustle saga was non-existent and it felt so good.
Now that summer is over, and my kids have been back in school for a few weeks, I have the opportunity to work again and still find myself unable to fully catch my breath. I’ve felt guilt and shame that I’m not inspired or motivated to jump back into my business, but I have to listen to that voice that’s telling me that now isn’t the time to hustle. Now isn’t the time to laser focus, maximize my schedule again, and DO ALL THE THINGS.
It’s okay to look at your life and evaluate what isn’t ultimately serving you or your family and decide to pivot. or rest. This decision doesn’t have to be permanent. Maybe like me, you were the mom boss that did it all, but now you’re not sure you want that anymore. Perhaps you need a break from the grind of it all. Perhaps you need a season of rest, or re-discovery of who you are.
I will leave you with this, give yourself permission to choose the path that is best for YOU and your FAMILY. You are not wasting your potential. What you do and who you are is already enough.
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