I hear you Mom!  School is nearly out and you will soon have the responsibility of filling twenty-three and half glorious hours a day with engaging, creative, educational and wow-some crafts you found on Pinterest!  Um, no you don’t.   You have a business to run.  If you worked a regular 9-5 job, your boss would not care that your children are out of school.  He would still expect you to show up for work. You would arrange for child care to offset your absence.  Your children would understand that they needed to entertain themselves over the Summer.  Your Husband would understand that you had to work, just like him.  They would all understand AND respect that you have a job to do.

Guess why your family doesn’t respect that you have to work?   Because YOU don’t respect that you have to work.  You don’t treat it like a job.  You treat it like a HOBBY.  Incidentally, it pays you like a hobby.  You work when you want to.  You don’t work when you don’t feel like it.  You are all too agreeable to go do something fun (like the Zoo) instead of standing by your goals, commitments and work hours.  Or worse, you don’t have goals, commitments and work hours.

Speaking of goals and plans, we all secretly look forward to Summer and saying goodbye to that jam packed school calendar!  Without it, we can sleep until 10, serve lunch at 3… ahhh FREEDOM!  This freedom gives us the perfect excuse to throw our business plans out the window as well.  We say things to our mentor like “I am just so busy”.  Change begins with honesty friends… you are not busy.  You are actually LESS busy than you are during the school year.  You are relishing the lack of schedule with the excuse of busy and it is destroying your dreams.

This year, DECIDE to build the Summer of your dreams!  Start with a work schedule IN PRINT.  Plan fun time with the kids on your calendar as well.  Arrange for help from a local teen during your work hours for younger children.  Leave time in the day for the children to map out their own fun. There is an endless supply of pursuits for creative minds:  videos, board games, slip and slide, bubbles, painting, coloring… hmm a few chores.  Child experts agree that children need to learn entertain themselves and learn to be self reliant. This Summer may be a great place to start.

Stay on track this Summer and shine this Fall.  On season builds the next and what you do this Summer affects far more than the next 90 days.

Michelle

Need some help planning?  Order a copy of our Summer Planner here!