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Mompreneur Success – 5 Self Care Tips to Maintain Work-Life Balance

The first time I saw Anita Renfroe’s “Momsense” video, I laughed. The second time, I cried.

Giving birth is challenging, but being a mom, is and art and a science. It requires incredible grace under pressure, skill, and an ability to let much of the stress of life roll right off your back, because we’re “on duty” 24 hours a day.

Kid wakes up screaming in the middle of the night? Mom’s up and at ’em.

Kid gets sick at school? Mom to the rescue.

Flat tire in the middle of nowhere? Mom’s calling “Triple A”, or she’s changing it herself.

Now, I’m not saying that Dads aren’t responsible folk. They are. But when Mom and Dad are BOTH sick, who’s taking care of the kids?

Yep, that’d be Mom.

And who’s running the business, wearing the pearls, moppin’ the floor, fixin the dinner, doing the laundry, and tendin’ to the home front?

Good ol’ mom.

Okay, I admit, hubby does the laundry in my house, but you get the idea I’m driving at here. I’m not taking anything away from Dad. Dad works hard, but as Anita Renfroe so meticulously puts it in her video, we do (and say) a ton of stuff for our family. Some good, some less than wonderful, but we’re active in the lives of our loved ones. We’re looking out for them, we’re taking care of them.

Who’s taking care of us?

When we’re minding the store, the kids, the husband, the home, what are we doing to take care of us?

Self-care is a growing concern among working moms. One look at the Wikipedia entry for work-life balance leads me to believe that self-care is even MORE important for Mom entrepreneurs. With many of us building our empires with children at home, we’re dodging the “guilt” bullet by keeping our kids out of day care, but we’re even more frazzled trying to “do it all”. It’s no wonder Renfroe picked the William Tell overture to speedily share all the “isms” that we Mom’s dish out on a daily basis. We’re wound so tight that we probably really DO talk that fast!

Here are a few tips to incorporate into your day to give you mini doses of self-care:

Breathe. Waiting in a long line? Take a few deep, calming breaths. Use that time to de-compress. While others around you are growing more impatient, see this time as an opportunity to practice gratitude, patience, and bring a little solitude to your day. When I find myself stuck at a train crossing, I take it as a sign that I need to slow down and re-focus. So I do. Breathing deeply, relaxing my shoulders, and maybe even closing my eyes for a minute. Sometimes my kids will play along – then everyone is a it more relaxed!
Clarify. Get clear on what’s really important. This can be on a daily or weekly basis. Take some time to examine your priorities, and focus on what is most important. Realize that if you’re like me, you’ll always find SOMETHING that needs to be done – and that most days not everything on that list will get accomplished. Instead, focus on what I call the Big Rocks – the must do’s – that will move your life and business forward for the day.
Make self-care a priority. Schedule it like any other business appointment. Don’t tell people you’re scheduling self-care (you might feel guilty). Tell people you have a conflicting appointment that you can’t possibly reschedule. The first few times, you may feel a twinge of guilt. Once you get used to “putting on your own oxygen mask first”, you’ll quickly discover just how important taking time to care for your own needs really is.
Mitigate guilt with unselfish rewards. For those Moms that really struggle with doing anything for themselves (including needed doctor visits – you know who you are), commit to an unselfish reward for taking care of yourself. You could opt to take the kids out for ice cream after your visit to the Chiropractor, or give your girlfriend a special thank-you gift for watching the kids while you took some time out from the day. The act of doing for someone else usually helps dissipate any feelings of guilt associated with taking care of yourself, because you’ll actually be doing something nice for someone else as well!
Look for ‘joy joggers’. It could be a favorite song on your mp3 player, or a poem you loved as a young girl. Maybe it’s a picture or memory that brings some joy to your day. Strategically locate these “joy joggers” around your space. Like a memory jogger, these little reminders give you a small moment of joy each time you encounter them. Sprinkle them generously around your home, car and workspace, so that no space is considered the doldrums. Even if it means carrying it in a pocket or purse and taking it out periodically to enjoy. Joy joggers a forms of micro self-care.

It’s long overdue that we moms start mothering ourselves once in a while. Whether it’s a joy jogger, a time out, or a doctor’s appointment, make sure you’re taking time to tend to your own needs as well as all the other needs of your loved ones. The life you save may be your own!

Trust – What Creates it & How Do You Maintain it Today?

Trust is the state of readiness for unguarded interaction with someone or something. Trust is built and maintained by many small actions over time. Trust is telling the truth, even when it is difficult, and being honest, authentic, and reliable in your dealings with customers and employees. Trust exists on many levels in an organization: with the direct manager, with the leadership, with the team and with the company.

Times are tough and you can’t afford not to have it today, but you will find that it is harder than ever to build and maintain. Employees are increasingly skeptical and daily exposés about ‘leaders’ who clearly are not trustworthy only makes it tougher.

Individuals must have a capacity for trust based on his/her experiences (with the current manager and company as well as with previous employers). The experiences we each have develop or diminish the capacity and willingness to risk trusting others. In the current business environment, there is a continuing decline of trust in companies and leadership overall. Employees watch the news, hear stories and wonder constantly if “it” (being laid off, denied a promotion or raise, having their project stopped, shutting down the company, etc.) is going to happen to them.

