Prepping for a Busy Season | Embracing Slow Progress

CAMILLE WALKER [0:00]

And so, I want you to think right now, where did you start? And maybe this is something that you can reflect on and see how you’ve grown from what you started with and where you are now because I think there is so much beauty in that arc and realizing how much you’ve grown and how much you have built something that you love. And I also want you to think perhaps if you’re at the crossroads of starting something new, maybe it’s a really good time for you to evaluate, am I creating this because I love it or am I creating it because I feel like I have to or I should?

[MUSIC]

CAMILLE [0:43]

So, you want to make an impact. You’re thinking about starting a business sharing your voice? How do women do it that handle motherhood, family, and still chase after those dreams? We’ll listen each week as we dive into the stories of women who know. This is Call Me CEO.

[MUSIC]

Hello, everyone and welcome back to Call Me CEO. This is your host, Camille Walker. And today’s episode is going to be a little different. We are now going into what I like to call the busy season of motherhood.

Okay, listen. Motherhood is always busy. It’s always going to be crazy, but there are specific times in motherhood for me at least that are busier than most, which is heading back to school, the beginning of a new year or the end of holiday season with Christmas and New Year’s, the end of the school year. And those are probably the top three for me.

So, what I like to do during busy times is have a prep session. And depending who you are, I know some of us are starting in a week, some of us are starting in maybe a month, but I want you to prep for what new routine is going to look like for you and your home and for your children.

And for this episode, I specifically wanted to focus on embracing slow progress. And I also wanted to tell you that this is the first of three episodes that are coming where we’re going to talk about planning for the busy or the busy seasons. And today’s episode is all about slow progress.

So, I wanted to start this episode with a story. I recently went to a conference that was put on by Jody Moore. She is the host of the Better than Happy podcast, which is incredible. And she put on a conference called Impact 2.0 for women entrepreneurs, some who are mothers, some who are not, some who had businesses, some who did not.

And one of the guests that came and spoke to us was Kelsey Nixon, who is a TV show host. She’s an Emmy-nominated outstanding culinary host and was a part of the Cooking Channel where she would share meals for families and also how to cook. And what was really fun is that her topic was on slow progress and she showed a video to us of when she first started out in college as a 19-year-old who wanted to host her own television show doing live food prep.

And what was really awesome is she pulled out these archives of her making an ice cream sandwich cake and it was sloppy and messy and she was adorable. She’s always been adorable, but the actual presentation of the food was actually quite hilarious. There were sloppy fingers. She was jamming these ice cream sandwiches into this dish and it’s hilarious to watch.

Number one, I love that Kelsey was willing to show that video and say, “Look where I started,” and then also she showed a video from just three years later of her hosting a show that she actually was Emmy-nominated for where she was prepping and cutting up beef and taking you through this experience with her and the production quality, of course, was night and day difference from college kids to professional teams and cameras and everything else. But her presentation quality was incredible too.

She herself had grown so much in that progress of what she was doing and how she was pursuing her dream. And so, I was reflecting on my own content creation of starting a blog. And my first blog posts you guys are pretty embarrassing. In fact, I think the very first blog post that I ever put up was a handmade bow tie and matching bow, which as a stay-at-home mom of two, I thought this was a really great idea and something to share. And it was a little sewing tutorial which was fun.

But here’s the funny thing about that is that formally, I do have an education where I can sew. It was part of my family and consumer science education degree and so that it was fun to get those squeaky wheels going again of creating something. But the other thing, number two, was I don’t love sewing. I created it because I thought that that was something that would do well. I thought that that’s on Pinterest was people were sharing and doing, which it was.

It was a DIY thing that was teaching someone something. But what I then soon learned very soon after was that if you’re trying to create content that you think others will enjoy only for the purpose of them enjoying that content and you not really loving and having a passion for that content is that that fire and that energy to continue building that content will dim. It doesn’t mean that it’s not the right content for someone else. It doesn’t mean that people online won’t enjoy that content, but if you’re trying to pursue something purely for the fact of thinking that someone will consume or love it just because it’s doing well for someone else, it doesn’t mean that it’s going to be a good fit for you.

So, I have a friend, Sarah Tyau, who has built a massive following doing sewing and reconstruction and repurposing her clothing and she loves it. And it’s given her worldwide fame where magazines and TV shows have featured her work and she does it because it’s fun and because she loves it. It wasn’t a good fit for me. So, even though that that was my first blog post of what I shared in www.mymommystyle.com over 10 years ago now, which is crazy, that was not sustainable for me. That was not my passion.

And so, I want you to think right now, where did you start? And maybe this is something that you can reflect on and see how you’ve grown from what you started with and where you are now because I think there’s so much beauty in that arc and realizing how much you’ve grown and how much you have built something that you love. And I also want you to think perhaps if you’re at the crossroads of starting something new, maybe it’s a really good time for you to evaluate, am I creating this because I love it or am I creating because I feel like I have to or I should?

Those are questions that I have to ask myself all the time being a creator and also entrepreneur. I am constantly having to evaluate, am I creating this because I love it or am I creating it because I think I should? And that distinction of where you are will really help you to know if you are living in a place of abundance and being able to fulfill that desire or if you’re doing something that will increase burnout and make it so that you don’t want to keep doing the thing.

