The State of Georgia Has Created a Wife Trap called Unpaid Spousal Caregiving … despite it, some are escaping by getting help with …
The Wife Trap: Unpaid Spousal Caregiving in Georgia
I am resharing from my spousal caregiver blog because this is relevant for the women leaders I serve.
If you know someone looking for support like what I described in that article, feel free to reach out to learn more.
[UPDATE: Program is no longer available, but I have other good news for you… read below. ]
I am truly grateful for my experience as an administrative assistant over the past 20+ years and as a virtual assistant (VA) in the marketing arena over the past decade. It has enabled me to continue using my marketing skills and to keep learning and improving because marketing changes pretty much every day due to constant technology changes. This has helped me in my business as a coach and consultant. I have been able to train other entrepreneurs and support them with moving their projects forward [See testimonials].
And now I am using my VA experience as a coach for VA’s and a mentor to remote workers. I am no longer doing any VA training, just VA coaching, but I can refer you to an awesome ~VA certification program that can support you with actually gaining clients.
Starting Tuesday 9/21, I will be starting the first weekly VA training with my VA interns who will reimburse me for their training by working as unpaid interns. This is a great way for them to get experience as they learn, while also helping me to keep improving my business without continuing to do everything all on my own. This is the manifestation of something that’s been in my heart for years. If you cannot tell, I am very excited about this and looking forward to building my team of interns.
If you’d like to apply for an internship position, please go to my one page profile and request an appointment at this link:
*Note: Affiliate Links are included in my website so that I can be compensated for referring my audience to awesome services, books, and products that I have used and that I have received value from. If you choose to click and use them for yourself, thank you in advance for trusting me and for supporting my business.
Help is available when you’re ready. VA Support: I am available for about 20 hours per week to provide virtual assistant support, especially for implementing your marketing tasks or doing your market research. I also have supported clients with editing and publishing via Amazon Kindle. I no longer offer VA services, but I know who does certifications for VA’s (~click here). I also coach VA’s to support them with developing their leadership skills.
So many leaders, especially women leaders, keep learning about all of the latest and greatest marketing tips, tricks, and tools AND then trying to do most of the tasks on their own. They aren’t being taught how to start incorporating the new things with what they’re already doing in business and at home. So, they either end up stressed and overwhelmed OR totally sidetracked from the main thing they wanted to do to help their clients. I know because, in the past, that was totally me.
So my answer to the question in this article title comes from own experience:
I used to keep trying to do everything on my own because I kept going to free webinars that kept telling me that I could do it all on my own. But those people teaching me didn’t have several kids and a disabled adult at home to take care of. All of the free trials and all of the free basic accounts I kept getting access to did not fully help in my unique situation.
So then I hired a team of folks to help me support my clients, and then I couldn’t grow my business because of my limited business knowledge. So, I chose to close things down and go to business school at a Christian university.
The motivation for going it alone was sometimes due to feeling like I needed to prove myself as an entrepreneur. As a stay-at-home mom and a spousal caregiver, I just can’t try to keep proving myself. Being in school has boosted my confidence as a business leader, and has helped me to develop my spiritual life more. I truly have greater trust in the Lord to help me with my career and business aspirations.
So, the need to chase all of the free marketing tool webinars is gone… the temptation is always there because I am constantly getting invitations, but now I just say no with ease. And the temptation to try to walk in the pride of looking like I can handle everything on my own is also gone because it exhausts me to even think about trying that again.
Also, in the past, when I was neglecting to expand my team, sometimes it was just a cost savings measure. Sometimes it was a trust issue thing because I knew that I could do some things better on my own and didn’t want to have to go behind someone to fix or redo the work. But now, with learning from my coaches, I know how to pick and choose which tasks I should and shouldn’t be delegating. There are some things that I just cannot let anyone else do because they’re my strengths.
Honestly, I finally got to a place of being burnt out and stressed out and snapping at my loved ones. I got tired of going through the cycles of burnout. I learned that I didn’t have to run my business or my life in burnout mode. I finally started getting the coaching support I needed that was more relevant to my lifestyle as a mom who’s constantly facing the struggle of the juggle… managing multiple roles at home, in addition to my academic career and my business.
RESOURCE REFERRAL: WHO HAS BEEN HELPING ME MANAGE THINGS BETTER?
One of my business coaches actually gets what the struggle of the juggle is like. She was a brand new mom when she started building her new business. She’s a pro that rejects all of that free bad advice that is not relevant to the kind of lifestyles that mom entrepreneurs lead. I watched her free webinar*, and it is full of pretty much everything you need to thrive in your business even though you have so much going on at home. If you watch it, let me know how it helped you.
DON’T KNOW ME, YET?
Use my one page profile to learn more about me at:
If you already know me and are ready to get started getting virtual assistant support with marketing tasks, go to this link:
VA Services Page
(See the link I inserted near the top of this article for a VA certification that could help you become a sought after VA and/or can help you find a certified VA.)
~Note: Affiliate Links are included in my website so that I can be compensated for referring my audience to awesome services, books, and products that I have used and that I have received value from. If you choose to click and use them for yourself, thank you in advance for trusting me and for supporting my business in this way.
The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter and brighter for…
*finishing degree
*finding new team members for the personal care side of our team
*revamping and rebooting the Lead Like A Queen events (after the New Year)
As I said in the previous article about my New Season of Service in Newnan, this has been a good time for growing trust in Divine Guidance every step of the way with each area of life and business. In the past, I’ve been very impatient with my process, and it has ruined my enjoyment of my journey. So, I am enjoying the journey this time, and it’s very refreshing.
Trusting Divine Guidance helps me give myself permission to rest, and this restfulness mindset infuses a different flavor into the journey this time around. God is good to me, and it tastes so good. I am grateful that not only am I seeing the light, but I am feeling lighter, too.
One part of my process that’s different is that I have a rest coach who has been helping me to develop my restfulness mindset. As a caregiver, I have learned that neglecting myself and not getting enough rest is not just unhealthy, but deadly. Unfortunately, I have watched other caregivers literally work themselves into their early graves (this includes my own father). I made a decision to learn from their mistakes.
In the future, I hope to share more about my journey as a young spousal caregiver and to encourage other young spousal caregivers, especially those who are also still raising children. There are so many dynamics at play when you’re still raising a family while you’re caregiving. This is not the time for me to get into that, but I plan to share more in the future.
Finally, because I am in the home stretch to finish my degree, I will not be posting as much online for the rest of this year. However, I plan to come back next year stronger and with much more focus. So, for now, check out the archived blog articles, past videos and podcasts, and follow me on most social media under the alias @leadlikeaqueen and on LinkedIn under my name. To make it easy to find my social media pages, use the one page profile I created at the link in my signature below.
Thank you for reading. God bless you.
~ Donna Marie Johnson
Lead Like A Queen Coaching and Consulting, LLC 