It is not easy being an entrepreneur, most days are fantastic and go off without a hitch, other days go totally sideways and I find myself muttering “Why am I doing this?”. I think this is a common feeling for many business owners. The pendulum really swings back and forth, depending on the factors at play. Those are the days that the sinks plug at the bakery and I’m suddenly a plumber, or a Nor’ Easter wreaks havoc on our delivery and production schedules or one of our retailers unexpectedly goes out of business, leaving us with the financial loss. We try to manage all of the unexpected to the best of our ability.

What we can control is often what goes smoothly, like planning and scheduling our days down to the hour. Building this scaffolding to the day gives us the best chance at being successful with our goals, allows us to work smarter and more effectively and importantly, ensures there is a quantity of quality family time for connection, fun and growth (for all of us).

For the past 5 months we have been working so hard at building a new iteration of our website and an online store. Jen and I are not particularly literate with technology (I admit that I have been actively avoiding learning it like running out of a house on fire), so we’ve hired a company to do it for us. That being said, we still have to come up with writing the content, the design, the layout, the images…so although we aren’t doing the coding, we’ve had to do everything else. We’ve been getting up at 4:30-5am every day to make time for fitness and to plug away at these concepts, putting in 2.5 hours of work before our kids get up. My Chinese doctor insisted I give up coffee (I only started drinking it as an adult when I started this business and was able to give him 6 weeks. I mean, really).   To say that this hasn’t been a stressful and anxiety-inducing period of time would be untrue, both Jen and I bolt upright regularly in the middle of the night with ideas and more items to add to the to-do list. Another common feeling for many entrepreneurs.

We are thrilled to announce that after all of our gruelling hard work, laborious hours of writing and edits, photo shoots, product development, fails and wins…our online store is ready to launch! People around the world have been asking us for years to do this, and finally we are ready. Check out our new baby here:  www.schoolhouseglutenfreegourmet.com

Question of the day: Is there a project or endeavour you’ve committed to for a long-term to achieve a larger goal? How did you stay motivated and determined?