How to Integrate Your Self and Home Life into Growing Your Business in a More Sustainable Way With Mary Clavieres

How to Integrate Your Self and Home Life into Growing Your Business in a More Sustainable Way With Mary Clavieres

Welcome to this episode of The Determined Mom Show, and today we have a special guest, Mary Clavieres. She is from the Transition Collective, and she is also the host of the Fearless Business Podcast. Today we’re going to talk about integrating yourself and home life into growing your business more sustainably.

I’m based in the New York, New Jersey area, and I have two young girls, ages seven and four and a half, and I’ve also been running my businesses for about four years or so now full-time. I left my corporate job to work for myself.

So it is an interesting dynamic when the world shut down and switched to doing everything on Zoom. I left corporate to build a product company with quick transitions, which is mesh underwear for women after having a baby or after surgery.

From there grew to these other areas and the Transitions Collective, a community for moms and business owners because there’s real power around supporting each other and learning from each other so that we don’t have to go at it alone.

Over time and through research, I’ve found that there are varying quality levels in hospital underwear. So depending on your hospital, you may get some that could be better and some that are a little better. But quick transitions are a way for women to have what they need when they have a baby because we should have the products we need for postpartum.

Let’s talk about that home life, self business. How do we figure that out?

The first thing that I like to start with is that work-life balance is a myth. It’s unachievable, and it does not exist. So it’s about how we can operate in ways that are more sustainable for us. So I like to think about the self, the home, family life, and business as three categories that we constantly shift through.

The section could work even if you don’t have your own business. We always have to change between these three areas; the base of what it all comes down to is the self; that’s the base of the pyramid. It’s the most significant piece of the pyramid because it’s the most critical piece.

As moms, we’re always told to put ourselves last, or like there’s this subconscious thing around, like we have to give ourselves to everything else and everyone else before ourselves. At the end of the day, what are you doing in your business? Is it most effective if you’re not taking care of yourself too?

Like from a productivity standpoint or however you want to look at it. To your point, too, there are seasons to it, right? Sometimes our business will have more; sometimes, our home life will have more. How can you keep that self-portion consistent, at least with some minimum baseline efforts, to sustain you for the other areas?

What can we do to flip my pyramid back over and make it the right way?

You can ask yourself some questions in each of the areas, and you can also take a look at how you’re spending your time and either, I know, I mean, covid, it runs the gamut for people about what their days look like and how much time they do have for themselves and everything.

But really, in the self category, I would first look at what’s one thing you’re doing for yourself today, and even ahead of that, what are the things that you like to do for yourself so that you can have a menu to pick from? Do you like journaling? Do you like exercising? Do you like reading? 

First, identify some of those things that you like and enjoy and want time for yourself to do. It does not count if you’re like going grocery shopping by yourself. It does not count if you’re folding the laundry by yourself, like anything that’s chores related. It’s something for you that you enjoy. I always tell people it’s not to feel guilty; it’s not to feel like you’re not reaching these things.

 The first step is just being mindful or aware of them so that you can start to incorporate them. Because really, we have enough that we beat ourselves up about. It’s uncomfortable sometimes. But I’ve been trying to train myself to say, like, okay, let that go. It’s tough. I still need to do that thoroughly. So again, easier said than done, but the more we practice that, the more comfortable we are with it.

What is the final wrap-up of all that great advice you’ve given us?

How do you have your business mapped out when you look at your company? There’s a lot in there, but what are the parts that you are focused on, how you’re growing, and do you have solid strategies behind them? Because what I usually see is, as entrepreneurs, a lot of people love to chase squirrels. I’m guilty of that too. 

Or shiny objects or whatever you want to call them.  And it’s about how you can have a plan and limit some of that. Because we already see, we talked through the self and the home. We’re very short on time, right? 

So how can we use our time most effectively? And I think a lot of what goes into that is how we plan around it and evaluate it. Part of that is evaluating. Where we’re strong in our businesses, where we may need outside support or to hire other people, everything like that, so that’s really in the business piece of really how do you focus even if you have a small amount of time, have it be most effective and impactful for you.

It’s all about progress, and it’s a continuous journey, but I think the more you practice it, the more you kind of learn about yourself, and you know what your strengths are, you know what your triggers are, you know a lot of these things that will help you see like, where am I spending my time?

What do I need for myself? When do I get overwhelmed in my business? The more self-aware you are, I think that’s where some of the relaxed will come in because you’re understanding it more and can evaluate, apply, and make those changes.

Where can people find you on the internet?

I’m at the Transitions Collective. That’s the website, transitions collective.com, and on Instagram at the Transitions Collective. And I do have a workbook that goes with what we talked about specifically for your audience, and that’s at the transitions collective.com/the determined mom. I’ll give you the link. It’s the hyphen-determined hyphen, mom.