Meet the #motherhustlers: Sasha Duffy

Sasha Duffy is a mom, teacher, and blogger who is trying to find the perfect balance in life and helps others find a balance too!

Tell us about yourself, your business, and how you got started!

By day I’m a mom and high school teacher, but at night I’m a blogger.

I’ve run a few businesses during my life (I’m 37 years old!), some of them have been very successful ($2 million+ annual revenue), some have been complete failures (thousands in debt)!

When I became a single mom I needed a stable income, so I decided to become a teacher (helps to have the same vacations as my kids too). However, I’m always frustrated working for someone else and so I started my blog to give me a bit of control over my life and income.

Life’s Carousel is a website to help parents find balance in their lives. We’re all busy and feel overwhelmed, and I want to help people extract more from their lives and feel less stressed.

What inspired you to start your own business?

After 10 years of marriage, I became a single mom. Suddenly I was on my own, broke and struggling. I was working, parenting, and trying to run my home. I felt so overwhelmed and stressed. It was a horrible feeling and I worked hard to overcome it.

I read dozens of books and searched the internet for anything that would help. It took a few years but I managed to streamline my life and reduce my stress. I finally started enjoying my new life.

I realized that I could use my own experiences to help others… so that’s exactly what I’m doing!

What struggles do you face when it comes to balancing your work and family and how do you deal with them?

My whole website is about finding a balance between work and family! But the irony is that I do still struggle with it.

My kids are 8, 10 and 12 years old, so I’m able to do work in the evenings while they play or watch TV and after they have gone to bed. Also at weekends, I try to take a few hours each day to work on my website.

However, I have a golden rule – WORK CAN WAIT!

If my kids want me to play a game with them or bake cookies, then I do. I will stop working and go and do things with them.

At weekends, if we decide to go out for a day, I don’t beat myself up for not doing any work. My website will still be there the next day, but my kids can’t wait! My family needs me more than my website does.

This might slow my growth a bit, but I grew up with a father that worked 24/7. I literally never saw him. Yes, he was very successful and I had a very privileged upbringing, but I would also have liked to know my Dad a bit better. I wasn’t going to do that to my children.

What do you think is the secret to raising a healthy business and a healthy family?

Learning when to say no.

You can’t do it all. It’s just not possible. So you need to learn to prioritize. Sometime you will have to say “No” to things. But don’t make it a habit to say no to your family….

What is one piece of advice you could give to help other mompreneurs out?

Don’t beat yourself up. You will set impossible expectations for yourself – we all do. It’s likely you will not reach your goals when you want to because “real-life” will get in the way.

BUT… that doesn’t mean you will never reach your goals. You will reach them when the time is right. Have faith in your abilities and just go with the flow!

What words of encouragement do you have for your fellow mompreneurs?

You can do it! You just have to stick with it. There will be days, weeks or even months when you don’t want to work on your business. But you have to push through that.

You won’t always feel motivated to work, but you have to push through and just do it. If you wait to work only when you feel motivated, then you will be waiting a long time for your success.

Do you have any great / inspiring stories from your own experience that you would like to share?

I’m not sure if it’s a great or inspiring story. But I went from being a broke, single-mom, working at a minimum wage job and no energy for my family to having a job I love, spending quality time with my family, and living my life on MY TERMS!

Decide what you want and go for it!

Any fun facts you want to share?

Apparently, I don’t like to make life easy for myself because not only do I work full-time, have 3 kids and run a business, I also have 3 dogs, 4 cats, and 3 chickens! But if I didn’t have something to keep me amused I would get bored!

Where you can find Sasha:

You can read more about Sasha over on her blog, Life’s Carousel, and follow along with her on Instagram!