As a working mum, you could be forgiven for feeling those pangs of guilt from time to time. Sometimes you feel that whatever you do, you are doing the wrong thing. If you have taken a decision to look after your children at home, you might feel that some people consider that you are not “pulling your weight” and contributing enough. Conversely, if you decide that you are going to return to your career after you’ve given birth, guilt arises here as well, as you think that some people criticise you for “abandoning” your children. Surely, you can’t win? Understand that it is quite usual for you to feel lost and somewhat alone and you might like to consider professional coaching options. Thankfully, online coaching can help you focus on what is positive and what others in your position are doing and help you to prepare correctly for your life ahead.

If you have decided to resume a career or have decided to strike out on your own, establishing your own business, good for you! In either way, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with your decision and you need to realise this and be at peace. As a working mum, you may need to give yourself a good talking to, to help you realise that you have everything going for you and are doing a marvellous job, providing for yourself and for your family.

You know how you sometimes feel guilty about a situation when you are confused and do not know all the facts? There is a danger that you do not know all the facts about your given situation. You need to reduce your stress levels by finding out all the facts and turning on all those lights in those darkened rooms in your head! If you’re well-informed, you know what all the risks and opportunities are and are well placed to take a good, educated view of your position. Taking a concerted action and finding out all the facts will in turn give you internal strength and make you feel much better about your position.

Surround yourself with people who support you and who are positive. All those naysayers need to be in the far distance and better yet, you should creatively erase their contact details! By surrounding yourself with positive people in your support group, you will be able to turn to them with any issues or challenges, getting a lot of confidence from the positive feedback that they will give. Don’t expect them to take on all the problem solving for you; quite the contrary. Contribute to this group pro-actively and understand that it represents a two-way street. Yet another valuable source of support for you can be found within online coaching.

Remember to travel light when you are getting ready for your big challenge. This means that you should get rid of anything that is not appropriate from the world all around you. This might be a good time to clear out your workspace and most especially if you are now working from home, either telecommuting or as your own boss. When your environment is clear all around you, this will make you feel far more productive and you will be ready and focused for your day ahead.

Amanda Alexander, Director of Coaching Mums, helps pressure-cooked, stressed working mums who long for more hours in the day. Through her coaching programmes and online life coaching courses, Amanda shows mums how to create fulfilling and successful lives. For your simple 5 step guide to balance as a working mum, download our free eBook today!

There are only 24 hours in an available day and you might have thought that this would represent enough time for us to get everything done. Whenever the sun rises, we should have a fresh outlook on the world all around us, feeling ready to go and able to tackle whatever life has in store for us. However, for one reason or another it seems that we are always playing catch-up, despite what we might feel are our best intentions. In this way, when the sun sets and the evening approaches, we end up feeling frustrated, wondering why we have not been able to do everything that we had set out to do. As a busy working mum, we certainly know about time constraints and wish we could find an extra hour, each day, somehow. Is this possible?

1. Set up your phone so that all calls are processed before they reach you. There are some great programs available these days, including Google Voice, which will help you to prioritise the calls that you really need to take, from the calls that can wait. You can even block unwanted or troublesome calls through the system. It’s almost like having a personal secretary and will certainly help you to avoid those wasteful minutes, which can add up.

2. You have heard about outsourcing? While we know that it is difficult to find a good childminder and you might be taking on this task yourself when working or tele-commuting from home, understand that other chores can be outsourced, including daily cleaning work.

3. It might be time for you to find a good time management software package, but take the time to learn how to use it. At first glance it can feel a bit strange, but if you are prepared to stick with it, it will certainly help you to focus and this by itself will save a great deal of time, each day.

4. Plan as much as you want, but make sure you follow through. If you have a long list of items that are swimming around in your head, that you know you need to complete, you will tend to bounce back and forth between them, which is very inefficient. Before you go to bed, or immediately when you wake up in the morning, spend time planning out exactly what you are going to do.

5. Allocate an hour for communication. This includes all those call-backs that you might have to make, the checking of e-mail, updating of Facebook or other social networks. You would be amazed how much time can be lost if you’re constantly checking e-mails or taking phone calls without a structured plan.

6. When you’re planning your time, include a “buffer” at appropriate intervals. This means that you should not plan one task after another within an unrealistic time frame. If you allocate a certain amount of “buffer,” you will not get sidetracked, harried or fall off your schedule.

