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Laura Nicole: 00:02

Welcome to Your Virtual Assistant Coach, the podcast for moms who want to make money from home on their own terms. I'm your host, Laura Nicole, a successful six-figure earning VA and coach who replaced my college professor salary in just five months back in 2020 after my daughter was born, and I have never looked back. I'm here to help you build a profitable, flexible VA business that fits into your family's lives so you no longer feel like you're living just to work. Let's dive in. 

Laura Nicole: 00:34

All right, y'all. Today's episode might ruffle a few feathers because when I hear women tell me all the time in conversation things like, I want to leave my nine to five, I want to make money from home, I just want a flexible way to make money and have more time with my kids. And even when y'all specifically say, I really want virtual assistance to work for me and my family, I believe you. But at some point, we have to ask a harder question: are your actions matching how badly you say that you want this? Because there is a big difference between saying, I want to become a VA and I'm actively building a VA income. You can listen to every single podcast episode. You can save every Instagram post that you see about virtual assistants. You can join the programs, you can buy the courses, you can download the freebies, you can research for literal hours, you can watch all of the YouTube videos and still not actually be doing the things that create the income. Because you're not going to get results from wanting the outcome. You're going to get results from doing the work that creates the outcome, the work that actually moves the needle toward making money. So the first thing that I need you to do is be really honest about where your time is going, especially as moms, because we are busy. I'm not pretending that you have unlimited time. 

Laura Nicole: 02:13

I know that that's not the reality. But if you have decided that this matters to you, then there has to be some amount of protected time on your schedule for virtual assistant work. Maybe that looks like 30 minutes before your kids wake up. Maybe it looks like part of your lunch break. Maybe it's an hour after bedtime. Maybe it's the hour that you're at of random practice throughout the week. Maybe that's a couple extra hours on Saturday or Sunday. You don't need 40 hours, but you do need some hours. And sometimes the uncomfortable question is do I genuinely not have time for this right now, or am I not prioritizing the time that I do have? 

Laura Nicole: 02:59

Because again, a lot of y'all, when you have the time to actually work on your VA income, you'll spend it doing those things I mentioned before, right? Watching the YouTube video, watching another free master class, or you'll even spend the three hours that you have doing things like picking fonts or changing your Instagram bio or looking up to see if there's a different certification you can get, or trying to come up with a business name and a logo. I need to make sure that you're spending your time doing the right work. Again, we want to be doing the things that are actually going to move the needle. So if your goal is to get clients, which I'm assuming that it is, your actions have to include things that actually lead to clients, right? Because picking new fonts and researching a certification and watching another YouTube video are not things that are going to get you any closer to actually signing a client. 

Laura Nicole: 03:59

You need to be doing things like networking. You need to be starting conversations, you need to be following up with people, you need to be applying for opportunities that you see posted on Instagram that are a good fit for you. You need to be telling anybody and everybody what you do. Because I promise you, after years of experience, not only as a VA, but as a business owner, right? I've been coaching and building my coaching business for four years. I can confidently tell you that being busy building your business and doing the work that grows your business are often not the same thing. 

Laura Nicole: 04:38

And you might have to be uncomfortable for a season. If you're building this while you're working full time and raising kids, then yeah, there's probably gonna be a season where you're doing more and your days are busier than you would ideally like them to be. Maybe you're working after bedtime, maybe you give up a couple nights of binging your favorite Netflix show. Maybe your Saturdays and Sundays look a little bit different for a few months, but not forever. Because creating a different life for the future often requires doing something different and probably a bit uncomfortable right now. To put that into perspective for y'all, when I was creating my VA income, people are always like, Oh, that year that you made 100,000, oh, one year in, how many hours were you working? And I think they expect my answer to be like, oh, I was working 25 hours. I was working 40 hours a week. I absolutely was because I had big goals for my family. And I also taught longer than I had to. I stayed for at least an extra full semester before leaving and stepping fully into VA work. For me, it was because it was still just so new, and I was just scared it was too good to be true, which I know better now. But I had a season there where I was working a full-time job. I was working nearly 40 hours a week with clients, and I had a one-year-old, and we had just built a new house that we were moving into. 

Laura Nicole: 06:11

Life was busy to the fucking brim. But being busy and hustling my ass off for that season of life is what set us up for what the last five years have looked like and what the next five, 10, 15 years look like. You can't say that you desperately want your life to look different a year from now, but not be willing to do what's uncomfortable today. And this isn't about working more. This isn't about doing more. It's not about working harder, hustling harder, never resting, because that's not the goal. And burning out in the process isn't going to get us there. But you have to decide what you want, what it realistically requires to make that happen. And then make your actions match that decision. And if right now you genuinely are in a season that you don't have the capacity, then that is okay. Give yourself grace in that. But then own that decision rather than telling yourself, oh, VA work didn't work for me. When the reality is that you haven't actually given yourself the true opportunity and effort to see if it could work for you. So here's your tough love question for today. If I watched your actions for the last seven days, would I know that becoming a VA is something that you really want? Like you say that it is. You don't have to do everything, y'all. You don't have to build this overnight, but you do have to do something and you do have to be consistent because six months from now is coming either way. A year from now is coming either way. And if you really want your life to look different when you get there, the work toward that version of your life has to start now. 

Laura Nicole: 08:12

I want you to send me a DM over on Instagram. My handle is hey.laurenicole and we'll put it in the show notes. But I want you genuinely to answer that question. If I watched your actions for the last seven days, would I know that becoming a VA is something you really want? I want you to send me the answer to that question in the DMs. And if it's not an answer you're proud of, that's okay. Tell me anyway because I can help you find the time or what that next solid actionable step would be for you specifically. So that the next time you're asked this question, you can feel really proud of the answer. 

Laura Nicole: 08:51

Thanks for hanging out with me today on your virtual assistant coach. If you love this episode, be sure to share it with your best friend, your sister, or even your favorite coworker who you know wants to start making a flexible income. I'll see you all next time.