I am just about to head into THE busiest month of the year, with over 55 sessions booked and climbing – actually by the time you are listening to this I will be right, smack in the middle of it. Over the years I have put systems in place to keep it flowing smoothly, and I have help, lots and lots of help, with all of the editing. I LOVE getting to see so many of my clients for Christmas sessions, but it still makes for a super wild, and super exhausting month, so this episode couldn’t have come at a better time. It will be a great reminder for me, and a great reminder for any of you that have businesses that do a huge spike right before the holidays. Shout out to Nine ah for sending me a message asking me to cover what to do when you fall behind and just can’t seem to get caught back up – love the topic and it’s something that I have a LOT of practice with.
I may have said this before, but we went from 1 kid, to 4 kids in only 4 months’ time. We had moved in together the year before, Michael, Peyton and me, and then in December Elise was born. At that time we had pretty limited access to our older boys, Nathan and Anthony. Fast forward a few months, Elise is now 4 months old and we get a call saying we need to take my step sons full time – with just a few days’ notice. I am SO glad we have them full time, and can’t imagine life any differently at this point, but in those first few years it was CHAOS. Because the family had exploded in size over night and we hadn’t raised them one by one there was no easing into it, and there were really no rules, routines or systems in place. So… we have 4 children ages 4 months, 3, 4, and 7 – 2 that had never really been exposed to routines or structure at that point and 2 who were too young for it to really matter. Now add in that Michael, my husband, was working CRAZY long hours, and because there is no maternity leave when you are self-employed, I was also back at work. Pure chaos. Michael and I tagged in an out, keeping moving at all times to make sure the ship stayed afloat. We were in a rough season financially as he had lost his job around the same time we found out we were pregnant, and had just started working again a month before Elise was born – so outsourcing and hiring help was off the table. For the most part we managed to keep things moving. It wasn’t perfect. I learned how to apologize well and often for everything from forgetting appointments, to putting the wrong homework in the wrong backpack, and I learned some hard lessons about needing to let little things go and drop my standards just a touch. My business was much smaller back then and between myself and Michael we kept the balls in the air – most of the time. Unless. And this is a BIG unless. Anything went wrong. Especially if we got sick. And oh my goodness, it feels like we were sick every 3 days for years on end. 4 kids, none of whom had attended school regularly and built up their immune systems yet – they brought home ALL of the GERMS. Our house was just a never ending cycle of colds, gastro bugs and sore throats for years on end. If one of us got taken out (and we did, regularly) EVERYTHING fell apart. So… we had to become very efficient at catching up.
When everything goes South it can honestly feel hopeless. There were so many times, and honestly there occasionally still ARE so many times where I feel like it will never get done, I am failing at everything and there is no point in trying. When it feels like this the first thing to do it take some really deep breaths, and remind yourself that you are amazing, and you CAN get this done. Then take another deep breath and take yourself through the actual worst case scenario. Will anyone die if the laundry doesn’t get done? No. What about if you blow that deadline? Probably not… Sometimes taking a moment to actually go through the end result of something that feels super huge and super pressing can actually take some of the pressure off because we reali
