For the past two months I have been completely overwhelmed with trying to balance everyday life with starting this business. I’d been feeling down- and-out, questioning why I even attempted to venture down this Entrepreneurial Road in the first place, yet never faltering in my desire to keep moving forward with bringing my invention to the market. ?

The challenges of being a mom and bringing a product to the market are hard for friends and family to relate to, yet I somehow expect my husband to understand this emotional roller coaster that I’ve been riding for a year now and I suppose that isn’t really fair to him. He knows how much work and how many hours go into my business, but he really has no concept of what I actually do when I am sitting on the computer for hours at a time. I used to get mad at him when he would roll his eyes and say “you’re on the computer again?” I would rebut: “What do you think I’m doing, playing games on here? I have work to do”. And we’d both end up mad at each other.

Although my husband and I are both at home for the summer, we both have work to do and there are only so many hours in a day. ?He has to train for the upcoming hockey season, and he pops in and out of the house all day long, going to and coming from his various activities. It is his job, he has to be in shape for the next hockey season, and he does provide the sole income for our family. ?I know that he has to do it, but at the same time I find myself becoming a little envious that he doesn’t have to take the kids to “his job”, yet I’m supposed to be able to juggle my business, the kids, the pets and the household. I keep telling him that normal working people have 40 hours a week of uninterrupted time to complete their weekly tasks. He’s getting sick of hearing it and I’m even getting sick of saying it! I’m not even sure why I say it because I honestly don’t want to be away from my kids from 9-5 every day. They’re only little once and I’m lucky to be able to stay at home with them and enjoy this special time. I want the best of both worlds but it’s easy to become unbalanced when you’re trying to do everything yourself.

Thankfully, I’ve slowly been able to drag my feet out of the fog that I was in. ?In hindsight, I recognize that our stressful move from the West Coast back to the East Coast is what tipped the scales and propelled me into such an unenthusiastic mood for eight weeks. Unfortunately, we move twice a year due to my husband’s job so I am crossing my fingers that I’ll be able to snap myself out of any pessimistic moods more quickly next time around. What it all comes down to is recognizing that a single human being can not, and should not attempt to juggle everything under the sun. ?

So…after expressing how melancholy the last two months have been for me (without mention of the setbacks I had during that time with the factory that I am working with to bring my product to the market), I’ll move on to say that for the past week I have felt completely rejuvenated.

Maybe it’s the warm weather or maybe it’s elevating knowing that my little Plushies are being sewn together right now. Regardless of the origin, I entirely welcome the abundance of positive energy and vivacity.

Last week I was feeling especially high-spirited and I took three hours of alone time to put together a Five Year Strategic Growth Plan and Timeline. I cannot explain what a relief it is to have this all written down on paper instead of trying to keep all of that information in my head. Now that I’ve unloaded THAT from my brain, I feel like I am moving forward with a fresh mind-set and it’s easier for me to think objectively about my business decisions when I have a “road map” that I can follow.

?I’m not sure if one would classify my Five Year Strategic Growth Plan and Timeline a “business plan”, per se, but it’s my interpretation of a “business plan” and it works for me. ?I sat down and wrote it with passion and purpose and it was fun, exciting and eye opening compared to the negative, intimidating perceptions that I was holding on to about writing an official business plan. I highly recommend my version of a business plan with sweet and simple bullets and dates and objectives. I used a nice soothing font and I even printed it up in pink to add a little extra cheerfulness to the whole deal. ?I’m really excited about some of my long term goals and I wish I had a million dollars to turn all of my ideas into realities sooner, but good things come in time, and I’m ready to have a good time along the way!