Achieving it All as a Working Mom with Lindsay Burns

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

moms, business, kids, life, day, big, bit, people, focus, burnt, spend, list, instagram, work, husband, oldest, boys, rita, feel, early

SPEAKERS

Rita Suzanne, Lindsay Burns

Rita Suzanne

Welcome to the mom owned and operated podcast, the podcast about moms and for moms, where we have candid conversations about running a business, raising a family, and remembering ourselves. I’m your host, Rita Suzanne, a single mom of four, digital strategist, and provider of no nonsense business strategies and tactics. Hi, this is Rita Suzanne, with mom owned and operated. And today I’m talking to Lindsay burns. And I’m so excited to talk to you, Lindsay, about moms and balancing all of the things. So please tell us a little bit about yourself.

Lindsay Burns

For sure. Thanks for having me, Rita. So yes, I would say I am a Canadian, of in, I live near Toronto, in Ontario with my husband and our two little boys. So one of them is three and one just turned one in December. They are your typical rambunctious boys, we’re entering the phase of trying to keep them from hurting each other all the time. So that’s, that’s my biggest time commitment these days. I am an elementary school teacher by trade, and who recently decided that while I was on maternity leave, I should start my own business. So that’s why I ended up here I have my own business is called life changing lens. And that’s where I combine my knowledge as an educator with my knowledge that I gained through my master’s degree, which is in behavior change and motivation. So I work with busy working moms to help them achieve excellence in their life. I don’t believe that being a working mom means that you have to spend your life miserable and burnt out and only serving others. And waiting for that day when you can take care of yourself again, I feel very strongly about that. So that’s where I’m trying to add value and kind of change the script on that a little bit.

Rita Suzanne

Great. I mean, that’s so amazing. Because you know, as moms, we’re always burning ourselves out. So tell me then what your typical day looks like. For sure.

Lindsay Burns

So it’s a bit of a weird time, because we’ve been in and out of school appear, my husband is a high school teacher. So our My typical day has flipped flopped a lot. But I’ll give you an example. So usually it starts out with a being full on with the kids in the morning. And then my husband and I have a deal where we trade off on time in the gym. So we have a gym in our home. So I’ll start my day, then with that, and shower, all that stuff that makes me feel good. And like I’m actually ready to take on the day. That is definitely one of my keys to success. And then I’ll have a couple hours of work time before he goes to work. So that’s where I have my uninterrupted kid free time that I value, then back on full with the kids, I’ll sneak in work during nap time while my oldest does an activity. And then you know, the whole lunch deal. And then afternoons are pretty much full on with the boys. Because there we have no more naps to depend on away we go. We’re keeping busy, we’re outside, we’re going for walks. We have a big property, we’re lucky that way. So we spend a lot of our time outside. And then after the whole bedtime deal is when I get back, I do a lot of my work. I do a lot of my calls with clients in the evening, which actually works out well for me and for them, because most of them are you know, I’m working with working moms, they’re busy during the day, they need those evening times or weekend time. So it actually kind of works perfectly that way. And then on the weekend, I try to catch up on whatever I can Well, my husband’s around. So it has been a bit of a weird kind of juggling act at this point, but we’re making it work.

Rita Suzanne

So since you focus in on behavioural change, like what is like, what is your number one tip for moms or you know, to help us, I guess change a little bit of these behaviors so that we can actually have the balance that we need.

