Being a Mother Hustler

Let me start off by stating this post applies to Dads too, it’s just ‘Father Hustler’ doesn’t sound as cool as Mother Hustler and you know Mama’s got some street cred going on right here so let’s stick with it (ha, as if).

…I mentioned being a hustler, baby, at a talk at BritMums Live last summer where I was speaking on a panel about making blogging your career and hustling, hard!

I received lots of tweets, in person (actual 3D) comments and even emails about it.

People, and mostly women,  it seemed (but remember the majority of my readers are women) said they felt empowered by my use of that word.

That the JUGGLE that is parenting, career/new businesses and just going for your dreams, unashamedly and bravely, was absolutely all about ‘HUSTLING’.

The hustle was REAL. Necessary.

Believing in yourself, promoting your work/ blog/ business and going after the contacts, connections, gigs/commissions was EVERYTHING.

For me, it relates to yielding confidence and presenting confidence in yourself even when you don’t feel it (hustling).

Becoming a mother, with its scary initiation process, as many will relate to, no doubt, BROKE me down before it could build me up, eventually leaving me feeling right now, STRONGER than ever.

Motherhood showed me what I was capable of.

That not only could I bring a person into the world but I could survive it, and so could they, and for the most part we can live happily ever after.

The fact I could overcome adversity (a traumatic birth in my case), was able to regain control through a digital career (after working as a TV director), in a job I loved and that suited family life, makes me for the most part, feel KICK-ASS awesome.

The hardest things teach us the most, right? And nothing feels harder than the mess that’s sleep deprivation meets the hormonal mash-up and loss of life as you know it, to truly discover where you want to be in life. Am I right?

Having kids made me FOCUS. It gave me purpose.

I want to achieve, succeed and be happy, for my offspring as much as myself now. They are my driving force.

And to do that, I have to hustle, I have to not feel scared to put myself out there, to share my own life, my fears, my honest take on the world right here and to pursue what I want from my career and life. To make my career and life happen. I have to be the active protagonist in my story.

You see we’re all hustlers and jugglers whether we’re trying to get our kids to sleep, send that email, create a business plan or most importantly, just make others believe in us-make them see what we’re capable of and can bring to the table.

And that’s never more apparent when we’ve lost our confidence and must coax it back so we can become contenders again after kids- be it getting back into the workplace after maternity leave or starting a new business/blog.

I lost all confidence after Oliver. I didn’t fit into my old world as I’d imagined I would, post-child. I changed and so did my aspirations.

And I’m not alone.

There are now more than 1.2 million entrepreneurial mums according to the Office for National Statistics, women who saw a gap in the market on maternity leave or a window of opportunity to finally get their dream businesses/careers off the ground and JUST went for it.

I always advise everyone, parents or not, that they need a ‘maternity leave’ to grow and nurture a new business, be it blogging or any other online business from e-shops and beyond. Online life has handed us all the freedom to operate in a way that works for us and our family-a flexible, empowering and fulfilling way to be a #Mumboss (and a #Dadboss too).

I’m a hustler, baby. Are you?

 

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