7. Be extra productive when you are exercising. Never avoid physical activity and allocate at least 30 minutes per day to do so, but when you do this combine it with time to catch up with anything that is newsworthy. This could mean the installation of a television in your workout area, or this may now become the time to listen to a particular media channel or even to read updates through your electronic book reader.

These days, online coaching experts know full well the value of time management and how adequate planning can help you to free up extra time that you might have overlooked. Not surprisingly, professional coaching is not just for corporate executives, it’s now widely available and recommended for people in all walks of life. Why not try professional coaching for women in your situation?

Amanda Alexander is Director of Coaching Mums and a highly acclaimed ICF-accredited coach who delivers professional coaching programmes to working mums who yearn for success, balance and fulfilment. Are you a juggling mom? Download our free eBook for working moms that will give you 5 simple and instant ways to balance your life right now!

Now that you have welcomed your new arrival into your arms, it’s time to think about getting back to work and resuming your career. This has been a whirlwind few months and you could be forgiven for not thinking too long and hard about your career and your employer. However, you have to come down to earth with a bump in many respects and know that you have to make the transition very soon.

It is common for a woman in your position to feel uncertain, confused and a little intimidated. This is quite normal and many women turn to online coaching, to ensure that they make that walk back to work from a position of strength.

You may well have determined that a brand-new career is for you and it’s time to move away from your old employer for one reason or another, so you will need to gather everything around you and build a powerful stance as you approach prospective new employers. This is the time to fully understand your skill set and to begin calculating why an employer really cannot do without you on the team. This is not the time for nagging worries and you have to develop assertiveness and a supreme confidence, for best results.

Start afresh with a clear mind and a clean sheet of paper and notate all the skills that you have. These will include all the skills that you learned while you were in school and in college, as well as any that you picked up in your previous position, or with a previous employer. In a prominent position, detail the undoubted skills that you picked up as an organiser and planner, most recently as you developed your new family! Remember that, from an employer’s perspective, skills do not always have to be accompanied by some kind of paper qualification, issued by an educational establishment or by some other organisation. In these days, when it is difficult to find good employees, an employer will be looking for dedication, self-assurance, self-confidence and an ability to be a self-starter.

This is not the time to be downhearted if you have a lack of formal education. Any employee willing to go the extra distance and over-deliver for the employer is worth her weight in gold, believe me. The would-be employer will see this in you and will be more than willing to add you to their team.

Nowadays, online coaching is invaluable when it comes to focusing your mind on what you have to offer, your expertise, abilities and capability. Very often, we are so caught up in our daily lives that we do not realise what we have to offer a would-be employer. Thankfully, professional coaching can also help to balance your challenges when it comes to career and family life.

Whether you are going toward pastures new, or going back toward the old employer, you need to be in a very strong position, either way. Make sure that you sell yourself appropriately and enjoy your new life!!

Amanda Alexander is the Director of Coaching Mums and a widely renowned ICF-accredited coach who delivers professional coaching programmes to working mums across the globe who long for more time, balance and fulfilment in their busy lives. Download our free eBook especially for working mums with 5 easy ways to achieve balance.

Making the decision to have a break from your career is never an easy one, but sometimes it can be inevitable. The decision may be necessary if you have a special event ahead of you, welcoming a newborn into this world. Quite rightfully, the career must be on hold as the mum-to-be focuses on what’s ahead and places all her resources to work on the imminent arrival of the child, instead of the career. Our society rightfully accommodates the mum-to-be during these times and thankfully, she doesn’t have to worry about finances too much.

While some women put a great deal of effort into planning their entire working career around their life aspirations, planning in intricate detail what will happen from the moment they find out that they are expecting a child, all the way through a transition back to regular work, for most of us this represents a process of discovery. It is, after all, very difficult to plan your entire career and personal life in advance, most especially given the financial and economic uncertainties that we have encountered in recent times. Nobody wants to go through such economic turmoil again and it’s enough to throw anybody’s plans into disarray, placing additional stress on the expectant mother, just when she doesn’t need it.

There are a large number of reasons why mum needs to be super confident after baby arrives and she wants to return to work:

First, she should never forget that she was hired because of her personality, ability, education and skill sets. This combination is not easy to find in a replacement, as the human resources department will be only too well aware. While not being overly promotional, she should shrewdly draw attention to these assets.

