How Being a Homeschool Mom Compares to Running a Coaching Business

Episode Transcript:

You are listening to The Book Your Dream Clients podcast. Bite-sized episodes from one coach to another to help you create and scale your business with simplicity. No hustle required.

Welcome back to The Book Your Dream Clients podcast. Today I wanted to share with you how being a homeschool mom compares to running a coaching business. So sit back, relax and enjoy. Alright, so you might not be a homeschool mom and maybe you're not even running a coaching business, but you're listening to this because it caught your attention.

I have three kids and we started homeschooling in 2020. Not because of COVID, but because we wanted to approach their learning with a different perspective. I had wanted to homeschool for years. I watched YouTube videos all the time. I loved watching curriculum reviews. I had my kids in public school and this was like a secret passion for me.

And I never really thought that it would be something that I would be brave enough to make the decision to do for my family. So we have one year under our belt. And every week that I sat down to plan our week ahead, I thought, my goodness, if I was just diving into this without having the experience of running my coaching business, I don't know that this would be as easy as it is for me.

And all year, I kept making these connections with how homeschool relates to business and they are so similar. So I don't know if this will help you just connect the dots or maybe you're considering homeschooling, or maybe you're considering running a coaching business. If you've never done both and you want to do one, or you are doing one and you want to do the other, this might help you. Or maybe it's just going to help me talk it out.

Okay. So let's talk about the ways that they're similar. The first one is, ‘it started with a dream.’ We all have the dream to start a business. We know there's something out there for us. We know that we're capable of doing something really amazing, and we just follow this calling right.

And that's the same thing that happened with homeschooling. Like I said in the beginning, this was something that I always secretly wanted to do. And I mean, I guess I always wanted to be a teacher growing up and I just didn't think I was smart enough to do that. So I just didn't pursue it. I remember sharing with a teacher in school when I was helping her, when I was a senior that I wanted to be a teacher and she was so excited and that intimidated me so much.

And I thought, well, I don't want to let anybody down, so I'm not going to do it. And I don't think I'm smart enough. So I talked myself out of it. And that's okay because it led me to where I am now. Considering homeschooling all last year with all the things that were going on I wasn't sure if it was the right decision for us.

And I shared in the podcast episode almost a year ago of why we're homeschooling, about a dream that I had. And it was me constantly wondering, and over-analyzing, if I should homeschool my kids. And I think that God was frustrated with me always doubting myself. And always asking for signs and not really paying attention.

So I think God has to be very obvious for me sometimes. And so I had a dream that God sent me  - or, not sent me, but handed me a huge stack of books. And I just remember seeing in my dream these arms with these books and just handed them to me like, here, this is your sign Lindsay, stop asking. And I knew like that morning that it was my answer.

And that is so relatable to business. Okay, fine. I'll just do it, right? So it all starts with that dream. You want to start something new, you just gotta follow your calling. It feels really good, kind of scary, really exciting. And you're just along for the ride. When you're just starting your business or you're just starting homeschool,

They are so relatable with the fact that you are soaking up a lot of information. Watching videos on YouTube -  whether it's curriculum comparison videos, or homeschool day-in-the-life, Podcast episodes, reading all the books. Oh my gosh. It just put me back to the beginning of running my business. I was a sponge when I started my business.

And then last year I was a sponge for homeschooling. I was listening to everything, watching or listening to videos while I was working, reading books, audible - oh my goodness. I was just soaking up everything that I could. It’s a great thing to do in the beginning of starting your business or starting your homeschool journey, it's a good thing.

But then there's a point where you gotta stop and pay attention to what you and your family need. Your family needs your business, all those, all that, all that good stuff. Because if you're just going to be the sponge, you're not going to be able to apply anything. Because you're busy soaking in all the info. So, that is something that you have to step out of.

Okay. Now you have to say I'm done consuming all the things. I need to take action. My first step of taking action with homeschool was sending in our letter that we're not registering for school. And my first step for starting my business was creating a website, hiring a coach. Taking that big, scary step.

Those are both scary. The other thing that is so similar is you're looking at everyone else. You're constantly comparing yourself to other coaches, other homeschool moms and thinking that you're not good enough. You're not doing enough. You're not doing it right. Their homeschool life looks way more organized than yours does.

Their homeschool life looks way more effective than yours does. Like you're missing something. Their kids are so perfect sitting at the table, writing their little Bible verses and -  and yours are -  you know, busy outside. And that's okay. It's the same thing for business. You're looking at everyone else's highlight reels.

You're comparing them to a moment that is not even comparable. And you're thinking less than yourself. Oh, my gosh. That is something we're all guilty of, right? Nodding yes... you're looking at everyone else and thinking, oh, mine, my business doesn't look like that. My office doesn't look like that. My homeschool room doesn't look like that.

