Motivating Mum UK

Practical hints and tips from a recent Motivating Mum East Hertfordshire event

Business mums at the Motivating Mum East Hertfordshire event in Hertford on the 4th October raised lots of questions during Barbara’s talk about running a multi-faceted life.

Providing practical hints and tips from professional experience as a life coach and as a business mum, Barbara from www.equinoxlifecoaching.co.uk highlighted the fact that as the brain uses a certain amount of energy to think, if our thoughts are constantly changing (when we try to multi-task) then we are unable to be productive when thinking about one thing.

So, what should we be doing to help run our multi-faceted lives?!

If you don’t write things down your brain has to use valuable processing energy to retain information in the conscious mind, when it could be using it more productively. Writing lists should be an art form. Find out what works best for you and then stick to it!

Barbara’s top tip is to use different coloured sticky notes (which she puts onto sections of a picture frame in her office) in four category areas: Today, This Week, To do and Question mark. Sticky notes can be moved from one category to another as they are actioned and crossed off when done (this system can also apply to children with activities they need to do!)

Decide on a set amount of time to action work emails, say 30 minutes, then use a kitchen timer and stick to it! Once the timer is up move onto the next thing and, again, set the timer for the length of time you need for this particular activity. This could seriously help you move from activity to activity with focus, and particularly when school pick up time is looming.

Take a couple of minutes break between activities, to look out the window and take some deep breaths. It may only be two minutes but to your neurons that travel at the speed of electricity, it is like a holiday! Phew.

Positive Language and Thoughts

The language we use can have a big impact on what or how we achieve things. For example if you say “I’ve got to….” and then change this to “I will do….”  , it should feel very different and much more positive.  ”I can” and “I’m going to” are also positive, and should help to make you feel positive in what you plan to achieve.

The biggest challenge of being a business mum is changing your thinking to become a mother with her own successful business. We are playing two roles and when we have child-free time – to run our business – we do not have to justify what we are doing with this time.

The biggest benefit of running your own business is being able to build flexibility into your day, only take care this doesn’t become a diversionary tactic. It is important to set realistic business goals and a planning timeframe, both in the development stage of a business and then when running a business.

When planning your day, having a plan A for what you hope you can achieve if everything goes as you expect with childcare, travel and any other considerations and also a plan B which might be a reduced number of activities in line with the fact children and family life can be unpredictable, will help make you feel positive in whatever your achievements are on that day.

If you have found this useful, and want to find out more, why not try ‘Coffee with a Coach’ where Barbara talks to groups of women on any subject that is requested.

Thank you to Barbara for her really useful talk, I think we have all gone out now and stocked up on sticky notes!! It was great to see everyone so enthusiastic and asking lots of questions at this event, and hopefully now being able to put some of it into practice.

Looking forward to seeing more mums at the Motivating Mum East Hertfordshire pre-Christmas gift selling / browsing and networking event on the 7th November in Bishop’s Stortford. With lots booked on to this, it is going to be a great networking (and some shopping, perhaps!) event ahead of Christmas, which is coming up so fast now.