Career: What working remotely has taught me

I thought of this topic last night and realized how much I have grown and changed since I had my son. The most important part of being a mom is that it makes me appreciate my parents even more. Parenting is not easy; I wrote a similar post last week about the myths of the terrible twos and coping strategies for dealing with the tantrums of a toddler, but today, I’m focusing on my career journey as a work-from-home mom.

I want to use this opportunity to send virtual hugs to those work-from-home moms who feel they’ve lost their identity, are under-appreciated and struggling to keep the family together, God sees you, and He will reward your efforts!

So let’s jump right into the tea for today. Two years ago, I chose a career path that affords me the opportunity to be with my family. I chose to work remotely because at the moment, this is the best option for my family, especially for me. However, issues could arise while working remotely especially if you don’t have your own business.

I have experienced unpleasant challenges that almost cost me my career but I learned how to avoid such situations. The main goal of working from home is for me to create a healthy work-life balance.

Though it is still a learning process, the much I have learned about parenting as a work-from-home mom has made me appreciate life more, improved my personal development, learn from my poor choices, strengthened my bond with my husband and son, and so on.

Below are the overall life lessons I have learned:

1. Appreciate everything my parents did. My parents work from home till date because they have a hospital. Growing up, I never had an reason to be apart from them for so long. I remember one day I was home alone and decided to surprise them at work. I had the luxury of being with them whenever I wanted to because they created a healthy work-life balance. Their decision to own a business had a positive impact on my life and that of my siblings and has inspired me to create the kind of life I want. I appreciate all the sacrifices they made in order for the family to be united.
2. The importance of communication in a long-distance marriage. Though my husband and I are in a long distance marriage due to the nature of his job, we make it work by communicating regularly. In fact, he is more involved in the running of my blog and constantly encourages me to keep being the best at what I do. I was able to achieve this by talking about my career as a content creator with him and thankfully, it was easy for him to get on board. So sis, don’t underestimate effective communication.
3. It’s never easy to scold a child. Being at home with my son makes me see all he does. I used to think it was easy to scold a child as most parents make it seem but deep down I feel sick to my stomach whenever I have to correct him the hard way. Anyway, I have to do what must be done.
4. To be resilient. Working remotely as a content writer in the UAE made me realise how important it is to learn a profitable skill. However, I will never forget my experience in one of the companies because of the toxic virtual team I was in. I had to leave because I detest drama, of course, that was after I secured the bag *wink*. Anyway, that experience affected me but I recovered quickly.
5. Not everyone will understand what you are doing and that’s fine. Many people have expressed their “concern” over my decision to work from home. I only realised that the more I explained, the more confused they were. The most important thing is that I know why I made this decision and I can’t be like everyone else.
6. Choose a career that suits my lifestyle/situation. I had to be realistic about what I want to do from home. As a blogger, I have gain quite a lot of skills that I generate passive income from.
7. Get help when necessary. We got a nanny to help ease up the stress. I understood early enough that doing everything by myself when my husband is at work will be frustrating.
8. There will be times I will have to focus more on my family and attend to work later. It is important for me to have quality family time as that has a positive impact on my wellbeing.
9. Be more conscious about all I do; there is a kid at home. I explained this in one of my posts, since my son sees me regularly, he tends to imitate the things I do for instance, if I have a bad posture, I’ll see him trying to do it to. He is a fast learner.
10. Whenever a door closes, another will open. I have experienced some traumatic work issues but it only made me stronger and trust God even more for better opportunities.
11. Today’s success strategies may not be reliable for handling tomorrow’s situation. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to taking care of a toddler. Just because it worked today doesn’t mean it will always be that way, and that brings me to the next point.
12. Don’t stop learning. Learning never ends, it is important for me to keep evolving because who I was yesterday isn’t who I am today (read it again for clarity). Everyday is another opportunity to be a better version of yourself.
13. Make self care mandatory. I mean!!! If I don’t take care of myself, how will I take care of my family and blog?
14. Prioritize my daily tasks. Multitasking is not my forte so I had to find a way around it by prioritizing what needs to be done daily, weekly and monthly.
15. It’s okay to feel overwhelmed and vulnerable. Acting like I’ve got everything figured out only made me feel worse.

Conclusion.

Being a work from home mom has its pros and cons. What gives me joy is being grateful for the reason I chose to work from home.

As long as you find fulfillment in you career, you will have the strength to overcome every obstacle.

If you love this blog, kindly share the posts with your friends and loved ones. It will mean a lot to me to know your thoughts in the comments. Love, Grace