Because I promise you if you’re not tapping into that passion of doing the thing that you really want to do, you will burnout. Because slow progress will always be more consistent if you love what you’re doing even if it’s slow.

So, I think the point that Kelsey was making in her sharing that video with us and then sharing the one that she had done a few years later was she easily could have thrown in the towel. And at the time, she even says, “I thought it was amazing, but looking back now, I realize it was really, really bad,” which in my opinion, I wouldn’t label it that way, but of course, we’re our own worst critic.

But the point of it was is that we’re all beginners. We all start something being new at whatever that thing is. So, I don’t want that to deter you. If you’re starting something new, whether it’s a new business creating something, being new to TikTok, being new to Instagram reels, whatever it is that you’re trying to do to perpetuate your business, it’s okay to be new. It’s okay to feel uncomfortable. And eventually, what’s going to happen is that you will practice imperfectly until you become perfectly good enough.

It doesn’t mean that you’re going to be perfect, but it means that you’re going to be comfortable and that you’ll be able to show up with confidence so that perfect isn’t necessarily the end result that you want. You want perfect enough that you feel comfortable because perfection, what is that anyway? What is the exact perfect ratio of exactly what you should be doing?

I don’t think that anyone exactly gets that target. I think it’s more about building the confidence of showing up consistently and being okay with slow progress. So, as you’re thinking about that, I want you to give yourself grace for going into this new season of your life of this new fall season. And maybe you’re thinking, “I want to start something new.”

I know for myself personally, my youngest is going to be in school full-time for the first time ever and I’m going to be doing something I’ve never done before. I’m going to have access to daytime hours I’ve never had before. It’s crazy.

So, I want you to think, what is the season that I’m looking at? And trust me, I’ve been through seasons of having four little ones at home, three, two, one, driving to multiple different places, but you can always find pockets of time to create slow progress. And whatever that season is for you, whatever those stages may look like, allow yourself to have grace in knowing that by showing up, you’re always moving towards that goal rather than stalling in perfection or trying to find the perfect way to move forward.

One of the things I like to think about this specifically is with running or a physical goal. So, my brother is a marathon runner and he’ll see people running marathons. And he said to me once, “Camille, it’s crazy because we always think in our minds, a marathon runner has to have perfect form, that they have to run a certain way, that they have to look a certain way, that they have to have a certain physique.” And he said, “But I have seen runners with wide gaits, with crazy swinging arms, people that are thicker than me, thinner than me, taller than me, shorter than me. I may look at that person and think I could probably beat them. I might be able to run faster than them.” And he says, “’And then, out of nowhere, that person is passing me up and leaving me in the dust. And it doesn’t matter that their form wasn’t just perfect. It doesn’t matter that the vision of what I think a perfect runner would look like, would look like because they had slow progress that worked for them. And it didn’t have to look like anyone else.”

And I think that too often, and I know this for myself too, is I will look around and think, “This person can for sure do this better than I can or this person has more experience. So, of course, they’re going to be able to do XYZ better.” But what I want to tell you is that your progress, whatever it is, is valued and it’s worth it and especially as mothers, we have to be comfortable with having slower progress sometimes because we have so many demands from the people that we love that are our number one people and the things we need to do.

So, find those pockets of time. Be comfortable with slow progress and know every time you see someone running, I literally think this when I see people running all the time, no matter how slow they are, no matter what their style is or what they look like, they are running laps around me because I’m sitting in my car or they’re running laps around me because I’m sitting on my couch or whatever it is.

So, I want you to think about that in terms of business. If you’re doing one small thing, a few small things a day, pockets of time that you can squeeze in with your slow progress, think of where you can end up if you keep showing up every single day.

I love you all. If there are things in your business right now where you’re thinking, “I want to start something new or I need to unload some of the weight that is on me,” I have solutions for you. I am now coaching mothers in business to be able to create those pockets of time to overcome mindset blocks that might be in your way.

And I also have my 60 Days to VA program. So, if you’re thinking, “I want to start something new, I want to have a business where I call the shots with my own schedule,” being a virtual assistant is the perfect way to do that because you get to choose your hours, the skills that you like to develop, which I will teach you, and you also get to choose how often and who you work with. So, that’s an amazing awesome feature.

Also, number two, I am now lining up entrepreneurs like you who are busy and overwhelmed with a virtual assistant. I’m taking graduates from my program and matching you up for the best fit and I’m starting to get those going and that’s been really awesome too. You can schedule a discovery call with me in the link below where you can either see if the virtual assistant course is good for you, 60 Days to VA. If you want motherhood and business coaching, I’m available for you too or if you’re wanting to hire a virtual assistant, you don’t know where to start or who to trust, I got you, babe. So, that is my first mini episode. Stay tuned for the next one.

[MUSIC]

Hey, did you hear the news? 60 Days to VA is no longer something you have to wait for to enroll. I’m actually starting to bring on students one by one. It’s a very personal interaction where I do a discovery call with you to see if 60 Days to VA is a good fit for you because in the end, on the flip side of things, I’m starting to do matchmaking with CEOs who are looking to hire virtual assistants.

So, if that’s something that you feel like is a good fit for you, you want to become your own boss and start a business that you can do on your terms and with your schedule so you can spend that purposeful time with your kids, reach out to me. You can book your time at www.camillewalker.co or you can DM me at @camillewalker.co or @callmeceopodcast and we can set up a time to chat. I can’t wait to talk with you.

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