Guest Post: I’m the Boss of Me: Mompreneurs and the New Perfect

 

By Becky Beaupre Gillespie and Hollee Schwartz Temple

Authors, Good Enough Is the New Perfect: Finding Happiness and Success in Modern Motherhood

 

Creating and running a business has a way of inciting perfectionist tendencies. But it also offers a unique path to what we call the New Perfect.

We know this from our own ventures — and we saw it in the dozens of mompreneurs we interviewed for Good Enough Is the New Perfect: Finding Happiness and Success in Modern Motherhood (Harlequin Nonfiction, April 2011).

There are nearly 8 million women-owned enterprises in this country, accounting for 23 million jobs and packing a $3 trillion annual impact, according to 2009 data from the Center for Women’s Business Research. And it’s no wonder: entrepreneurship offers flexibility, control and, sometimes, the chance to escape jobs that never quite fit in the first place.

But it isn’t always easy, especially when the “Never Enoughs” in us send us shooting for the stars, only to discover that we haven’t equipped ourselves with enough support or let go of our perfectionist tendencies.

One of the women we feature launched her own business during the two years we spent interviewing her. Jen already had four kids and a full-time career as a doctor, but she also dreamed of inventing toys and running her own business. She’s a typical go-getter, so she went for it. But a year in, she found herself exhausted and overwhelmed. She’d taken on too much, and she wasn’t sure whether she’d sink or swim.

You’ll have to read the book to find out exactly how she managed to swim — she built her business into an inspiring success — but suffice it to say that attitude played a big role. She gave herself permission to do less by strategically cutting back on things that weren’t as important to her. She spent less time worrying and more time delegating. She adjusted her expectations, and focused her energy on the things that truly inspired her passion.

That’s the great lesson of the New Perfect, for entrepreneurs and all working moms. We must define success on our own terms. We need seek out and accept help; it’s a difficult road when we go it alone. We need to keep our true passions and priorities front and center. And we need to accept that we’ll make mistakes and experience setbacks along the way.

Many of the successful mompreneurs we interviewed shared this important quality: They were willing to risk failure. And they knew that “failure” didn’t have to equal catastrophe. They knew that each obstacle would simply require some kind of adjustment — and that the right tweaks would allow them to forge ahead, perhaps stronger than before. This characteristic gave them a head start on the path to the New Perfect.

After all, nothing kills a dream faster than being so afraid of messing up that we don’t even try.

Becky and Hollee’s new book, Good Enough Is the New Perfect: Finding Happiness and Success in Modern Motherhood, is available at http://amzn.to/newperfect . They blog about parenting and work/life balance at http://TheNewPerfect.com.