Lindsay Burns

Great question, big, big question. There’s not really like one clear answer there. But I will try to I’ll try to name a few things here. So for one thing, the biggest thing is getting really clear on your personal values and what you actually want your life because we get caught up in like we’re on the hamster wheel we’re trying to keep up with so and so a lot of the things we think we need to do like the perfectly clean house, all those things, maybe don’t actually align with a lot of people’s values. It’s a should. So we work on getting away from those shoulds because it makes it so much easier than to set boundaries to decide what you actually are allowing in your day and what you don’t allow. I always say like no planner in the world is going to help you if you are just allowing too many things into your day. So it’s been really critical that way like scrap the giant to do list that people love because they get the little dopamine hit every time they check it off. Like that’s not working. So that’s a really big piece. That way the value driven Time management is what I call that. A second really big piece is getting them to take care of themselves first. So Getting in that movement, making sure they’re eating their meals, those little things that often get pushed to the backburner as a luxury are actually the things that are going to make you be more efficient in your day. If you’re burned out, you’re moving slowly, you’re taking, you know, five times longer to do something. But when you actually invest in yourself and take care of yourself, then you can have more things in your day, because you’re focused, you’re getting them done. That’s a huge thing. That’s one, moms are always reluctant to take care of themselves. But I push for that, because it truly is so important. And then with the behavior change, specifically, I focus on small changes. And the way that analogy I like to use for this is if you think of a diet, a lot of women have done a diet, they’ve gone hard, they’ve done something big, they burnt out, because it wasn’t manageable. And they were right back where they started. But then additionally, the feeling like a failure. When the failure wasn’t on the person it was at the plan didn’t match, their life wasn’t realistic. And it’s the same in anything in our lives, we go big, we go hard, we look for the flashy fix, and we burn out. So I focused on those little steps that you can take that actually fit with each person’s individual life, because the most perfect plan in the world doesn’t matter if you’re not going to do it or you’re not able to do it. And we focus on those little small changes that will compound over time to give you that big success, focus a lot on habits and systems, those little actions every day, because that’s what propels you forward, not that big thing. You did that one week, and then it didn’t work. So that’s a lot. But in a nutshell, those three areas I find are the the areas that make the biggest impact for working moms.

Rita Suzanne

It’s so funny, because my next question was going to be essentially, we’re talking about behavioral changes, small little changes I was going to ask you is like that part of like habit stacking, or, you know, like one thing, you do this, and you do that, you know, and then also I can relate so hard. So, so hard to the overuse of the to do list like I am, you know, we’re making a list, it’s like 20 things on there. And then we just only check one off for the day. And it’s like, ah, I feel so bad because I didn’t, you know, I didn’t get to do more. But when you have kids coming in and out of the room while you’re trying to work, it makes it really hard, especially like, I just need that structured time, like, let me focus on this. But you know, they have their needs, and then they come in, and it takes me three times as long because of all of the interruptions. So I mean, I totally,

Lindsay Burns

absolutely. And that’s the problem with the to do list. There’s a couple of problems, but one is, then we want to get the most checks as possible makes us feel successful. Right? So what do we start with those silly little things at the bottom that aren’t actually adding impact to our day because we check more off. So I always say like, if you need to brain dump on a list, by all means do it. But then you’re picking like 123 things, those are actually your priorities. And it’s more important to set yourself up for success than it is to get a million things done. Because every time you set yourself up for success, that’s a vote towards the person you want to be, you’re the person who gets stuff done. You’re the person who’s successful, that’s motivating the next day you show up ready to go. If every day you end your day looking at this list, and it makes you feel awful, right? Not we’re not contributing to any long term success, right

Rita Suzanne

time is just gonna make you depressed even more. You’re gonna have to keep adding more and more things to the list, as you know, as life happens, right? Yeah, for sure. So tell me like, what is your biggest challenge in being a mom and running a business at the same time?

Lindsay Burns

Yeah, absolutely. Right. Where do I start? Right, right now. And I hate to always blame COVID and all that kind of stuff. But we we pulled when my youngest was just one at the time. But we pulled my oldest at daycare when everything was happening. And then we decided not to keep paying for his thoughts it was going on. So they’re both home with me full time. So for me, it’s not having those daytime hours I can count on when my husband is home working from home too. We can trade off he’s going back tomorrow to be full time gone. I’m going to adjust again. So it’s just not having that designated work time for me. I do work better in the day by the time the kids have gone to bed. I’m slow. I’m sluggish. My Yeah, like my energies are my energy is drained. All that kind of stuff. So it’s just the biggest challenge right now is I miss having those daytime hours when I feel most creative.

