Last year, I was strategizing with the owner of a new mom’s space about pricing and services to offer within the space. We quickly focused on the fact that business owners would pay because their business justified it as an investment. Moms without a business would be harder to convince to spend money on themselves.

I’ve had several business owner colleague conversations where they confess their business is the one thing that they get to do for themselves.

And Zach, my husband, has often prodded me to get a hobby, with my reply being that my business development is my hobby.

Why are all of us moms so quick to make our work, our livelihood, this entity whose benefits reach far beyond ourselves - our only form of “time to ourselves”?

Let’s dispel the myth right now.

Working in your business is not “time for yourself”.

Sure, maybe you get to finally shut the door to your office and have a few hours without kid interruptions. But you’ve replaced your kid demands with work demands. You are still in demand during those hours.

With Mother’s Day coming up this weekend, I learned a fascinating bit of trivia about the holiday. It was started by an activist to acknowledge the unpaid labor done, in large part, by moms. 150+ years later and that unpaid labor is still largely unrecognized.

Perhaps that is why so many of us need to justify our time by spending it building businesses that pay us money. In our enterprise-obsessed culture, our time nurturing and raising our kids doesn’t count so we make sure that the rest of it does.

If this is how we feel, then, of course, we’re only going to spend our time between our kids/family and our work.

And that, my friend, is a recipe for burnout.

We need true time for ourselves. Time to rest and recharge without the guilt.

How do we make it happen?

It would be great if the powers that be recognized the unpaid labor of nurturing in this country. Until that time comes, the revolution can start at home. It’s time to find something that is just for you. It’s not for your business. It’s not for your family. It’s simply for your joy.

Use this Mother’s Day to find that one thing for you. And don’t think your thing and your me-time is relegated to this one Sunday in May. You’re going to find your thing this weekend, and then you’re going to make time for yourself regularly. You deserve it.

Wondering how you’ll possibly find time for this in your busy life? Stay tuned next week for exactly how to streamline your business to return the time you so desperately need. Don’t want to wait? Send me a message and I’d be happy to chat!