BECOMING AN EMPOWERED SINGLE MUM

HOW DID YOU CONTINUE RUNNING BUSINESSES AND WORKING FULL-TIME AND LOOKING AFTER YOURSELF?

“At the beginning, when I first broke up with my husband, I was working part-time in our business, so I wasn’t working full-time at that stage. But it was still very difficult in the mornings, the grief was so intense as people who have been through a divorce will know, and a particularly when infidelity is involved, there’s a whole new level of grief with the rejection. And you know questioning your value and that, you know, the person that is supposed to love you has rejected you. So all of that you have to work through. So, there was mornings where I was on the floor just in so much grief but having to pick myself up and go to work and bawling in the car on the way to work but pull myself together when I got there. So, the only thing I could do was just walk through it. But I was very fortunate. I had a really good support network. So that was one of the key things. I had people around me who I could talk, talk to and talk through it with. Another thing I found was accepting what had happened as hard as it was, and as painful as it was, the sooner that you can accept what’s happened, then you can start to work a new life out for yourself. And I remember making the decision right at the beginning despite what had happened and despite the pain that I was going to make and create a life for myself and my kids that I loved, and that’s what I did. I chose to work through all the healing and that was a process. And everybody’s different and you must deal with the grief. So, I, worked through that. We had great holidays, you know, I created a great environment for the girls. We lived in nice places and we had beautiful people around us, but we created a life that we wanted. And, and that’s where I came up with a title of my book, living My Best Single Mom Life. I had this attitude that I was going to create a life that I loved.”

 

IN YOUR BOOK YOU TOUCH ON FINDING YOUR UNIQUNESS AND THE IMPOTRANCE OF PASSIONA ND PURPOSE IN OUR LIVES, CAN YOU SHARE MORE ABOUT THIS?

“Yes. And I think that for me is key to life is we’ve all been born with these talents and unique abilities and over the years we’ve developed skills and that makes up the uniqueness. So, there’s also our unique personality and all of that, our passions and all of that comes together to make the unique you and what that does. Once you start to understand and get to know the unique you, which is really important, once you know there’s a confidence that comes with that, then there’s also this, being able to understand what your purpose is and when you can really start to get a grip on what your passion and your purpose is, that gives you a reason to get out of bed every day and it gives you your life meaning. So, if you can find your passion, even in amongst the craziness of life, and that happened to me, I had to find that place where I could, just have that little bit of time for me, the thing that I loved doing, the thing that gives me energy. And so, I think that’s really important to really just dig deep to get to know who you are because we all have so much to offer. We’ve all got these talents and these abilities that we’ve got so that we can use to influence the world around us. So when you think about that, it actually gives you so much value because you have something to offer your world. You are creating uniquely to offer your talents to your area of influence. And that just gives your life meaning. And it’s, as you say, it’s service to others. There’s a contentment and a joy that comes with that. And I know for me, I don’t want to get to the end of my life and think I lived a selfish life. I want to be able to get to my end of my life and go, oh, I served others. I actually made a difference. I had an impact, and my life had some significance.”

 

HOW DID YOU GO ABOUT FINDING YOUR PURPOSE AND PASSION?

“So, growing up I wasn’t very good at anything. I wasn’t one of these kids that stood out. I wasn’t a high achiever at school. I wasn’t great at sport, I wasn’t great at music, and I naturally thought, well, I’m not good at anything because I didn’t stand out. No one said, oh, Louise was good at that. But it wasn’t until I was in my early twenties that I started, I just had this strong sense of purpose, and I just didn’t want to have and live an ordinary life. And so, I started finding out I did some personality, the Mayer’s Briggs personality tests online. I did a course that took me through understanding my talents and through that process of doing these things, which anyone can do online, things like the via strength tests, you can go to the VIA website and that’s got some fantastic character strengths tests that you can do. And I just, I finally started to understand there were these things that I was good at, like creating fantastic relationships and encouragement and, you know, leadership and taking people’s potential and maximizing their potential. And so finally I started to understand my value that I had value because I had these things that I was good at. And so, for me it’s as simple as little things I that bring me joy, like having a coffee with a friend and just being able to encourage them or it’s coaching team members at work by setting goals with them, or it’s just doing something like this or writing my book. Those things bring me joy. So, I had to find those little moments where I could actually live my passion, where that would bring me contentment in amongst the craziness of life.”