It’s time to celebrate when you hit one of those 10 year anniversaries!

When you get one of those milestones, pause and look back at what you have gone through, how successful you have been and what you have enjoyed. Some people can be a little daunted by this milestone as they fear that they may not have been as successful as they should and still further, wonder where they will be in 10 years time.

It’s important to take time to look at where we are in our life, and to take stock of our financial, emotional and personal goals. It’s also quite common for a woman, busy raising a family, to think about her sexual appeal and its effectiveness when she gets to the big 40.

It’s very true to say that we all become more philosophical as we age. This is a consequence of being able to reflect on many of life’s rich experiences and in many cases knowing how to put these experiences into practice. During our development as a human being, each milestone that we get to represents a significant achievement and a time for us to reflect and reinterpret our memories. As our interpretations change as we age, when you get to 40 you will definitely look at things in a different light as compared to ten years previously.

Things get better as we age, and as a 40-year-old mum, we are emotionally and mentally more secure and this by itself adds to our sexuality. We don’t feel insecure and have a certain amount of natural dignity which comes with our position.

We are much more composed, and know how to deal with any situation when it arises by displaying a sassy attitude, allowing us to feel inherently good about ourselves and to resolve problems with a lot more ease.

Thankfully, professional coaching solutions exist for mums at every stage of their life journey and can often help us to come to terms with our milestones. The word “sexy” means different things to different people and will certainly have its own interpretation in your eyes.

Physically you will have a different appearance of course, but with your maturity you need to learn to trust yourself to make the most of your looks every day. For example, do as the old screen sirens did – learn how you look better in certain lights and always present your best side to a camera! Emotionally and mentally, however it is likely that you are much sexier and more appealing for every year that you age.

You have achieved a lot so far and should be proud of it and fully secure. Your children are a great reflection of you and you should be proud or both them and your partner. Remember that life is only really enjoyable when you truly love yourself, first and foremost. Seek out online life coaching experts if you feel a little overwhelmed when you are approaching or get to those special milestones that everyone makes such a big deal about!

Remember that life begins at 40 and when coaching for women in this position I often remind them that the biggest favour they can do themselves is to think and act “young.” If you did not know, how old would you say you were, right now? And no, it isn’t “90”! Fabulous 40 mum, go and get them!

Amanda Alexander is the Director of Coaching Mums and a widely renowned ICF-accredited coach who delivers professional coaching programmes to working moms 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.

Parents can find it very hard to understand all the changes that they have gone through. The arrival of kids can make a huge difference and really change the way that they looked at the relationship and at the very structure of the partnership.

What may have been a perfectly happy marriage can become, rather quickly, a rocky road. Delicate adjustments are needed by both people here as they try and right the boat and this can apply whether you have had kids before, or not. Maintaining a happy and successful relationship when kids come into the equation really does require us to constantly work at our relationship with our other half.

Whenever doubts arise, worries come to the surface or even anger bubbles up, it is important to take a step back and look at the overall picture. You’ve heard the phrase, “can’t see the wood for the trees”? So much is going on that it is easy for parents to become overwhelmed and not know how to cope. Sometimes this leads to the need for additional jobs and causes parents to become complex role players. This can often be a tricky transition and can lead to each person spending more time focusing on their new “position” than on their opposite partner. To take new parents as an example again, “mum” may become somewhat obsessed with the idea of caring for her newborn and the marriage itself may not have as much of a priority.

When mum is so absorbed with the new arrival, dad can feel as if he is completely surplus. In this situation, you might start to believe the mum is the one to look after the kids and step back. Subconsciously or otherwise, this may result in him backing away from the relationship as a whole, even though he thinks it is the right thing.

The most important thing for parents to do is to watch for warning signs and really understand their partner. Some of the symptoms include a quick temper, a feeling that one cannot cope and becoming irritable. The worst thing one can do is to leave any potential problems unchecked as they can quickly become unmanageable and dangerous.

It is always best to sit down when the kids are asleep or in school and have a heart-to-heart conversation with each other. Ask yourself whether you are being reasonable and ask the other for their honest input. Remind each other that things have changed now that you have additional family members and this is to be understood, priorities now look different.

You both have to work together as a cohesive team to raise your children in the way you want, and you shouldn’t underestimate how much effort and active input this takes from both of you. When all is said and done, give each other a hug and remember that you are the leaders of the pack!

It’s not all doom and gloom You do need to prioritise time together, but just make sure that your time represents quality time. Ask yourself when you last spent a weekend away together or did something fun with each other. That romantic dinner should be scheduled as often as everything allows and try your best to come up with small, but meaningful and romantic gifts or surprises for each other.

