Lilian Fortune

          It’s the end of the holidays and so that means that it is another 365 days being a mother. And just like every new year, mothers often experience some sort of burnout at the first few months of the year. This burnout could either be financially, emotionally or physically. You might start to hope and wish that the holidays didn’t end, the thought of schools resuming once again and your life as a busy mum who has to not only get her family together, but also her business, starts to wear you out. Well, you know what they say, when you’re in Rome, act like a Romanian. The world is getting busy, you should get busy too, you have a lot of work to do, more work than you can imagine both at home, and with your business.

How to manage your life the first few months of the new year?

There is really not much thought into it, it’s basically the same things you did the whole of last year but this time, with a little bit of a head start and of course, swerve.  If you did not draft out a plan for yourself last year, now might be a good time to make one, no one goes into a war without their weapons, you can’t start a new year as a mompreneur without trying to:

• Give yourself credit. Confidence, motivation, whatever term you wish to call it, it’s totally up to you. I must be honest, it is not easy running a business side by side running a home and not substituting any fir the other. It’s totally hard work and not everywoman can. Many people must have tried at different seasons of the previous year but were not able to hold off until the next season but you did. You’re one of the women that know what they want and never let the world or whatever they are going through talk then out of it and that is one of the strongest traits ever; persistence. Before setting up your plan for the new year, you must first all recognise how powerful you have been the previous year, congratulate yourself, speak words of encouragement to yourself, and convince yourself that this year would be even better.
• How far did you go?. This is a very relevant question for everyone aspiring to achieve a better year than the previous one. It’s a question that would help you enable your self reflection, get you thinking about the ups and downs of your previous year. It’s always important that you have an overall estimate of how your previous year went. How smooth was your journey as a mompreneur? what were your mistakes? how big were your mistakes? how often were your mistakes? what where the effects of your mistakes? how did they affect the mom and business part of your life? were you able to solve it? how long did it take? These are important questions to consider during your self reflection and once you are able to answer these questions, you would be able to know what and where you need to work on this year for a better result.
• Be realistic with your goals. Practice SMART goals. Many mothers and entrepreneurs might want to start the new year with a new set of goals or better modifications to the previous goals. However, whether you want to retain your old goals, modify them, or create new ones, make sure that your goals are ones that can be attainable, this means that you must set realistic goals. You do not need to be in a hurry, or make fast decisions, take your time and don’t forget to also give yourself some time for relaxation in your schedule this year. Make sure that your goals embody the whole SMART system. They should be strategic, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound with deadlines.
• Make a SWOT analysis for yourself side by side your business. While you are trying to recognise the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities  and threats your business had experienced the previous year, you should also take some time to make one for yourself. what are your strengths as a mum and as an entrepreneur? what are your weaknesses? what opportunities did you get and what ones do you hope to get? what are the threats you faced and might still face this new year? once you have figured this out, it would be really easy to navigate yourself for improvement both in your personal life as a mom and in your business.
• Set new priorities for yourself. it is important that you change or adjust your priorities for the new year. It should not exactly be like the one of the previous year. Weigh the components of your life and business that are important to you and draft your priorities in that light.
•  Have an open mind. Always open your hearts to accept and acknowledge feedbacks from those around you. Always ask for the opinion of friends, relatives, team, your partner and even your children about a particular project or theme you have incubated into your business or personal life. Depending on what feedback you may get, you might be able to strategise your life and business to make them even better.
• Every win and loss should be celebrated. You are not a god, even gods make mistakes, you are human and even more so, expected to make a lot of mistakes. You don’t have to beat yourself up because of it. You don’t have to let one mistake ruin your entire year, you don’t have to constantly frown at your mistakes and only celebrate your wins. Always celebrate your losses, no matter how grave, and your wins no matter how small.