Mighty May

At last. I have the hugest work project of my career - ever! - behind me. Last night at 11pm I sent the client the final outstanding report document and he congratulated me on a job well done today. The campaign has caused me over a year of stress, largely due to my own fear of failure, and I have had to navigate some very difficult questions about my delivery. But I’ve finished strong, and give myself about an 8/10 for the way I’ve handled the last leg of the contract. I can now finally start focusing on the rest of my business and bringing in new accounts without this project hanging over me like a black cloud. There were many learnings and honestly I bit off way more than I could chew, was irresponsible with my resourcing and ignorant about how taxing it would be to juggle the demands of the campaign with pregnancy and a new baby. It’s cost me a lot of extra time and money in a variety of ways. On some level it’s also cost me my productivity and peace of mind in other areas of my life, not to mention the freedom to tackle new work challenges. Guilt and fear are silent killers. But it’s been a valuable experience and I will not make the same mistakes again. Over the last three weeks I’ve drawn strength from my angels and in particular from the memory of my grandmother. When she died last year, I wanted to remember her diligence as a quality to emulate. And diligence has helped me through the urge to procrastinate with the final elements of this massive job. I give thanks for this help and am ready to move on with my business – as F says, this is going to be Mighty May! I am really feeling driven and more able to focus on my work again, after a year of pregnancy and breastfeeding-related baby brain. I am more myself and I'm hugely grateful to be a work-from-home cum stay-at-home mom. It is a privilege to have help in the mornings, work a half day and then to be able to spend every afternoon with my little boy. While it’s a stretch a lot of the time and I don’t always get the balance right, for now the balance is as good as I believe it can be. However in October I will be on maternity leave again, and I need to build some fat into my business aggressively for the next five months. I am absolutely thrilled to be expecting a little girl and at 17 weeks along I am enjoying the energy of the second trimester. But the bottom line is that I will need to be much more realistic about how I approach my work-family balance with baby two than I was the first time around. My lack of experience was partially the reason I found myself in such a mess with the project I’ve now finally completed. So with Awful April behind me, and with the rest of the year feeling full of possibility and hope, I am officially wiping the slate clean and saying hey, Mighty May – let’s go. HoneyChild