Mums can face a considerable challenge, especially if they are working as well and it’s useful to consult experts to help them manage the juggling act and the myriad of emotions they will face along the journey of motherhood. Thankfully, online life coaching is a marvellous way to pick up some truly professional coaching, and when it comes to coaching for women, it’s the perfect place to turn when life becomes manic!

Amanda Alexander is the Director of Coaching Mums and a widely renowned ICF-accredited coach who delivers professional coaching programmes to working moms 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.

Top class businessmen often tell us about their successful habits and we can learn a lot from what they tell us. As a mumpreneur, working from home, juggling a family and a difficult business, forming these habits can be quite a proposition.

If you have ever tried juggling the task of being an entrepreneur and a mum, you can see why many turn to online life coaching providers to help them with this difficult task. When I coach women, I look at the individual and the circumstances surrounding her, her family and her career. I also focus her in on seven fundamental “habits” that will help her to juggle it all without feeling overwhelmed.

Habit No. 1 – Prioritise!

It is a truism that time is our most precious commodity and we just don’t have enough of it. Have you ever noticed that time flies when you’re having fun, but the opposite is also true?

If we are busier than ever and time is flickering past, we have to be able to understand the management of time, or we will be quickly overpowered.

Most professional coaching experts will tell you that time management is rule number one.

Look at all the tasks ahead of you, get a piece of paper and write it all down. You will need to allocate a priority to each task and condense this into a manageable timetable. When you embark on this task, it can seem daunting, if not impossible. However, with a little ingenuity and application, you can make it work. Print your resulting prioritisation plan out, put it somewhere you can see it and refer to it frequently.

Habit No. 2 – Don’t forget about you!

Mumpreneurs should not forget about themselves, as this is the second habit of those who are highly effective. By focusing some time on yourself, you will ensure that you will not become overwhelmed, burnt out with a corresponding effect on your productivity.

Don’t think about priority time for yourself as being a selfish decision, but view it as a large investment in your vitality and business life.

Habit No. 3 – Make friends with a little routine in your life.

Setting up a routine is one of the best habits you can practise. By placing a routine and sticking to it, you will become more effective, even though it may take a minimum of 14 tries before you get into the habit.

Some of us do not like to be structured in this way, but experience has shown that injecting some routine markedly helps with daily management.

Habit No. 4 – Block out time without distractions.

Even though phone calls from good friends can occasionally be quite a relief from daily pressures, make a point of not letting distractions get in the way of your efficiency. It’s essential to section off time where you can switch off your smart-phone and apply the voice-mail option.

I’m not advocating that you ignore people, but just try blocking out some “do not disturb” time to focus on larger projects. Once you’ve taken this time for yourself, you can then set aside additional time to return calls once you’ve finished the endeavours that are crucial to the expansion of your enterprise.

Habit No. 5 – Create sacred space to work.

The fifth habit is about setting up your own personal and private area. A surprising number of mumpreneurs operate their businesses from their homes. If you happen to be a work from home entrepreneur, you’ll know from first-hand experience that it’s not a good idea to try balancing a laptop on the living room table and placing your file cabinet in the lounge!

In whatever spot it is in your house, make your workspace special and if possible set it up in its own room, away from the children when you’re trying to work. Set this room up with ergonomics and efficiency in mind, and don’t use the room for any other purpose than work. If feasible, try to have another computer set up in another spot for personal applications.

Habit No. 6 – A healthy body and mind, equals a healthy business.

If you don’t take care of yourself, all the rest of your habits will be tough to maintain. Exercise and fitness must become a habit and you should plan on getting at least three exercise sessions in per week.

Do whatever is easiest for you to take on as a new exercise habit. So if you don’t reside close to a gym, it’s just not reasonable to plan to go to a gym three times a week, as you’ll quickly realise that you simply don’t have the extra time to travel back and forth. Keep it simple – walking, running, cycling or dancing in front of an exercise DVD are all examples of keeping your body moving that are easy to adopt into your life as a mum.

Habit No. 7 – Create an outstanding superstar success team!

You’ve heard the expression “no man is an island” and the same applies to women! None of us can run a business alone and we all need support in various guises – mothers even more than most as we’re juggling so many commitments. Ask yourself what sort of support you need to become a highly successful mumpreneur and start to look for ways of building your “superstar success team.”

Professional coaching for women can help you to achieve your business goals much more quickly than you would on your own and is an important part of any highly effective mumpreneur’s success team.

