Hi friend,
A few years ago, when I was trying to figure out how to eventually leave my career and stay home with my first baby, I went down a bit of a rabbit hole.
You know the kind.
YouTube videos about building an Etsy shop.
Instagram accounts promising passive income.
“Start a digital product and post every day and you can make thousands a month.”
And honestly? It all sounded pretty convincing.
The people teaching it seemed confident. The strategy sounded simple. And you leave those videos thinking, “Okay, I can easily do this.”
But there was one thing those strategies almost never accounted for.
Motherhood.
Not the highlight reel version. The real one.
Interrupted work time.
Changing sleep schedules.
Kids getting sick.
Mental load that doesn’t neatly fit inside a productivity system.
So you try the strategy.
And when it doesn’t quickly work the way it was promised, you assume the problem is you.
You weren’t disciplined enough.
You didn’t work hard enough.
You must not be "good at this."
But most of the time, the real problem is much simpler.
Those systems were never designed for your capacity.
This week’s podcast episode is about exactly that.
Ep 20 | Capacity-Based Planning: Why Moms Can’t Follow Through on Goals (And How to Plan Realistically)
Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
In this episode, I talk about:
- Why motivation-based planning almost always fails for moms
- The difference between desire and actual capacity
- How short planning cycles help you discover what’s actually sustainable
- Why most goals fail simply because we plan outside our real life
As a former Project Manager, this was something I saw constantly in the corporate world too.
Teams would start a new project full of excitement and big goals.
But the teams that actually finished well weren’t the most motivated ones.
They were the ones who planned according to their capacity.
The same principle applies to moms building something from home.
This is actually the reason I created the Capacity-Based Sprint Planning Guide — to help moms plan their work around real life instead of wishful thinking.
You don’t need to work faster or hustle harder.
And you definitely don’t need to copy someone else’s pace.
Slow, steady, and strategic work is how most meaningful things are built anyway.
If you’ve ever felt discouraged because your plans keep falling apart after a few weeks, this episode will help you reframe what’s actually happening.
And I’m curious — have you ever tried one of those “online business formulas” before? Etsy shop, digital products, content every day, etc. Did it work for you?
Hit reply and tell me. I'd love to know your story and know that I'm not the only one!
Cheering you on,
P.S. If you’re building something from home but never feel sure what to work on when you sit down, the free Capacity-Based Sprint Planning Guide will walk you through how to plan your work based on the hours you actually have — not an imaginary version of your life.
You can download it here.
