In the fast-paced world of new businesses, I choose slow.

This is not an apology. Women apologise too much, and we all need to stop. This post is more as an explanation for my silence. My last blog post was May 2019 and then, nothing.

Not quite this slow

I did a lot of thinking in May last year.

I wasn’t very well, and I was starting to struggle. I developed a health issue after having my third child and was working through what that meant for me and my family. It resulted in me having surgery at the end of the last year, and I’ve now made a full recovery.

One of the things I thought through at this time was the purpose of Part Time Professionals. I thought about what I’m trying to achieve, and who I’m doing it for.

The goal has always been to change perceptions about the way we can approach work to allow mothers, in particular, to have better access to the work they want to be doing. Access to the work that will allow their careers to grow alongside their families. I wanted to work out a way to do work and family life successfully, without the continual feeling that you’re disappointing everyone and doing neither well.

The need for speed

Everything seems to be geared to speed when you have a business idea. If you are going to fail, you better fail fast so you can move on quickly to your next idea. There are business incubators geared to speed up the growth and success of startups. People are working in sprints to get through a set amount of work in a short time.

Even as a mother of three running a business that needs to generate an ongoing income I found myself trying to join in. But I couldn’t keep up. Those models require full-time commitment (often more), and I just couldn’t make that work. It made me feel as though the startup world was somewhere I didn’t belong. Mothers didn’t belong. Part-time workers didn’t belong. The cost of membership was too high for me.

This completely threw me. How could I proclaim to have found an alternative way to work if I couldn’t make it work myself?

Slowing down to speed up

Thinking this through helped me realise that the woman I needed to help first was me. So last year in May, I gave myself permission to slow down. I put business development on hold. I stopped working on the business and just worked. I still operated within the Part Time Professionals working model – being paid for the work I did rather than for how long I spent on it – but I stopped working on expanding the business and sharing the concept. I became a part-time professional.

Walking the talk

Guess what? The model works. I managed to be a mother to my three kids, maintain a relationship with my husband and generate an income, all while processing a challenging health issue. In the name of full transparency, some of my friendships were neglected and I didn’t do much for me during this time. Don’t worry though – I’m on it now.

This year I’ve picked up the business development side of my work again, and I’m really enjoying it. I’m starting to feel like myself again. Taking this time has made me more passionate about the working model because I was able to experience its flexibility first-hand.

So, in this world of failing fast, sprinting, accelerators and incubators, I’m choosing slow for our business. I can do a job I love, and walk the talk of an alternative way to work.