But however you choose to build your team, don’t try to do everything on your own as there is so much to be gained from seeking the wisdom of good friends, confidants, associates and professional coaching experts. They can be superb sounding posts and lynchpins to your business success!

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!

When you’re trying to work your way through University, or you’re just starting out in a new career, life can often feel “filled to the brim” and a bit overwhelming at times. Think ahead to the time after maternity and you may be able to ponder on what “overwhelming” truly feels like, as you strive to balance being a mother and having a career at the same time. Working mums face an unenviable challenge, as they have to strive for efficiencies in so many aspects of their daily lives. They have to find ways and means of balancing their career with what their clients, bosses and fellow workers expect of them, in addition to the ongoing struggle of caring for a happy family. It’s no surprise that so many working mums in this situation sign up for online life coaching to help them put things into perspective!

There are certain traits that all highly effective working mums share. In most cases, they’ve taken adequate time to consider their position, understood the hurdles that they have to deal with, and implemented a strategy to get them through – it’s just that simple. We have identified seven habits that these highly effective mothers all seem to share. As coaching for women is now a recognised and much valued service, the working mum need not necessarily be alone and overwhelmed anymore.

Habit 1.

Learn new time management techniques – and practice them. In each day there are only 24 hours, but it always seems like we need so much more time. Unless you have some amazing plan to change this some day soon, you’re just going to have to make do with the 24 hours like everyone else does! During professional coaching sessions, many of us hear that one of the primary habits of highly effective individuals is excellent time management, and this should be the main aspiration for the working mum too. Sit down in a quiet room with several sheets of paper and analyse all your responsibilities. This means all of it! Write down how long each task or role takes you, and when you have finished add it all up. Your next job is to realistically condense it all into a manageable time-frame, giving you adequate time for each. Once you’ve set up your time management schedule, you’ve got to stick to it like glue.

Habit 2.

Set a routine. As an extension of time management, it is important to get into a routine. Some of us don’t like to be structured in this way, but if you are to become a highly efficient working mum you must do so. If you take one step at a time, complex tasks often feel a lot easier and this is definitely the case here. Turn away from that feeling of being overwhelmed and put one foot in front of the other. Establish a routine, which may take a couple of weeks to do, but once you have done so, your day should be a whole lot easier.

Habit 3.

Focus! Know that procrastination can be the enemy of efficiency. You have to avoid distractions. Hopefully, as part of your time management plan, you will have allocated a small amount of time per day or per week for things that you could classify as “other.” Don’t expand this time unnecessarily and don’t be tempted to run off for a quick cup of coffee with a colleague/friend/neighbour, unless it has already been built into your time management schedule, of course!

Habit 4.

Develop your productive space. Whilst you may be quite productive if you work away from home or at the office, if you are a work from home mum you had better ensure that your working space is very productive, comfortable and remote. Try your best to utilise a room which is not used for any other purpose, which can be closed off if needed, and try not to use your work computer for any leisure purposes. If you work from home you will have to be even more focused on time management, as there will be a whole host of other distractions to worry about.

Habit 5.

Don’t forget your fitness. All the planning in the world is no good if you find that you’re getting more and more “rundown”, and you find that you don’t have the energy necessary to undertake your daily life. When you’re planning your time management, allow for daily exercise routines. Maybe you have a treadmill at home or your membership to the local gym; either way this time cannot be compromised. Look at it as “fuel” for all the rest of your day.

Habit 6.

Maintain a support group. While you may know who to turn to at work for help should you need it, sometimes you just need support and help in the act of life itself. If you know someone else who is in a similar position, then you can support each other. Gather together as many trusted friends and/or relatives as you can, and don’t be afraid to lean on them during the times when it can all seem to get too much. Professional coaching may also provide the support you really need in this time of your life.

Habit 7.

Reward yourself. Remember that you need to look after number one, and while you’re doing a great job of balancing your career with motherhood, there must be some time for yourself. What is it that you particularly like to do? Whatever it is, plan “golden time” for yourself in your schedule. In this way, if things get particularly challenging for some reason, you will have something to look forward to. It is so important to acknowledge yourself – you’re not an automaton – even working mums need a reward!

Amanda Alexander is the Founder and Inspiration behind Coaching Mums. She’s a distinguished ICF accredited coach, who for almost seven years now, has been bringing a new feeling of hope into the lives of working mums from around the world, showing them how to discard their guilt, rediscover their passions and to have a lot more fun! For amazing articles and truly effective professional coaching tips, sign up to get “Inspire” right away, our absolutely outstanding free newsletter!