Articles
Running your own business - Not the easy option
By Lisa Aitken.
Once I had a vision of how my life should turn out, I should run a successful business alongside being a good mum and wife, I would wear posh clothes and employ people I liked, I would have lovely, friendly customers who would rush to buy my fabulous products and I would have quality time to spend with my children and my husband. I would earn enough money to have a sexy, new sports car and it would all require very little effort! Everyone would flock to buy from us as they would know we were the best and I would be having my nails done in a local salon and counting my money whilst floating around looking important in my new power suit!
I decided to turn the dream into a reality and launched my new business, ‘Borrowed Moments Baby Casting Kits & Keepsakes’, selling and creating unique baby keepsakes. I got lots of advice, and I have worked really, really hard creating a fabulous range of products, all at great prices. I felt that this would all be wonderfully simple and the business would run itself.
The dream part was short-lived as the reality set in, I now realise that as a woman, running your own business is definitely not all glamour, fast cars, and a huge ego trip! Oh contraire, it’s constantly a juggling act, it’s never having enough time to do most of your mothering duties and definitely none of your wifely duties! You rarely have time to do everything; there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Multi-tasking is becoming second nature as it’s quicker to do two jobs at once, I go to sleep thinking business, I wake up thinking business; I even dream about it! My husband, kids and the housework take second place to my striving to succeed, it becomes like an infectious bug as I strive for perfection! I had imagined that working for myself would mean being able to work around the children, not so, instead these days they work around me, running your own business is definitely not for the feint hearted, ‘having it all’ definitely comes with a hefty price tag.
Still, after the hardest slog I have ever had, the business is still going, in fact it is growing steadily and going from strength to strength, my great service and fabulous products are paying off, slowly but surely! Working for yourself is not easy, especially if you want to grow a successful company. As a woman you have to juggle so many aspects of your life at the same time and you have to be very determined, there are a great many highs and even more lows, especially in the current economic climate. But despite all the hard work, the long hours, the bags under my eyes and the constant battles to succeed at what I set out to achieve, I am happy with my lot and am looking forward to my company’s future growth, it’s a very bumpy ride but I am holding on tight and ready for the challenge. The sexy sports car and the nail manicures haven’t materialised yet and even if I had the money, I couldn’t afford the time away from the business, it’s my baby and I couldn’t leave it, after all what would I do with any spare time now anyway, I’d be like a fish out of water!
Borrowed Moments Baby Casting Kits & Keepsakes produce a range of quality, affordable baby casting kits which enable parents to capture beautiful memories of their children’s hands and feet to treasure for years to come. We also do clay impression kits and hand and footprint kits as well and our range is continually evolving to offer you some of the best baby keepsake items on the market. Check out our website http://www.borrowedmoments.co.uk to see our full range of kits that you can produce at home and details of the keepsake services we can offer in Cornwall too. Here’s to the next set of challenges, bring it on, I’m ready!