You know how many times I moved my office just to match where we are in our family? A lot. I brought up three babies while starting my business. And so my office has had to move to all kinds of different places so I can make sure that I'm closer to my babies, or it's easier for me, all those things. Same thing with homeschool.

We moved our homeschool room three times. We had it in one room and it felt like it just didn't feel right. So we moved to the dining room table, thinking that would be kind of like a great family spot and it just kind of turned out to be a big mess. And then we had to move into a different room and it worked.

And maybe we'll move somewhere else. I don't know. It's okay. It's okay to change things up. In fact, I find that it revitalizes your homeschool. Same with your office. I'll have clients who will message me and say, I rearranged my office today, or I cleaned off my desk and I feel so refreshed. Same thing for homeschool. Even if it's just like a simple table move to the other side of the room,

It just refreshes everyone's mind. It just blows my mind how relatable they are. The next thing you're scared to make it public. You're scared to tell people that you started a business. You're scared to tell people you are going to homeschool your kids because what are they going to think?

I just look at it as, here's another reason for people to think that I'm crazy. I already feel like I'm always doing everything the opposite that the cultural norm is here. And my family, we don't have any homeschoolers in our immediate family. I don't have anybody who does what I do in my immediate family.

So I feel like I'm constantly doing the opposite. So this move probably didn't surprise anybody. But it was still scary for me to say, yeah, we're homeschooling. Remember last year, as it was getting closer to school starting, and people would say, are you guys ready for school? And I, and I would be like, nervous to say no, we're homeschooling because I felt like I was just like - it was such a big thing, but my kids didn't act like it was a big thing.

We make such a big deal about things in our head. And we forget that it's not that big of a deal. So thinking about what everyone else thinks when it comes to your business, homeschooling. It's so relatable because it's different. Not everyone is used to that lifestyle. Not everyone is used to your schedule, all of those things.

But if I wouldn't have had the experience of sharing with people that I have my own business, I think it gave me confidence to say that I homeschool my kids. Because that next reason that they're so relatable, you're afraid to mess up…is something that could hold you back from even taking the first step. When you're homeschooling your kids, you have nothing else to blame their habits on there, anything on because you are doing all the things.

So I can't say, oh, they learned that in school because that would be me. Your child's education is so important, right? This is something that I had to really shift my head around: the fact that I grew up going to public school and so did my husband. You still have that public school mindset, same with business.

You have an employee mindset and you have to turn those off. You have to turn the public school mindset off, and the employee mindset off when it comes to homeschooling and running your business. When you're running your business, you have to be the CEO. When you're homeschooling, you have to be the person who supports your children to learn at their own pace at their own level.

And not worry about the rest of the noise. That's pretty freeing, because you don't have to follow the norm in air quotes. That's not the norm. You no longer have to be a square trying to fit in a circle peg. You don't have to do that anymore. And that feels really scary because you feel like if you don't try to keep forcing yourself, you're going to mess up and you won't.

My biggest answer that I have to say to people who kind of look at me and wonder why I'm homeschooling or question it, or judge me, whatever that...whatever it might be, I say no one cares about my kids' education more than their mom. And it's quiet because you can't argue with that. So being afraid to mess up is normal.

It's natural. But you're not going to mess up. As long as you love your kids, you support them, you give them a healthy, nurturing environment, what can go wrong? Right? It's amazing how, when you give kids freedom to explore and learn at their own pace, at their own interest levels what happens. It's pretty cool.

The next thing... that these are more like... once you're going, once you're running your business, once or homeschooling, you have a few weeks, a few months under your belt -  you realize that you need to be organized. I started from the beginning planning my weeks ahead, usually on Sundays.

Because I knew that if I sat down with my kids on Monday and I didn't have anything ready, it would be a disaster. Because I don't have eight hours a day to homeschool my kids and I don't think any mom does. So I have a full-time job. I have a business to run and I homeschool my kids in between.

We homeschool in the afternoons. And one of the things that I got really hung up on was it seems like everyone starts their day getting their homeschool work done, and I can't do that. That's just not possible with the schedule that I have. And so I asked my kids, when would you rather have homeschool?

And they said in the afternoon, like they were fine with that. So they use the whole morning to play, do things together, do whatever they want to do. And then they know by the time mom is done working, we head downstairs. After we're done with homeschool we split apart. We do our own thing. I go on my client calls usually.

But I wouldn't be able to run our day, like a well oiled machine if I didn't organize the content ahead of time and plan ahead. Ugh, so important! Because there's a lot of things that you want to cover if you're following a curriculum. There's a lot of things that you need to have ready beforehand.

So you're not digging in your drawers and your bins and trying to find everything that you need, because attention spans are short. Right? And the same thing with business. I don't approach my business as, okay, what needs to be done today because if I don't do it, everything will fall apart.

