By Carrie Kwan

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“Imagine harmony as a triangle”, you may have heard me say - taking geometry as a guide to navigate how wellbeing supports ambition supports livelihood, and so on. 

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Approaching business, family, and looking after ourselves was our favourite tip for business owning women and mothers. 

Then Coronavirus Delta arrived and Angela Priestly coined the new term “floating” with it our triangles now find themselves in Bermuda: barely defined, and suspended in a foggy haze without any directions as we bear new roles (home learning support!) and unrelenting uncertainty about the future of business and our impact on our financial security. Sometimes exercising helps, sometimes wellbeing helps and sometimes it feels like yet another thing to do.

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One thing we do take great comfort in is the candour and generosity of women going through this collective experience together. And music. Thank you for music! So here are five great songs and very smart tips to help you find your form and persist through the floating.

1. Drop it like it’s hot

The idea of 9-5 has gone OUT the window. All sorts of other boundaries are breaking down. What can you stop doing and say no to? Delia McCabe suggests:

‘Our brain needs us to ground ourselves in what’s important, our self-care, our relationships, our realistic goals, and make an effort to ignore loud and urgent messages that invade our space and erode our wellbeing on every level - and don’t add any value to our lives.’

You can also apply this tip to prioritising your dollars to feel in control of your spending.

2. Go your own way

We've described harmony as a triangle. Here's how to shape life for you:

• ‍Curate your social media: Digital Marketing Trainer and Coach Brook McCarthy gives you permission to disengage with people who impede you from embracing your ambition.
• Demonstrate what works for you: Set up an email autoresponder to explain new working hours. You might like to include what you’ll be doing outside working hours. This small share of your authentic story is a simple tool in building relationships, keeping the right people around you. 
• Respect everybody’s own way:  One of the Mums & Co values is to deeply care. A behaviour demonstrating this is being on time. Set an agenda for meetings to stay on track and schedule in some fun to allow the team and relationships building play amongst the work. Keep home school as home school and weekends sacred. 

‍3. Freak Out 

Let's revel in the fact that our fear now has a name: floating.

This is a milestone - Angela has named our fear, now we can begin to tame it. Brook McCarthy describes that fear keeps the status quo in place, fear will not help you change! Naming it will tame it. Brook says -

“In almost all cases, fear is often fear of perceived public embarrassment or how we believe others will view us negatively. But nobody has yet died from embarrassment and most of us massively overestimate how visible we are to others. Most people are far too busy worrying about themselves and how they're perceived to be following you so closely. And if someone is genuinely watching you closely, waiting for you to fail, then they're not your ideal client anyway. They're not likely to ever be your client”.

So go on and freak out and connect with your perfect customer and focus on growing your business.

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‍4. You're Not Alone

Be it lockdown or just a bad day, your experiences in business and motherhood are better shared.

You are surrounded by friends, colleagues, peers, business and motherhood networks.

Ask for help where you need.

Slack a colleague.

Ask your “Co” - your support network around you “what is expected of me at this time?” They will help you reset expectations to clear a (neural) pathway forward.

You can set expectations in a number of ways - as a family you can plan your weekends (see above), as a business you can reset your budget, as a friend or colleague you can share where and how you need help. #womensupportingwomen 

5. Why

Lockdown has eviscerated the short term.

Revisit why you started in business.

How can you orient every small day-to-day decision towards that vision?

Then trust the process. Spend an hour on emails and the rest of your available time completing one thing towards your greatest vision. Consider this: the average age of mother is 26 and the average age of a successful entrepreneur is 43. If you, like many women have started a business while pregnant or on maternity leave, it might be a 17 year overnight success!  

I believe that you can do it, I know that you can. Find some comfort in the great gift that Angela has given all current frustrations a name, find solace in music and support with these tips from the Mums & Co community.

You can do this.