Nail Tech, beautician, wife or husband and super mum (or dad). The challenge of work life balance, how do you cope?

Happy 2014 people!!!

This industry can be extremley child friendly and flexible but it can also be one of the most challenging jobs to fit around your family as well and after taking part in a lovely discussion on this topic on Facebook yesterday in Gemma Lambert's group, "The Nail Team" (great resource for nail techs by the way) it got me thinking, how do we do it?

I am a mother of two, my youngest being only 1 and the oldest being 7 and I struggle with this alot of the time. Changing careers to becoming a nail tech is a hard one, once you train you need to put in hours to get experience, to speed up your application time, learn from others and to gain confidence.

But working in salons and spa's isn't exactly known to be family friendly job..it usually means working for minimum wage or just above, long fairly anti- social hours,  and often requires we work evenings amd weekends. So, when do you get the time to see the children and partner?  Do you have good childcare and support and can you even afford to take the wage cut?

Or do you get a job as a self employed nail tech? Rent a space maybe or work on commision only! What happens if you don't make your rent this week?  Can you realistically afford to wait for your business to grow and have very little or no income in that time when you have kids who gotta eat?

It's the struggle many of us go through, me included. My main desire is to be fully self employed and leave my boring day job altogether but fear is stopping me taking the plunge! Maybe if I didn't have the family to consider I would be doing it already!!

Dividing up the time between your private and work life is always a hard one, but once your established and experienced, this industry does allow for flexibility. Especially if you are self employed or are lucky enough to have a space at home you can work from.You can book clients around your other commitments, spend time with the kids and partner AND do what you love all under one roof! Perfect!

But for those of us who dont have this luxury, I have no magic fix to the dilemma. All I can say is we are not alone. I've come across lots of great mums who are doing this, many of us are the same boat, and we all feel, think and worry about similar things! There are loads of us who are working full time jobs, raising children (sometimes on their own) AND taking nail or beauty clients in what little spare time they have! They are busy, tired but above all they are happy!

If you are one of those nail technician super wives mums or dads struggling with your conscience or wondering how you are going to do this, please know that any struggles you go through now are for your future. Any times you feel guilty that you may be negelcting your children and husband by working so damn hard and any times you have to cut back or go without... it is a very definite means to an end! Think of the time in the not too distant future, when you will be charging top dollar for your work, you will have a reliable and loyal client base who will work around you and your family commitments, follow you everywhere you go and love your work!

That's all from me.....

Do post comments and let me kow what you think or what you would like to see!

xxx

My first ever beauty qualification!

Seriously guys.... its so confusing to know exactly which course to take... there are seemingly 100s of academies, training schools, home learning courses ITEC, BTEC, VRQ, NVQ Accredited this and that..... WTF?????

I was working in a stressful job and due to personal reasons I left the job suddenly. It was December 2011, right before christmas and I found myself with no job! I was also newly pregnant at this time and a bit lost with no guidance and no way of knowing what I wanted to do.... all in al a pretty bad time in my life really.

One day I remember walking down a cold wet London street (seriously imagine your worst, cheesy, violin playing stereotype of total dejection etc... that was me at this moment) and a bus drove by with a sig saying courses for level 2 beauty at my local college were enrolling for January. I thought why not? I called up and was told to get down there before 3pm that day as places were filling up fast. I made an excuse to my sons school and took him out a bit early and traipsed down there! paid the congestion charge, paid an arm and a leg for parking. Queued for hours only to be told they were closing enrolment for the day and I was too late. I begged, pleaded and eventually I was allowed in to the room. It was quite disorganised but I managed to sit an entrance exam and have a brief interview. I was told i could do the course! Yeyyyyyyyy!

After xmas we started the course.... I just loved wearing the pink tabard and loved the course content, it was totally the best way for me to learn. I found the coursework and exams easy, and loved the practical work. I adored manicure and pedicure the most! Long story short the course itself was a bit of a disaster... and I decided throughout this course I would never again undertake community college education! but, 10 years since i first tried to do it... I had managed to get most of my City and guilds VRQ Level 2 in beauty therapy!


I so wished I had followed my heart and done this 10 years ago! I had the bug now... I loved manicure and pedicure.....So what next?