When you first become a mom, your mind is often on all things motherhood. And that can be enough to keep you busy for a while. But before long, you might start to realize that things are tough. And that you don’t overly have a balance. And that you might want to make a change. Because trying to raise a family and work can be hard. You may feel as if you’re constantly splitting your attention between two different areas. Because you are. You’re trying to raise your children, be there for them, and give them your full attention. But at the same time, you’re trying to do a good job at work and focus on your career. And at some point, something has got to give. And this is when you usually start to think about working at home.
Also, on the flip side of that, you may find that you gave up work to raise your children. And while that can be incredibly satisfying at first, and so important when you’re looking to raise your little ones. You then may find yourself in need of a challenge. And not only that, you may also feel as if you have a little more time on your hands as your littlest ones grow up and head off to school. So, for you, becoming a work at home mom could be perfect too.
So how can you make it happen? Let’s take a look at what you might want to do when first starting out as a work at home mom.
- Decide What Kind Of Lifestyle You Want
To start with, you need to decide what your ideal life looks like. Will it be you building a career from home and enjoying both work and home? Or do you just want to do work that fits in with family life and not necessarily build a career? Decide this first, so you can start to make it happen.
- Nail Your Kids’ Routine
With that vision in your mind, you now need to work on bringing it to you. But it’s important for you to be able to establish a routine with your children first. Because when you’ve nailed that routine, you will have time to add more into your life. But if you know that you’re already exhausted just by looking after the children and managing the home, you need to get this into shape first, before you even think about what working from home looks like.
- Know What Time You Have
When you know that you’re in a rhythm that’s pretty reliable, you can then work out what time you have available to be able to work in. The worst thing would be to start working from home, and say that you have the time, but then realize that you’re overworked and you’re struggling to get everything done. So here, you’re going to want to make sure that you have time to work, and that you’re being as efficient as possible with the time you have. Then, you can start to think about what you might want to do.
- Think About Your Strengths
As you’re starting to think about what you want to do, turn to your strengths. Ask yourself what you’re good at and what do you enjoy doing? You can use these answers to narrow down what you might like to do.
- Consider Your Experience
But also, you’re going to want to make sure that you are considering your experience here too. Do you want to do what you have done in your career in the past, but from home? Or are your skills transferable to something else? Make sure you keep this in mind.
- Look For New Opportunities
Then it’s time to actually find the opportunities that might work out for you. And there are two key ways that you could approach this. First, you might like to think about the work at home jobs you could get, so that you’re still effectively working for one company. Or, you might like to do your own thing, and set up a freelance service or a business selling something of your own.
- Try Something In Your Spare Time
If you know that you do actually want to build your own business, freelance or otherwise, then this is something that you might want to just start working on in the spare time that you have. First thing in the morning, or when the kids are in bed - why not start writing or marketing or doing whatever it is that you have in mind, just to get a feel for it.
- Work For Free
From here, you may then find that you need experience. And that’s okay - because your next job is to work on getting that. One of the ways is to work for free for a short while. If you know that you need to get writing clips for your portfolio, offer to write for free. This can often work in many fields, so that you can add experience to your resume, ready to start working for yourself.
- Create A Website
If you feel as if you need one, depending on the kind of work that you’re doing, you might want to think about creating a website for yourself too. If you’re a freelancer or you’re providing some kind of product or service, then it’s safe to say that you will need one. So really start to think about what you might want from a website, and see if you can get something built.
- Start To Market
You should then start to think about selling yourself. Set up some social media and market your new business idea. Or redo your LinkedIn page ready for hirers to consider you as a candidate. Just make sure that you are marketing yourself and your business idea, as much as you can.
- Build Up Business
If you are doing your own thing, then you will want to think about building up a client base. You’ll want to pitch to new clients, network, and think about how you can connect with potential customers. Building up your business will seem tough at first, but it’s how you’ll get it to grow.
- Set Goals For Yourself
You may find that it’s a good idea to think about setting goals for yourself too. Because you will need to be able to keep yourself focused and reach your potential. If you’re setting goals for the year or over a longer period of time, you will find that actually, you’re able to keep yourself motivated and engaged with work, and you can take what you’re doing to new heights.
- Work Around Your Children
But also, you’re going to want to make sure that this works for your children as well as you. And only you will know what works. Because if you’re wondering when do babies start to crawl and how that factors into your workday, you will realize that things may need to change a little. So make sure that you’re adaptable, and that you’re able to make this setup work around your children and their needs.
- Find The Best Balance
From here, you’re definitely going to want to make sure that you are able to find a balance. Because you’re going this to spend time with your children and be able to work on your own terms. It can be hard to balance both at first, but this is where scheduling, routine, and productivity come in. Because when you’re hot on all three, you will find that getting the perfect balance is easy.
- Enjoy The Fruits Of Your Labor
Then, you get to enjoy all of the fruits of working so hard. You get to do a job that you love and feel fulfilled by, in your own time, and still spend time with your family too. You’re in control of your schedule and the money you earn, so what more could you want? Just ensure that you are focusing on that balance as much as possible, so you can enjoy the true reason for why you’re doing this.
And there you have it. Sure, this may have felt like a pipe dream, or even just a small idea when you first started to think about it. But now that you’ve seen how this could work and what you need to do to get set up and started, doesn’t it seem more real? And don’t you believe that you can actually make it work? Yes it will take time, and yes you need to put the work in for this to be successful, but it can be exactly what you need right now in life, and then some.
So take a look at some of the points, start putting a plan into place, and see if this can work out for you. When you’re thriving as a work-at-home mom, you’ll be so glad that you took that first step.