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I had literally 0 intentions of making an article about myself for Mompreneur Mondays. But my computer and zoom had other plans. Originally I had an amazing mama in the health industry lined up for a feature but due to a technical issue regarding the recording of her interview, I had to make a last minute decision.
Mompreneur Mondays is very important to me and the last thing that I wanted was to drop the ball on the series on the 3rd episode, all because a recording wasn’t saved. So after scrambling to figure out what to do I realized “Hey genius, you’re a mompreneur too! Just interview yourself!”. And yes that is literally how I talk to myself when I finally come to a realization, that’s actually quite simple, and then I laugh at myself. Anyways, that’s how this particular feature came to be. My name is Alena Michell and I am a Mompreneur. I own Mom Coach Wife and the subsidiary brand The Balanced Mom. My mission is to empower women who have children to embrace that they are more than just a mom. This mission comes from my own personal experience. I found that I was loosing myself in motherhood and that I really just wasn’t happy. My lack of happiness was definitely spilling over into my two closest relationships. That with my husband and daughter. Now I wasn’t a bad wife or mother, even looking back on those days I know that. But I also wasn’t giving them my best because I was exhausted, lost and frustrated. The frustration, was 100% my own fault. I kept making excuses that I couldn’t go to the gym, because I’m a mom and who would watch my daughter (granted I hadn’t asked anyone). I couldn’t manage my blog or create a youtube channel because I didn’t have enough time, yet I had time to binge watch Netflix, which I still do from time to time. Essentially I was full of excuses. And those excuses were only hurting me and suppressing my ambitions. I knew I wanted to make a change but I was fighting what I already knew I needed to do which was to create some structure in my life. After reading The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey, I had a lot more hope. Immediately after finishing the book, I started to reflect on my days and saw so much wasted time. No wonder I didn’t feel like I had time, and like nothing was really getting done!
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Do you have boundaries? How loose are they? For me boundaries were the hardest part of creating balance. I was accustomed to saying yes, and constantly bending for other people, while making little to no time for myself. Among other things, setting boundaries and saying no to what didn’t serve me anymore freed up so much additional time, I never knew I had. So when I met with Mercedes of Three's A Charm Custom Designs and we talked about boundaries I could totally relate. Mercedes is a single mom to 3 amazing children. Parker, age 9, Ayden, age 6 and Kylan age 1. That didn’t stop her from creating her custom design business after receiving a sub par rolling tray that she realized was a complete waste of her hard earned money. In fact, her children are the inspiration behind the business name and the logo's colors. Knowing what it took to create these custom gifts and create a higher quality, Mercedes set off to work. In the midst of a pandemic, with two of her kids home for virtual learning and a 1 year old to manage she leveraged co-parenting to make her business idea a reality. Starting in March 2020, just as COVID was rearing its ugly head throughout the world, she purchased the tools and materials needed. One machine that went unused until August. 3’s A Charm creates a variety of custom gifts. From these adorable Santa Claus footprints I personally fell in love with during the holiday season to cups, blankets, pillows and so much more. If you can dream it, Mercedes can customize it. One of her first products was in honor of our essential workers. Being that they were out and about while we stayed safely quarantined at home. Mercedes created custom travel mugs for them to take with them on the go. She didn’t stop there, she continued to test her creativity with sublimation, and other customization skills. Although she had momentum in business, Mercedes knew that her personal time was going to be crucial to her success as a business owner. Knowing that, she set one major rule. No work on Sundays. Her social media pages reflect that and her clients know that Sundays she is closed for business. This allows Mercedes an entire day to care for herself and keep her sanity throughout the highs and lows of running a business and raising a family. Taking time for yourself, not only helps with business but also personal life. Sure business can fulfill you, but it’s the love you show yourself whether it be in small doses each day or one special day a week, that makes the difference. Being that Mercedes co-parents, having this “me-time” allows her to be the best mom possible for the week that she has her children and when they’re with their father she can go hard with her business. Sure not everyone co-parents, and every situation will be different, but regardless of what your situation is. Get creative with your time management, and set boundaries that allow you to take care of yourself. While you’re caring for you, treat yourself to a customized gift that reminds you of how much you love yourself. You can shop 3’s A Charm Custom Designs on Facebook and connect with Mercedes on Instagram, Facebook and Tik Tok. For more on Mercedes watch her interview for Mompreneur Mondays on my YouTube Channel and catch us live on Instagram January 11, 2021 at 8 PM EST. Set boundaries, and live your best life mama 💜 Mompreneur Mondays is a free promotional event for each of the Boss Moms I feature. My company handles all of the marketing and promotion. We do not require that any of the featured mamas, our readers or viewers pay for this experience. However if you would like to help this initiative you can choose to make a donation via PayPal using the link below. All donations are greatly appreciated and utilized for promoting Mompreneur Mondays.
 At the end of 2020 I had the pleasure of beginning to meet and chat with several mompreneurs in preparation for a segment called Mompreneur Mondays, coming to the blog, Youtube and Instagram. Every Monday you will meet one of these amazing mamas and be encouraged by their journey in business and in motherhood. Today is the first day of that segment and I’m happy to introduce you to one of the Boss Moms I had the opportunity to chat with,The owner of Dynamic Legacy Apparel, Nisha. We had an amazing conversation and she dropped some gems for the mothers out there looking to start their own business. You can watch our conversation on my Youtube Channel.
