7 Powerful Ways to Balance the Different Stages of Entrepreneurship & Motherhood

Motherhood completely changes the way you run your agency. Becoming a mom irreversibly alters how you look at work and how you split your time between family and the office. There are many stages of entrepreneurship that every agency owner will experience, but motherhood is a stage in and of itself!

How to Juggle Different Stages of Entrepreneurship with Motherhood 

As a digital agency owner, mom, and mentor, it’s my mission to show other women that they can be plugged-in moms and high-powered entrepreneurs. It takes some major mindset shifts to get there, but it’s how you can thrive as a working mom. Here are seven of my best tips for balancing different stages of entrepreneurship with motherhood as your kiddos and your business grow. 

Take Advantage of Nap Times and Pumping 

When your baby is in the newborn or infant stage, naptime is your best friend. Those little pockets of time throughout your day are your chances to get stuff done — whether that’s chores around the house or agency work. You’ll become super efficient during nap times! 

As your newborn gets into a nap schedule and you can more accurately plan out your day, you’ll get into a groove with your work schedule, too. Once your baby starts to sleep through the night, you’ll feel like a new person. Honestly, out of all the stages of entrepreneurship, this one really makes you feel like you can conquer the world! 

If you’re breastfeeding, pumping is crucial during the infant stage. Your milk supply is at its highest when you’re first postpartum, so pump and save up as much milk as you can. Frozen milk equals freedom! With a healthy stockpile in the freezer, you won’t be tied to your baby all day and can spend more time focusing on your agency. 

If you can pump during the day, do it! 

I was managing social media profiles as I was nursing my son and would take client calls while pumping (this was before Zoom, of course!). Hands-free wearable breast pumps are a great option if they work for you, too.

Lean on Your Team Through New Stages of Entrepreneurship

In those early days of motherhood, you’re going to have to lean on your team far more than you have in the past stages of entrepreneurship. You might think that you’ll juggle it all with ease and multitask like a pro, but motherhood will throw unexpected challenges at you.

This is your time to lean on your team and let them handle more than just the day-to-day execution of your agency. They’re your first line of defense when a client needs something. You should only jump in if you absolutely need to! 

You might have to take a longer maternity leave than expected, too. Even if it doesn’t feel great in the moment to extend your break and hand the bulk of the work to your team, know that it’s only temporary. You’ll return to your agency! Right now, your baby needs you and it’s okay to step back from your business. 

You’re making a decision that’s aligned with your values and priorities for your life and your agency. Though it’s tough, the decision is made a lot easier if you have a clear vision for your agency, which we dig into during my Elevate group coaching program. 

Focus on Maintaining Your Business

When I was in the newborn stage with both my sons, my goal was just to maintain my business. I wasn’t fielding any new business inquiries or trying to move into new stages of entrepreneurship at those times. 

My second son had really bad colic for about 11 months. At the time, I just didn’t have the energy to concentrate on my business and my family with a newborn screaming at all hours of the day (seriously…all hours). He was my focus — I was in survival mode at home and the office. 

During that first year of being a mom of two, I had clients and a team to back me up, but I truly gave myself a break in not trying to grow the business. I allowed myself to go fully into new mom mode — I accepted that I wasn’t super excited about work because I knew my priority was elsewhere. 

That’s part of why I love The Agency Accelerator: I want moms to know they can create a business that will sustain them during the tough postpartum days and the later stages of motherhood. 

Let Go of Mom Guilt 

Throughout all stages of entrepreneurship and motherhood, there’s a lot of guilt around being happy at work or when your kids are out of the house. But you shouldn’t feel guilty about that! There’s nothing shameful or wrong about enjoying time for yourself or feeling relieved to have the bandwidth to focus on work. 

Being a mom isn’t your only identity: it’s one of your identities. That’s just one aspect of who you are. You can be a business owner and a wife or partner (or a happily single mommy). 

