What Having a Newborn Teaches You About Business
Any parent knows the daily challenges, moments of abundant joy, and sleepless nights that come with having a newborn. Your patience is constantly tested, you have to learn to trust your instincts, and you need to adjust to your environment. Same goes for the business world.
Think about when you are in a situation where you need to depend on a colleague or higher-up to complete a project or get approval for a new initiative – patience. Think about when you need to make a decision on someone or something – trust. Think about when your professional world forces you from working in the office to working at home – adjust.
There are many ways having a newborn correlates to the person you are professionally.
Importance of Rest
Having a newborn, or child in general, teaches you very quickly how little sleep you can operate on, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need rest. If you aren’t allowing your brain, emotions, and physical self to rest, you won’t be the best version of yourself as a parent or a professional. Lack of rest leads to irritability, which you can’t survive with when you have a newborn or while playing grownup in the workplace. It also drains your energy, which doesn’t lead to dealing with a crying newborn or whining colleague gently. Getting rest isn’t just about sleeping. It’s also about feeding your mental and emotional needs, whether that's a good book, trashy tv, a quick walk outside, or a hot shower.
Importance of Routine
Any parent understands how impactful a routine can be in helping your baby settle into the new world around them. In the workplace, there are plenty of unknowns that can occur because there are so many factors that fall outside of your control when you lean on others to get projects completed. Having a routine that prepares you for the workday helps alleviate the frustration that comes with unexpected situations we all have experienced in a work environment. Routines help those young and old ease into their world, however that looks.
Importance of Communication
Like any relationship, it takes time to develop a bond between colleagues and newborns. Those first couple of weeks home with your new baby, you’re both just trying to figure each other out. It takes time to learn cues and proactively plan for or reactively act on them. A baby communicates by crying. When they cry, you know whether to feed them, change them, or put them down for a nap based on the way they cry. Learning how they communicate makes a world of difference for any new parent. Same goes for the relationships you have in the office. Once you learn more about colleagues, superiors, clients, or customers, you can read their communication styles and manage how to address each appropriately.
Importance of Providing Support
Supporting a newborn is very literal since they can’t crawl, walk, or even hold up their own head at the beginning. Parents also provide their baby support in the form of feeding, nurturing, and cleaning. The support you provide colleagues, clients, and customers vary. However, one thing remains the same, and that’s the fact that without providing support, you won’t see success. Building up colleagues by supporting them helps make them their best selves, which only benefits business. Attending to clients' and customers' needs keeps them happy, which is a benefit to business.
Importance of Supporting Cast
Your boss and colleagues are just as important to you when it comes to receiving support. Just like with a newborn, your village of family, friends, and medical staff, help keep you sane and surviving those first couple of months. Colleagues provide much-needed help with projects or ideas, and they also offer a release from work stress as the relationship builds. Ever have a work husband or a work wife? Again, these relationships and the support keep you sane, surviving the craziness that work can sometimes bring.
Are you a parent of a newborn? What other correlations do you see between having a newborn and being part of a successful business? Share your thoughts by commenting below.