"Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass but learning to dance in the rain" Vivian Greene

We live in an instant gratification society. Everyone wants things done NOW, not a minute later. People put their greatest news on Instagram as it is happening, now, there are drive-throughs to get a morning coffee, now, and you no longer have to enter a pin number to make a payment, everything is fashioned for NOW!

"Dream big LITTLE one"

"A LITTLE thing called love"

"Sometimes the LITTLEST things take up the biggest space in our hearts"

These signs all hang up in my daughter's room. As I rocked my baby to sleep, I read these signs and looked down at her. She isn't so little anymore. She is getting heavy, crawling, chatting (saying Da Da), trying to stand and eating solids. Friends have just had babies and they are little but my baby is becoming a toddler. She "graduated" from her musicals class this week, which is a nice way of saying she got kicked out because she was too advanced and had to go join the big kids (9 months plus).

This week my baby turned 6 months and so I have been reflecting on how motherhood has changed me. Many would say the biggest change for them is their body shape or getting used to less sleep but for me, it is the new feeling of vulnerability.

In my last blog, I discussed my first two points to achieving your goals. 1. visualising your goal and 2. share them with others. These help to maintain focus and momentum. There are also a couple more things you can you do to ensure the goals are not forgotten or out of reach. So let me share my next two points.

Goals are easy to make. It is achieving them that can be difficult, especially when you have an unpredictable little person to look after. Working towards your goals can easily get put to one side as your child will always take precedence over anything you might want to do. Equally, in work, your colleagues' expectations or demands can get to the top of the pile and your goals end up on the "one day..." list.

It is often said that time travels fast, but with a baby, it seems to have accelerated at an alarming rate. Baby is already five months, sitting up and teething. How time flies when you are having fun (and not much sleep).

So often in business, we can also feel like time is travelling too fast. Especially if there are big deadlines that have to be met and work piles up into a never-ending mountain. Most of these things are not governed by you but someone more senior. Your focus is determined by what the business wants you to work on.

Every day is different, whether at home as a mum or working in an office. There are components that make up our day and things that we just couldn't function without. The elements are the same but the tools used as a mum are very different from what I use in business.

A wise mother of 3 told me today that she starts every day before everyone else. She has three adult children and for years she has woken up before the rest of the household. When I asked her why she told me "so I can start my day right". She takes 30 minutes to an hour before everyone else and prepares herself for the day. She will then sit quietly with a cup of coffee and mull over the day ahead. She has a chance to pray and plan for what is going to happen over the next 12 hours without any interruptions. It is her alone time with her thoughts.

My mum recently told me her productivity tip for life "try and carve out some space in your busy life for 'Me Time'. You will be refreshed, and a better mum as a result." In business I am a yes lady, I like to be helpful and a real team player. I don't like to let people down or say no, so more often than not I will say yes and find a way of helping. The more I say yes though the more it takes away from the work I need to do.

I cannot pretend to know what I am doing or all there is to know about my baby and motherhood. In fact I am learning everyday and discovering new things about her almost every minute. Some of the greatest lessons I have learnt since becoming a mother is by listening to the advice of others and choosing what I want to take on board and what I want to discard.

In a person's career they can think back to defining moments that helped to set the course for the rest of their working lives; whether it was attending a conference, being introduced to someone, giving a keynote speech. There are moments of significance that act as stepping stones to propel us onto our next "big thing". They say "fail to prepare, you prepare to fail" and so often in business we go above and beyond in preparation for those key moments. Why then did I fail to prepare for my most important meeting of all? Meeting my baby.

They say that children grow up fast or you might have heard parents say "it only feels like yesterday they were that small" or "enjoy them now because they don't stay little forever" and I am discovering it is so true! Time is whizzing away from me. My daughter is coming up to 4 months, I am a third of the way through my maternity leave and it just feels like yesterday that we were bringing her home from the hospital. My still,quiet bundle is now strong, smiling, noisy and teething!

Asking for recommendations, gaining referrals and networking are elements in business which some people can struggle with. So much so, that SNH developed sessions to tackle the issues and help people to reach out to their professional network and others. The same emotional restrictions do not occur though when people hear you are about to become a mother. People are very quick to give advice, recommend what worked for them and refer you to a mountain of businesses that offer good baby related services. Why then do we find work related referrals so difficult?

Breastfeeding I was not prepared for! When I was pregnant I had read up on labour, done the NCT classes and religiously checked on the different stages of the baby's growth. I was well informed and mentally prepared for labour and what was to come. My pregnancy was text book; straight forward and no complications. My body was performing daily miracles and doing what it was meant to do and so I knew when the time came, my natural instincts would take over and I didn't need to worry about labour. I didn't however think much about breastfeeding because again I thought my body would take over and do what it was designed to do.

One of the challenges of being a mother (whether your first child or I imagine your fourth) is that every child is different and that child will be different every day. They can't communicate with you and so you are constantly doing a guessing game as to what today's problem might be or what does baby want today that will make her happy.

When you discover you are pregnant there is a mixture of emotions you feel in a brief moment; happy, excited, nervous, apprehensive, joy and the greatest one for me was SHOCK! We were so surprised when we found out we were pregnant. We had just got back from a trip of a life time in South Africa, where I did all the things you probably shouldn’t do at four weeks. I went wine tasting, horse riding, ate seafood, went zip lining from trees over a river all whilst I was blissfully unaware I was pregnant. I had been joking whilst away that I was “with child” but when I returned I thought I better take a pregnancy test just in case. I was so surprised when the test (and second test) instantly showed positive.

The biggest change for me when becoming a mother is that everything takes so long! You need a 2 hour build up to leave the house, your house takes a week to be put back to its clean state and doing your makeup often takes 3 sittings! Your day becomes compartmentalised into 3 hour slots. These slots are determined by when baby feeds. If you are lucky between these slots you might get one nappy change and an hour or two when the baby is sleeping. It is during the sleeping time where the new mother has a choice: do they sleep also? Do they get on with the housework, do exercise or maybe even try and do the odd piece of work?