Individuals must perceive and believe in the ability of others they work with to perform competently at whatever is needed. During tough times, this belief in others tends to erode especially when communications are lacking concerning how changes impact the organization and success. Couple that with the increasing amount of communication about all the problems in the economy and you quickly have a lopsided equation with the negative far outweighing the positive. Employees are deeply concerned about who is going to be the next company or ‘leader’ exposed in some sort of scandal or unethical behavior.

Lastly, but incredibly important to trust, is a belief that the actions, words, direction, mission, and/or decisions are motivated by mutually-serving rather than self-serving motives. Employees have to know you care about them and are considering their best interests as well as the company’s. During tough times, there is an even greater likelihood that employees will fill in the blanks with negative intentions if they are not getting constant communication about what is going on, how the company will still win and what is in it for them to stay, work hard and remain productivity. In almost every breakroom around the country today, employees are wondering how some leaders and senior managers are asking for and getting multi-million dollar bonuses as they are laying off employees and their businesses are failing by every measure. What kind of beliefs does an individual have to justify that sort of behavior and why would you expect me to believe they will ever consider my interests?

There are critical leadership & management behaviors to build and grow trust in today’s environment:

Act with integrity – Consistently conduct yourself in an honest and trustworthy manner; treat people with respect and dignity; keep your word; remain approachable; set an example for others to follow; protect the interest of all employees; do the right thing for the organization.

Be teamwork oriented – Demonstrate co-operation and trust with colleagues across organizational boundaries; establish strong working relationships to deliver positive results; help to create and maintain a strong feeling of belonging in the team; share expertise, successes, and relevant information with others; identify barriers to teamwork and work with others to overcome them.

Listen- Attend to and convey understanding of the comments and questions of others; remain genuinely interested in what others have to say; suspend your own assumptions and consider various beliefs; have patience to wait for people to finish.

Provide ongoing feedback – Objectively observe, analyze, and share perceptions of other people’s performance to reinforce or redirect behavior to improve performance and business results; provide feedback that is timely, specific, behavioral, balanced, and constructive; realign people/teams quickly; set clear and high expectations and act as if employees are capable of living up to them.

Strive for results – Hold yourself accountable for results and focus on instilling that same attitude and level of action in others; act to realize ever-increasing levels of excellence; seize opportunities as they arise; take ownership for resolving difficult situations; refrain from thinking it can’t be done and focus on how to make it happen.

Focus & prioritize – Determine priorities and give full attention to what is most important; set trivial tasks aside; know what to accomplish on your own and when to involve and delegate to others.

Be self aware – Set high personal standards; know your own strengths and development needs; ask for ongoing feedback and coaching; be willing to admit to and learn from mistakes.

Motivate others positively – Create a climate where people want to do their best; let employees know how important they are to the business; empower others by sharing ownership and visibility; recognize and constantly communicate effectively with others on what it will take to get to the next stage.

Communicate effectively – Communicate constantly and cascade key messages throughout the organization. Communicating includes telling employees where they stand, how the business is doing and what future plans are. Other key messages should include what is staying the same (what can provide a sense of comfort) and why you will still win despite everything else going on in the world. The more transparent you can become, the better. With the increase in social media, transparency in business is expected. Secrecy breeds suspicion. Whenever information is kept close, both the intent and the actual content become open to misinterpretation. Provide as much information as you can comfortably divulge as soon as possible in any situation.

It won’t be easy to recover and rebuild trust in many organizations. Great leaders and managers can do it, but employee skepticism is justifiably at all time high. Are you doing the right things?

The Proper Care and Feeding of Your Attitude – 7 Tips to Maintain a Positive and Healthy Attitude

Much has been written and spoken about attitude. In fact, you can find literally “tons” of information about the right mental attitude, positive attitude, a winning attitude, and so forth. So what makes this article different?

Like everything else in life, having the right attitude requires practice. Your attitude is the key to success in every aspect of your life such as your health, wealth building, relationships, success at work, and enjoying everyday life. Your attitude is more than just a decision to “think happy thoughts” although thinking happy thoughts is certainly a key to developing a positive mental attitude.

My assumption here is that you are reading this because you already understand the importance of your attitude. You also understand that there is a difference between choosing to have a positive attitude and the difficulty to maintaining a positive attitude.

Your body requires proper care and feeding to achieve and maintain good health. You simply cannot eat one nutritious meal, take one vitamin, and have one really great exercise day to be healthy. This applies to your attitude as well.

Developing and maintaining a positive, healthy, and productive attitude begins with making the choice to change your attitude. The decision to have a great attitude is the starting point and that decision is a daily decision, even a moment by moment decision. With all that life throws our way each day, just the decision alone can be tough. Here are some tips on how to properly care for and feed your attitude.