Second, remember that there is nothing to feel guilty about. Within the society that we live, childbirth is a right that all women can claim and employers build their obligations into the fabric of their business. It is sure to be quite disruptive for any employer, but everybody can take this in stride and deal with it and it’s certainly not a reason for the mum to feel guilty.

Third, don’t forget that you will have picked up some excellent managerial and planning techniques, as you moved through the process of childbirth and family planning. These are not to be under-estimated, as you will be able to convert them into valuable assets at work, when you go back.

Fourthly, as half of the entire workplace is made up of women, almost all of whom should be really sympathetic to you, remember that many of them have been in your position. You will have many a sympathetic ear, when you return.

Lastly, the fact that you now have a family to take care of is a marvellous achievement in its own right. Not only should you be proud of what you have done, but you should consider that, after the rigours of childbirth, anything that they can throw at you in the workplace should be relatively easy to handle.

If this really is too much for you, consider professional coaching as you work through it. Within our hectic daily lives, we have access to online coaching as a solution, where professional coaching for women returning from childbirth can really help to overcome any and all problems that lay ahead.

Amanda Alexander is the Director of Coaching Mums and a widely renowned ICF-accredited coach who delivers professional coaching programmes to working mums across the globe who long for more time, balance and fulfilment in their busy lives. Download our free eBook especially for working mums with 5 easy ways to achieve balance.

It can be so difficult finding time to do anything as a working mom, trying to achieve a balance during every day while being pulled from all directions. These days, it seems that unless you’ve got a special gift for effective time management, it’s just not possible to find enough time to take care of all the needs of your children, your job, your housework and the myriad of other tasks that are always so necessary.

If we put off something until tomorrow, we feel guilty about it and this only serves to increase those daily pressures. Budgeting can be quite a challenge and if you only have a limited source of income you will always feel pressured to spend it on the kids and other household items, relegating yourself to last place in the pecking order.

As a working mother, you have to keep in mind one crucial point – you represent the “engine” that keeps the whole family going, and without you being at your best, other aspects of the family machine simply won’t work as well. Therefore, relegate any feelings of guilt to the back of your mind and understand that any time you invest in yourself is an investment in everything around you, your kids and your overall life. It’s essential that you feel good about yourself or, with the passage of time, you’ll feel increasingly burdened, and put yourself in a situation where depression could take hold and create a never-ending downward spiral.

One of the more important goals for you should be to create a strong support network around you. It’s a good idea to remember to lean on your close friends for support – you know who they are, they’re the true friends you can always turn to in situations like these at any time. Just remember that support is a two-way street. You may already have close family members who help you out, but don’t be afraid to seek the help of a professional coaching expert, specifically coaching for women in your situation as well.

Hopefully you can find a good friend who is willing to become a babysitter for you, so that you can take that special “me” time. There is always a way around and a way to find time to make you feel “yummy” rather than slummy! Remember that whatever chaos seems to exist around you on a daily basis, you have to take control over the elements that you can control.

Feeling and looking fantastic on a tight budget really isn’t all that difficult. Your biggest challenge will be to allocate the time necessary to pamper yourself in the first place. Once you actually accept this as a fundamental priority in your life, you need to make this happen regularly.

The best thing you can do for yourself on a daily basis is to commit to an exercise routine, and we don’t mean carrying around big bags of groceries or tidying up your home! A dedicated period of cardiovascular exercise is ideal, or you could even get started by working with a small set of free weights while walking through the streets of your own neighbourhood.

See how this will make you feel better mentally and physically and how it will make you look better – your skin tone will shine. You can pick up supplies to do a really great home manicure and pedicure, schedule a visit to a beautician or hairstylist and just focus on your personal time in the bathroom more often.

Always remember that feeling great is simply a state of mind. This process usually begins with a renewed focus on setting aside time for you, and then giving this time an equal priority.

For additional suggestions and great tips on how to feel fantastic as a tight-budget mother, check out the array of online life coaching resources which are readily available to you!

Amanda Alexander is the CEO of Coaching Mums. She is a widely renowned ICF accredited coach, who for more than six years, has been providing her services to thousands of working mums from across the Globe in an effort to bring balance back into their lives, help them lose their guilt, show them how to find the time to reinvent their passions, and most of all, to have fun every day! For truly inspiring articles and cutting-edge professional coaching tips, sign up to receive our absolutely brilliant free newsletter “Inspire,” right now!