Rita Suzanne

Ah, I feel you I know. You know, some people they say they get up early and they do all of their work and everything. But if I get up early, I’m literally just going to be scrolling on my phone doing absolutely nothing. So you will find me up in the middle of the night. You know, doing all the things and I don’t know I just actually work better like that. But it’s it’s not good because I’m not sleeping right sleep. Yeah. And all of the things. I mean, I do get I do get a fair amount of sleep, but I feel like, you know, everybody’s like, oh be in bed by 10 o’clock. I’m like, 10

Lindsay Burns

Yeah, I mean, it depends what works for you. Because some people are night owls, and they are genuinely functioning their best then right? Like, that’s, I’m just not one of them. And we’re up early, the kids are off at, you know, five 530 anyways. And I like getting up early. But 530 is kind of my limit, like, I’m not going to be one of those people who gets up at 4am I can’t do it. So it is,

Rita Suzanne

you know, when you have younger kids, they get up earlier and I remember that, but now that my kids you know, my youngest is 10. And so he likes to sleep in and so that I guess helps my my pattern plus without the school like they go. My kids are like blended they go half and half so they do so Geiger and then some at school and so they they end up not even having to get up until eight o’clock anyways. And okay, so that actually works out really pretty good for me.

Lindsay Burns

But you’re telling me there’s hope. As we get older, I like that.

Rita Suzanne

I never I didn’t think that there was because I remember my boys are two years apart as well. And I just remember feeling the same thing like Oh, my goodness. So I have to get up so early every you know, every day, but back then I was working in corporate so I had to get up anyways. Yeah, it’s a little different.

Lindsay Burns

Yeah. I mean, I like we got up early before kids do but I got up early to you know, spend time in the gym and walk the dog and get that alone time. You know, now it’s like up and somebody needs you from the second you wake up.

Rita Suzanne

Yes, the demands the poles of the little ones. I mean, it is probably the latest that I usually sleep in. So I guess it’s not like too late, but it’s not 530. Okay, so if another mom came to you, and she wanted to start her own business, what would be like the best tips tip or tips that you could give her? As far as like, this is what I’ve learned in my experience?

Lindsay Burns

That’s an excellent, excellent question. That that takes some thought to get the right, the most effective response there. But I think one thing for me that I’ve realized is, I didn’t hang out on Instagram, in a lot of my businesses Instagram driven, I should start by saying that. And I didn’t hang out on there, kind of on the business side very much like I was strictly a consumer and posting pictures of my kids. So I would suggest spending time on the business side connect with accounts that are doing a similar thing, get a feel for it. Because once you get in there, you’re gonna start thinking you need all these things to get your business going. And people will reach out and give you advice or try to sell to you. And if you’re new, it’s easy to get caught up in the mindset of Oh, yes, I probably do need that. Whereas if you’re already spending some time there and you’re getting a feel for it, you’re really being specific about exactly what you want to do, then you can narrow in on exactly what you need. And just save yourself some time that way, save yourself some investments that way. So just just spending a bit of time in the space before you fully commit and go all in. I’m someone who likes to jump in and take action right away, which in some situations, like that’s great. But sometimes it also pays to sit back and watch a little bit and just get a feel for it.

Rita Suzanne

I think that’s a good, that’s a good tip. Because what what I say all the time is that a lot of times we’re going to start out in one position, but we’re going to pivot to another position. So you’re saying the same thing except, you know, it’s just like be more cautious about what you’re doing or what you find to be the most important thing because, like you said, once you start seeing these other people, you start thinking that this is the priority that you need to be focusing on little Do you know, it’s like, that’s only the the pretty picture that they’re putting they’re putting up, you know, because running a business is hard, let alone having two or more kids, you know, to chase after and manage at the same time. COVID are not, you know, so it’s it’s tough. And, you know, I just think you know, we’re all doing the best that we can without we haven’t right now. So, you know, if someone wants to connect with you online, where would we find you? Instagram, right?

Lindsay Burns

Yeah, I spend a lot of time on Instagram. I’m trying to branch out a little bit this year. But most of my time is on Instagram. I’m very active there. I’m at life changing lens. My website is life changing limb lynda.com I’m now expanding into things like YouTube and Pinterest. But I won’t send you there yet till I till I get things a little bit. Yeah.

Rita Suzanne

Well, thank you so much, Lizzie, for joining us. I appreciate you taking the time out of your day and talking to us.

Lindsay Burns

Absolutely. It was a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Thank you.

Rita Suzanne

And there you have it. I want to encourage you to remember that being a mom who runs her own business is not easy. we all struggle but just keep moving forward and Don’t forget to make time for yourself as moms we are usually the first thing to go to the bottom of the list. If your business is overwhelming you and you need real solutions, not just some sugar coated suggestions apply to work with me at ritasuzanne.com/apply