No, I plan ahead in my business. We're a month, a week ahead in many things. And if I didn't do that in my business, it would have been hard for me to train myself to do it for homeschool. The next thing is being able to go with the flow. Things are going to come up. Kids are going to get sick. Things happen. Appointments happen. Random family pop-ins happen.

And that's okay. Because if you feel like -  if you're not on this super strict structure, that everything will fall apart -  you need to reapproach. You need to go bigger. I don't want your homeschool day or your business to stop when you stop. So it's okay to go with the flow. It's okay to relax a little bit.

It's okay to implement. Let's say, you know, for homeschool my dad pops in for the afternoon and we didn't get a chance to go into our homeschool room that day. That's okay because it's family. Maybe we'll do something where we'll make cookies later and I'll sneak in a little bit of math because we're going to double that banana cupcake recipe.

Maybe we'll just go outside and work in the garden. Or maybe we'll just go for a walk and read a little bit extra for the next day. And it's funny how everything always turns out. Just because you missed a day because you had a doctor appointment or maybe someone just doesn't feel right. It's okay.

If kids wake up on the wrong side of the bed, it happens to everybody. Do I need to go and put them through an afternoon of work because they're not feeling themselves? That's okay. We'll just take the afternoon off. This has given me the opportunity to be able to read my kids more than I ever could, and to be there for them when they need me at any moment. I love that. Same for my business.

Going with the flow. Not stressing, not obsessing. Allowing it to grow at its own pace. I don't believe that God puts things in our path, in our arms so we can fail. I think we're put on this earth to do really amazing things with the people in our lives and trusting that we're on the right path and knowing that we're going to be okay, releases the stress and the pressure that doesn't come from a place of God gave this to me.

Just trust that he's with you. And if something, if a fork is in the road and or you stumble over something because you had a rough day in business or homeschool, there's always another day. It's going to be fine. Knowing when to slow down, pivot, or change things up. Oh my gosh. So important. When we're doing something in our business and it doesn't feel right.

We have two choices. We can continue doing something that completely feels unaligned, or we can stop, change, switch something around. We have the freedom to do that because we're the boss, right? Same in homeschool. If we start a curriculum or a workbook that I got because it looked really fun,

Or I printed off something that I thought we would all enjoy once we sit down at the table to do it and I can tell immediately, like, this is not, this isn't their favorite thing to do. And I know that it's not going to be something they're going to look forward to - I'm not going to do it. Because I think that...

...If you're not in tune with your business or your kids, and you just keep pushing and doing things that you don't enjoy every day is going to feel hard. You're not going to wake up excited for all the things ahead of you. I do have workbooks that we will not do. I have bought things that we will not play with or write in. That's okay.

Because there was good intention behind it. And maybe another kid will want to use it. It doesn't matter. But if I force myself to do things just to do them to say that I did it -  that's a waste of time, especially in homeschool. And it's a waste of your energy. So it's okay to read the science, follow your intuition, follow your gut.

The minute you get something, you purchase something, you read something. If it doesn't feel right, it's okay to not do it. It's okay to change things up. You don't have to do what everyone else was doing. In fact, you shouldn't. Keep things simple. Keep your business simple. Keep your homeschool simple. It will work better when you don't over-complicate it with all these things, all the noise that you've been hearing. This applies to both.

And I know you're nodding your head because you've gone through times where you have over complicated things to the max and you don't need to do that. Keeping things simple makes you... allows you to breathe. And it allows you to flow through the day and trusting that process, trusting the process in your business, the growth of your business. The growth of your homeschool, trusting your CEO, instincts, your motherly instincts, and most of all, trusting God trusting that you are doing what you were supposed to do, whatever that looks like for you.

And I'm proud of my homeschool. I'm proud of my business. I wake up in the morning, so excited to do everything that has been laid in front of me. I am so grateful for my business. I'm so grateful for my homeschool and I'm so grateful for my career because they all play really well together. So if you're a homeschool mom or you're running a business, or you want to do one of these things, you can do it.

If I can do it, you can do it. And if you have any questions or you're scared to get started, I am not a professional homeschooler, but I did it and I love it. I'm so happy we started and I know my kids are happy too. That's all that matters. I would love to have a conversation with you. Please, let me know if you found this relatable.

If you've been homeschooling for a long time and you are running a business and you're like, yep, this is exactly what it is... share with your friends! I would love to be a part of your community as well. So thank you so much for listening. I am always grateful that you put me in your earbuds and I will see you on the next episode.

Before you go, I want to invite you to join my free Facebook group for coaches. Simply type ‘Dream Client Community.com’ in your browser and request access. And we'll happily let you in. We have amazing coaches that are just like you who are starting and scaling their business and we would love to see you there.