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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: 00:33

I don't know about y'all, but I used to have hobbies. I used to have hobbies. Uh I used to like to read. I used to like to play volleyball. I used to like to work out. I did um CrossFit. It's been so long I almost forgot the word I did. I did CrossFit for a few years on and off, and I really enjoyed it. And since becoming a mom, I don't know what a hobby is. I genuinely don't. And that's on me for how I have handled my motherhood, but I have let myself get kind of lost in the sauce. And I love being a mom. I love that part of my identity, but it has taken over such a large portion of my identity. And I have turned into this woman who I think about something I want to do and I say, oh, that'd be fun. But then I follow it up with maybe someday, maybe I'll have time when maybe after this season or this thing is done and things slow down, or maybe once she's older or she's in school or whatever it might be, and I just end up putting things on the back burner and I have this laundry list of hey, maybe someday I'll do that kind of things. And I really, honestly, truly just got sick of my own shit recently. I got sick of my own excuses.

Laura Nicole: 02:07

 I got sick of hearing myself say, maybe we'll do that, maybe we'll take that trip, maybe I'll do X, Y, and Z, knowing full well deep in my soul that that shit was never gonna happen because I was going to continue to let it linger. And then maybe someday, and in the current existing time and space, I was going to put every other person and every other thing and every other responsibility and job task and mom task and family and house and all the things. I was going to let those supersede the things that I wanted to do because I had allowed myself to get so lost in that identity and truly lose like who is Laura? What is what does Laura think is fun? My husband asked me that question. I don't know. I think our daughter was maybe like one and a half. And he was like, What do you even like to do? And I just sat on the couch and cried to him because I was like, I don't know. I genuinely don't know. And here we are. 

Laura Nicole: 03:04

My daughter is now six, and I finally have reached the point. I have built a business, I have built an income for my family, I have done a lot of really cool things, but 90% of them have not been for me. They have been for someone else. And again, that's on me. I take accountability for that. I'm a people pleaser to no end. I consistently put other people before myself, even when they're not asking me to, right? That's just innately a part of my being, but I have to learn how to balance it with also doing things that are good for me, that bring me joy, that fill my cup, because that's actually going to also be what allows me to even show up better for the people who I do love and I want to help take care of, right? And I have a feeling that a lot of y'all are listening to this, regardless of how old your kids are, whether they're two years old or 20 years old or anywhere in between. And you can relate to that feeling of losing your identity to just being mom to some extent. And I started this year, I had already been kind of feeling like I'm so sick and tired of just saying maybe someday. And then I have this friend who she's 30, she is childless. Like we live very different lives. But I always feel very inspired when I see the things that she's doing because she lives her life to the fullest and she goes out and she does new experiences and she travels. And and the thing is, is that if she wants to do something, she just does it, even if it puts her out of her comfort zone. And recently she had done hip hop classes. And I remember distinctly she was posting it on her stories, and I commented back to her and I was like, girl, you are killing it. I so wish I could do that. And her reply, I think, especially because of the timing and the headspace that I was already in, literally felt like a punch to my gut. And it was so simple. She literally said back to me, girl, you totally could do this if you just let yourself mic drop. If you just let yourself, you could do this or whatever other thing you want to do. And that really kind of shook me into action instead of just having that, you know, feeling building inside of me like I'm tired of waiting to do things, and caused me to say, fuck it, I'm just gonna start doing things. 

Laura Nicole: 05:41

And since having that little like mini revelation, I've done a lot of things that on the scale of life are probably very small, but they add up. Simple things like we moved into this new house two years ago, and every wall in this house is tan, like a light tan plain color, right? I have wanted to paint my office and paint our guest bath downstairs since we bought this house over two years ago. And it hasn't happened because it's oh, someday, right? Someday we'll get to that. No, someday is here now. In when this episode airs, the rooms will be getting painted tomorrow. Okay. Literally, a painter is coming to the house and we're doing it. When I went and picked up the paint samples, I brought them home and I asked my husband, I was like, okay, you're good if I like paint the samples on the wall. And he said, Yes, if you're actually gonna get the room painted, right? Because he knows my patterns too. He's like, if you're actually gonna paint the room, then go for it. And we are. Um, I do Legos a lot of times with my daughter. She's six and she loves them and it's fun. But every time I do them with her, like it's it's a slow process, right? Those of you who have littles who are in the Lego phase, you know when they're learning them, like it's I just want to I want to do it quicker, right? And so I was like, I kind of want to build my own Lego. And I thought that thought to myself for months. And then we took her to this like local um Lego store maybe three weeks ago. And when we were there, I saw this little mini cactus Lego. It's a little Sowaro with like the pink flower blooms on top, and