The bubbly mom of one is a humble yet confident serial entrepreneur. In addition to her clothing apparel Nisha is also a travel agent and in the process of expanding the Dynamic Legacy name. All the while, working full time in corporate America. How many times have you set a goal? How many of those goals have you accomplished? For those that went unaccomplished do you know why? It’s time we got real with our goals and our intentions behind them. It’s great to have goals, really it’s amazing. Goals show us that we are working towards something, that we see where we can improve/change.  They give us purpose, or at least give our purpose some direction. Some of them are personal, some are professional but regardless they are amazing to have. Wouldn’t you agree? As amazing as they are we don’t always accomplish the goals that we set for ourselves. We talked about this a bit in Resolution Time. You’re probably thinking that I’m going to say that all goals could be accomplished...and while that’s true that all goals could be accomplished, it’s not realistic. Sometimes when we set a goal and have good intentions to reach it, our lives get set in a different direction and that goal no longer lines up with our lives. For example, if you set a goal around your job and later received a promotion, or an opportunity that results in a complete change in your career. That goal is likely to change and therefore be one of the goals that went “unaccomplished”. But what about the other unaccomplished goals? Why don’t we reach the end with them?  Here’s to the first article of 2020! How are those resolutions going? Was social media part of your 2020 resolutions/goals?
Keeping up with social media can be a real pain sometimes. Trying to post frequently while having relevant content that your audience actually engages with. Posting regularly without becoming repetitive. Because of this struggle, there are countless platforms for planning and scheduling your social media posts. You may have seen ads for them and be wondering; “Should I be planning my social media content?” If you’re a business owner then that answer is a definite YES!!! Not a business owner? Then it’s not necessary but could still be useful for you if you want to create structure around your social media or just free up some time. I’m going to get into why you should be planning your content in just a moment… First I want to address the elephant in the room. The platforms I mentioned earlier; there are a ton of them, you can usually get a free trial to test them out. Some offer a free plan, but there’s usually some restrictions or limitations to the free plans. Most of the platforms allow you to plan and schedule your posts. However, some are just for planning and you have to manually post. This is due to algorithms that prevent them from posting on your behalf. You can also do all of this for free! And you won’t have to worry about getting blocked or shadow banned for using bots. You can learn how to do that here. Before we move forward, let's discuss the difference between planning and scheduling. In just a couple of short days we will be saying goodbye to 2019 and hello to a brand new decade! For some of us this decade has been great. However for others there may have been quite a few balls dropped...pun intended. When we end the year with a list of things we wish we had gotten done, that we plan to get done etc., we create resolutions. Now I’m more of a goals girl myself, I’ve personally never set a resolution. The reason I’ve avoided resolutions is because they never seem to get done. I would hear year after year about what someone was going to do in the new year and then shortly after they completely forget about it. According to this study from 2016 less than half of our resolutions last more than 6 months! I wasn’t shocked at all by this, and if you’re being honest with yourself you probably aren’t either. There’s even a”national holiday” in January dedicated to giving up on your resolutions. It’s basically become tradition to abandon the things that we set out to do. Even when we set out to do them with the greatest of intentions. The problem with that is we create an unaccountable society.  “Where did the time go?”  We’ve all said something like this or heard it said to us before. Time moves to the beat of its own drum. There’s nothing we can do to stop it or slow it down it just keeps moving even when we aren’t. So are we doomed to this feeling of not having enough time or wanting more? Is there really a such thing as time management?
The answer to both of those questions is NO! No we aren’t doomed to feeling like we don’t have enough time but there also isn’t a such thing as time management. I know that sounds like a contradiction but stick with me here, there’s a solution and a way to make it all make sense. First let me get into the whole, “no such thing as time management” and the point of this article. Time itself cannot be managed, there’s nothing we can do to change it. To manage something would mean that you have some sort of influence on it and that’s just simply not the case when it comes to time. However you do have influence over yourself! You are the biggest factor in your own life, and the only one who can really make a difference in it. So it’s not really time management as much as it is self discipline. We often waste time doing things that feel good rather than things that will give us the results in the long run. Simply we are undisciplined, so time seems to fly past us with no real progress being made. Yes, it's difficult to manage ourselves, as we’ve been taught to have someone else do it for us. From parents, to teachers to bosses we’re never really taught to discipline ourselves, and that makes “time management” difficult. But it doesn’t have to be… It can actually be quite simple to have productive days rather than busy days leaving you feeling worn out and unaccomplished. But first, you have to be willing to change your mentality, put in the work, and be consistent with the practice of disciplining yourself. Are you ready? |
Alena MichelleAlena Michelle is an accountability coach and mompreneur. Becoming a mother opened her eyes to the sad reality that many mothers loose their identities in motherhood. Throughout her own journey to find herself Alena learned that making herself a priority helped her to become a better mother to her daughter and a better wife to her husband. Archives
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