Yin and Yang: How do you balance work and family?
There is no doubt that this is hard and it is something that I am constantly trying to figure out and adapt to as the demands of the business and family life continue to change. I’m starting to learn the art of ‘letting go’ and delegation to be able to offload some of the back-end tasks that don’t really need me to do them. This takes some getting used to and is a process we are still figuring out.
The drive: What challenges have you overcome?
The biggest challenge, without a doubt, was getting started and having the self-belief to go for it. I knew that I had something to offer the wider world that would benefit the emotional wellbeing of children and improve their relationships with their parents and carers. I just had to believe that there were people out there that needed to hear my passion and that would want to engage my services.
For better or worse: What are the pros and cons of running your own business?
The pros would include:
- Autonomy. Having the ability to steer my own ship and focus on the work that I am passionate about without workplace politics getting in the way.
- Being able to work around my family. Although this can also be very challenging, I’m always grateful to be able to work around the priorities of my family.
- Seeing firsthand the impact of my work and the improvements experienced in families’ lives.
The cons include:
- Not being able to shut off. I often took work home with me previously, in an emotional sense. I’d be worried about families or thinking about the mountains of paperwork that needed doing but I had the benefit of not having access to do any work from home. Now It’s much harder to switch off from the mountain of tasks and avoid just popping back to the office for ‘one more job’.
- I spend way too much time wondering how my toddler got into my office and where he has put my computer mouse.
Hopes and dreams: What next?
I hope to complete my Masters and offer play therapy services to Secure Foundations to complement the work I do in parent and sleep coaching, improving parent-infant relationships in all domains of early years life. I hope to be able to support vulnerable children in out of home care to create secure attachment relationships, heal from their complex trauma experiences and stabilise their behaviour to maintain their foster placements.
To find out more about the wonderful work they are doing, head to the Secure Foundations website. You can also join their supportive Facebook and Instagram communities.