Laura Nicole: 07:24

 it was so cute. And we live in the desert, and like the cactus are one of the main things I like about living in the desert. And so I bought the Lego to do myself, and it still took me weeks to actually make time to just sit down and do it because I still was oh, I have to do the laundry or I have to get the dishes folded or I have to reply to that email for work, instead of saying, like, Laura, it's good, like take the time for yourself, go do something you enjoy. I also started a reading challenge with my sister and her two daughters this year, and they're all big time readers. And I, like I said, I used to read all the time just for enjoyment, right? And I haven't in literally years. And so when we set this challenge together, uh, my my one niece's goal was to read 125 books this year. And I was like, what? My other niece um is a little bit younger, her goal I think was 50. My sister's goal was I think 100 too. And I literally set my goal at 10. I was like, I want to read 10 whole books this year because last year I managed to read one. I bought like 10 books, but then I didn't read them because I was too busy or had too many other things to focus on, right? I made all those excuses why what I wanted to do should get bumped down the totem pole. And so I set a goal and I was like, y'all, mine is very tiny compared to you guys, but 10 feels like a lot to me. And then as my end-of-year gift to myself from my business, I bought a Kindle White, thinking, you know, if I could lay in bed and read and like not have to mess with the light or keeping my husband awake, like maybe I'll actually get some reading in. And I am just about to finish my fifth book of the year, and we are two months down. Like it's a small thing to sit and read, right? But the fact that I have made time and allowed me, allowed myself to turn off the responsibility for other things and allow myself to do something that fills my own cup so much that I have read almost five books in two months compared to the one that I barely squeezed in last year. To be quite honest, I'm not even a hundred percent sure that I finished that one. I think I got like 80%. It's a small thing, but you add up all of these small things that I'm choosing to no longer allow myself to make excuses on making them wait. And they add up, right? They make a difference. I actually get to do something that fills my cup, even if it's out of my comfort zone, right? I am not a crafty person. I will be the first person to tell you that. I am that person who falls victim to like what I picture something is gonna look like in my brain, and then I actually do it and it like looks god awful, right? Like it's not even close. And so, like I said, we're painting the bathroom and my office, and they're two separate colors. One's like softer, 

Laura Nicole: 10:21

one's darker. And we have these wooden, I don't know, they're like these white wooden kind of, I don't know how to describe it. It's wall decor that we had bought to stage our last house. And it's just like this plain white wood rectangle, and then it has like little pieces of wood that stick out that make kind of like a line design on it. I don't know, it's a terrible explanation. But we have these white ones, and I was like, whoa, how cool would it be to take this piece, paint it the two colors combined, and like hang that in the bathroom as a decoration, right? And I'm not a painter, but yesterday I spent probably an hour and a half of my day total on a Sunday sitting at our dining room table using the extra paint sample paint and my daughter's flimsy ass paintbrush and painted this thing to hang in the bathroom once the guy comes and paints the rooms later this week. And it's like, is the painting perfect? Absolutely not. But did I enjoy it? Yes. I literally sat down to do it. My husband was like, What are you doing? And I was like, I'm gonna paint. And he was like, Oh. Right. 

Laura Nicole: 11:31

But there's not, y'all, there's not like some deep philosophical connection or tie to how this works in virtual assistance, right? And I know that that's what this podcast is about, but I also want to be able to have episodes like this where I can just kind of connect to y'all on a woman-to-woman, mother-to-mother basis as well. Because the truth is, is that the life that I have created in terms of my work and my flexible schedule, that does play a role in me allowing, oops, in allowing me to have the time to do these things, right? One of the other things that I'm doing, which this is definitely a bigger one, is we have spring break coming up. And I, this is a busy time of year for my husband. So I knew that I didn't want to just like sit at home for nine days straight with me and my daughter. And I so I looked up like short trips that we could go on. And my husband will never go on a cruise ship in his life. He has no interest. And my daughter has been dying to go on a Disney cruise. And so I found a three-day Disney cruise, and we're going. Like, I was like, this is what I want to do. We can do it, so I'm gonna do it. And I booked the cruise. And me, even six months ago, would have come up with 8,000 different reasons why it wouldn't work or it couldn't work, or we could wait until next year, or whatever, which would just mean that it wouldn't happen, right? And yes, the fact that I work and earn an income in the way that I do as a virtual assistant means that I can just go take that trip, right? I do have the time, freedom, and flexibility to

Laura Nicole: 13:10

 do that. And that's great. But if you're listening to this and you do work in a job that has a more strict schedule and you do feel like you don't have that flexibility, you still have time in your days that you could be capturing and using for things that you actually want to be doing, right? Whether it's some new craft you want to try. Next up on my list is air-dry clay. I keep seeing this girl on my TikTok who makes like the cutest little dishes by using air dry clay and like a template and pressing it out and then putting napkins of all things, like decorative napkins and using Modge Podge and then putting acrylic over it. Like they're so cute. And again, it's probably something that I'm looking at and I'm like, oh, that'll be easy enough. And when I do it, it'll probably look terrible. But at least I'll have done it and I'm sure it will have been fun and I'll have tried and like something will have come out of it, right? I will still have filled my cup, even if the end product isn't great. And even if you are working in a spot right now where you don't have that time freedom, you do have those pockets of time that you could be taking to sit down and read a chapter of a book instead of unloading the dishwasher or doing whatever. I know how easy it is to get lost in the I'm too busy and there's too much to be done, and other people need me for so many things, space, 

Laura Nicole: 14:29

right? Like I've been in it for six years. I feel you to my core, but I also just want to encourage you that even starting small and allowing yourself 10 minutes a day to do something for you is worth it. And it's going to add up, and then you're gonna be able to build momentum, and then all of a sudden you'll have read five books in two months and wonder who the hell you are. I would love um after you listen to this episode, I would genuinely love for you to pop over onto Instagram and send me a message. I want to hear what thing came to mind for you when you're listening to this episode that you're like, oh my God, she's so right. I've been wanting to do X for so long and I've made excuses for it and why I can't actually do it, but now I'm gonna go do it. I want y'all to message me. I want to hear what that thing is. I want to cheer you on as you step into that space of making some time for yourself and reclaiming some hobbies. So I can't wait to chat with y'all in the DMs and I'll see you back next week for some virtual assistant strategy content.

Laura Nicole: 15:35

 Thanks for hanging out with me today on your virtual assistant coach. If you loved 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.