My work feels like me time some days! But you should seek out solo time outside the office, too. 

Create time in your day to truly prioritize yourself. It’s all about self-care! Sometimes I’ll take a long shower and just knowing that the door is closed and no one will interrupt me feels like an escape (and that’s where I have my best ideas, too).

Give yourself a few minutes each day to totally check out and decompress. Listen to relaxing music, go for a walk, meditate, or take a luxurious bath. 

Related: Why Mindfulness in Business is So Important (and 7 Tips to Get Started!)

Their School Day = Your Work Day 

Each new stage of motherhood comes with a new stage of entrepreneurship. When your kids start spending their days at school, it feels like a completely different phase in your agency!

If you have multiple little ones, you can focus more on your youngest once your toddlers head off to preschool or kindergarten. When all your kids are at school, their school day becomes your work day. You’ll have that set period to knock out your to-do list — you feel like you can take on anything in those 6 or 7 hours!

Having clear work hours makes you really focused. When my sons started school, I felt a new level of clarity I’d never had before. 

Because you’re working with such limited time, you’ll prioritize things that matter and truly move the needle. You don’t have the luxury to dilly-dally, procrastinate, or pick and choose what you work on. Gaining clarity on these priorities is a key part of leveling up as an agency owner in my Elevate group coaching program.

Since you’ve adjusted to working in short bursts during the newborn stage, you’ll become way more effective and efficient once you have uninterrupted work hours in front of you. You can fully shift back into growth mode. It’s so empowering as a working mom! 

Your Passion for Your Agency Will Return 

If your passion for your work and your agency fades during the busy newborn stage, know you’re not alone. I experienced it, too! But as your kids get older, everything gets easier. You’ll be able to check back into your work and feel the drive to create and grow your agency again. 

I’m back in that reinvigorated place where you have more time, more energy, and more excitement about the work you’re doing and the experiences your kids are having. And I’m sure it’ll continue to evolve as my kids get older and I move into new stages of entrepreneurship!

Motherhood makes you feel really powerful and, because it’s such a big life change, gives you a lot of clarity around your vision for your life and your business. 

There’s a renewed interest and passion for your agency and the work you’re doing. You’ll have a greater drive to achieve your goals when you have your kids and your family at the back of your mind during the day. 

I think being a mom allows you to see the world in different ways and gives you access to creativity, empathy, and thought processes that you just can’t access until you have kids. It opens up your mind creatively and professionally to see opportunities that exist or gaps in the marketplace you can fill. 

Give Yourself Grace 

This goes for all stages of entrepreneurship and motherhood: you need to give yourself grace!

When I was in the newborn stage with my first son, a lot of the time that I could have been working was spent at appointments and occupational therapy for him. To handle that, I gave myself grace, tried to be present in the moment for my family, and let myself take the time to just do what my son needed. 

And even now I still need to step back and give myself grace all the time! I was at my son’s first basketball practice when a pressing email came in — instead of responding directly to the client with my thoughts on how a third party handled the situation, I responded to everyone. I could’ve beat myself up for trying to simultaneously be in mom mode and agency owner mode, but I let it go. I apologized for the mistake, moved on, and everything was fine. 

Let yourself do what you need to do for your family during all stages of motherhood. Listen to your body and take a longer break postpartum than you’d planned. Allow yourself to not jump back in right away and let your team handle things. 

Becoming a mom has made me so confident in myself, who I am, and what I want my agency to look like. Once you fully check into that feeling and know that you are who you are, take it or leave it, you feel much more at ease as a mom and business owner. You’ll become a lot more forgiving toward yourself if and when (probably when!) you drop the ball or life gets hectic. 

Being a working mom and agency owner is a balancing act. As you move through the different stages of entrepreneurship and motherhood, you’ll have to reset your priorities, give yourself grace, and get really good at quick bursts of productivity. It’s tough to juggle so much at once, but you can thrive as a working mama!