Hey there mama!
Looking for motivation for mom small business owners? Let me tell you a story…
Do you remember the saga of my kids and the swim team? The lessons in letting go. The tears. And the trying-not-to-yell. And the motivational speeches by mom.
Well, we have a whole new swim team thing going on. This time it’s soccer.
My neighbor’s friend set up a soccer team and needed more kids. Somehow, this sounded like a GREAT idea.
So we rock up there this weekend.
In the car, I tried to use motivation on myself, “It’ll be fine. It’s a bunch of 6 year olds. It’s just friendly, right?”
Wrong.
Six kids turned up for our team. I’m pretty sure only two of them had seen a soccer ball before…
…and Henry wasn’t one of them.
The other team was an army. They walked out in formation and did hardcore drills. They had four dad-coaches. It was INTENSE.
Thinking about it, maaaaaaaybe Henry needed more prep than the YouTube video we watched in the car….
Anyhow, I’m sure you can guess how it went. Thankfully, they capped the goals at 10, otherwise the score would have been about 37-1.
Henry and his buddies were sheep to the slaughter. He cried three times.
And, just in case you think it couldn’t get any worse… They also had a game on Sunday.
So I had to convince poor exhausted, demoralized Henry that rather than forgetting the whole miserable experience for a week, in less than 24 hours he had to strap on those shin guards all over again and haul his butt back to the soccer field.
This time it was 16-5. Not great, but a whole lot better than the day before.
To get him out on the field, though, I had to do the whole speech. You know, the one about being on a team, and being committed, and the other kids counting on you, yada yada.
The thing was, he really wanted to be the goalie. That was his motivation. So after I’d done the whole, “It’s not all about you. You’re in a team now. You have to play where you’re put,” the coach was like, “You wanna be the goalie? Get at it!”
And it turns out Henry is a pretty good goalie. I mean, he got a lot of practice as the other team was hauling shots at the goal every four seconds. And he saved a decent amount.
There are approximately 97 business lessons you can take from this experience, but let’s go with three big ones.
🥵 You’d never let your kid join a team and give up because it was too hard the first time they played.
😫 You’d never let them commit to something and then let them off because they didn’t feel like it.
🤐 You’d never let them talk trash to themselves.
Give yourself the same coaching!
Your clients trust you to be part of their business. This is such a freaking honor! Make sure you show up and give every project 150%.
Sometimes being an adult sucks, right? When you have a tough day and nothing goes your way, you feel like crying and stamping your feet or crawling back under the duvet and pretending it’s not happening.
But if you wouldn’t let your kid do that, you can’t do it yourself.
If it helps, imagine me jumping up and down on the bleachers cheering you on, just like I did for Henry. Seriously, I was super-embarrassing.
But just like him, you’ll never know if you don’t try. This thing might be your thing. So there’s your motivation for mom small business owners — now go do the thing!