1. Be thankful. You and I both have circumstances in life that take a toll on us everyday. Most of the time we let negative circumstances get the best of us and our positive mental attitude takes a beating. Take a moment, several if necessary, and reflect on what you have to be thankful for. If you are having trouble getting started let me suggest you go to a mirror, get real close to it, and breathe on it. If a fog appears on the mirror you’re in good shape…you are alive. Next, think about other things for which you are thankful, even the simplest things such as your family, your job, the very fact that you are able to read this. Each of these are true blessings and for every blessing you can think of there is someone who does not have such a blessing. There have been innumerable studies investigating the link between good health and a thankful attitude. In a story that aired on the CBS Radio Network’s The Osgood File, Dr. Michael McCullough, of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and Dr. Robert Emmons, of the University of California at Davis, said their initial scientific study indicates that gratitude plays a significant role in a person’s sense of well-being. Develop an attitude of gratitude.

2. Have faith. Research has shown that 97% of the things that people worry about never come to pass. The remaining 3% are things that are mostly beyond our control, so there is nothing we can do about them anyway. A small portion of that 3% are the direct or indirect results of the decisions we make so learning to make better decisions is the key to avoiding the worries that we can control. Have faith in yourself and the decisions you make regarding the things you can control. Have faith in the One who created you and know that He is looking out for you. Have faith that good things are in store for you and focus your attention to the good rather than the bad. Life is made up of opposites. Sir Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Faith has an opposite called fear. Both work equally well. When you allow fear to dominate your thinking you literally bring negativity into your life. Bad things happen, even though you do not desire them, because you are operating from a fearful expectation. Faith, on the other hand, brings positive things into your life. There is not enough room hear to fully explore the deeper meaning of the effects of faith and fear. Let me summarize the concept of faith in this manner, expect good things and good things will happen. Develop an attitude of faith.

3. Guard your mind. Look at the influences in your life. Decide which of these should be eliminated or at least minimized. According to the A.C. Nielsen Company, the average American watches over 4 hours of television each day. That comes up to over 9 years by the time you are 65 years old! Most of what is available to watch on television has very little positive value. Do the TV shows you watch leave you feeling empowered or deflated? If what you watch, listen to, and read bring you down instead of lift you up you need to stop allowing those things into your mind. Like it or not, they have a profound negative influence on your attitude. The same is true with the people in your life. Do you know someone who brightens the room by leaving it? Do you associate with someone who constantly has some bad news to share or some tidbit of negative information about someone else to expose? Avoid them like the plague! These people will only cause a negative effect on your attitude. Eliminate everything possible that affects you negatively. This may be difficult at first because negativity is very addictive. In the end it is like taking in poison little by little, so get rid of it! Develop an attitude of discernment.

4. Feed your mind. You don’t have to look far to find uplifting, inspirational, and motivational literature to read. If you don’t have time for much reading, look into audio versions to listen to in your car as you travel to and from place to place. Music has the power to go beyond your conscious mind deep into your subconscious mind. A good rule of thumb in selecting the music you listen to is ask yourself “Do I feel better or worse after listening to this?” Consider if the TV shows you are watching are feeding your mind positive information. Seek out and engage in conversations with positive minded people. If you notice a conversation taking a negative turn, interject a positive comment or idea to bring it back on track. Develop an attitude of mental nutrition. This leads to the next process of The Proper Care and Feeding of Your Attitude.

5. Change your speech. Do a Google search on the phrase “power of words” and you will find 116 million results. The same search on Yahoo shows 122 million results. Words have power. Choose your words carefully. They can either be used to build up or tear down and as you already know, the words you say influence everyone who hears them. Your words originate in your mind so it is necessary to mentally speak to yourself with positive words. Keep them positive. By consciously changing your speech you subconsciously change your attitude. You will be amazed at how this one little piece of advice will bring positive changes to your relationships with others, but more importantly, the changes that will occur within yourself and in your own thoughts. Develop an attitude of positive speaking.

6. Give to others. Whenever possible, give someone else something they may not have. One simple gift you can give to anyone, anytime, without cost or loss to you, is a smile. Years ago, I adopted the motto of “Leave Them Better Than You Found Them” which can be as simple as opening the door for someone, smiling, offering a pleasant comment, and many other simple things. Of course, I recommend giving to charitable organizations but what I am talking about here is to give of yourself in some small way that makes someone else’s day brighter. In turn, you feel better by doing it. Develop an attitude of giving.

7. Lighten up. Start by being friendly to everyone. No one likes a sourpuss, so just lighten up and become someone who is easy to be around. People tend to like people who like them. Learning to like others will relieve a great deal of tension and stress in everyday life. Interestingly enough, if you follow the previous tips you will be amazed at how this one develops naturally. By becoming someone who others desire to be around you bring benefit to both them and yourself. You will soon find that those around you will begin to lighten up and model after you, even though they may not be aware that it is happening. Develop an attitude of pleasantness.

These tips on The Proper Care and Feeding of Your Attitude will help get you well on your way to keeping your attitude up and running smoothly. Just like caring for yourself physically you must care for yourself mentally. It is easier than you may initially think but it does require effort on your part. If attitude is everything then we certainly need to learn to take care of ours. You will be healthier for it.