The number one thing you need is support, so have a good think about what support network you have already, or could build, to help you bring up this child.  This could include family, friends, practical support, financial support and good childcare.

Another big question is “who is going to father this child?”  Friend?  Boyfriend?  Sperm donor?  If it’s going to be someone you know, be sure to clarify what that person’s role will be once the baby is born.

One of the biggest challenges a single parent faces is financial.  At face value, this is obvious – you need to have some kind of income to support not only yourself, but your new family.  What you may not realise, however, is just how much money you will require.  Children can be expensive, and I don’t just mean nappies and baby paraphernalia.  All of your living expenses increase when all of a sudden there is more than just you to care for.  That child is now relying on you for somewhere to live, food, warmth, healthcare, clothing, education, entertainment and the list goes on.  You have taken on the responsibility of providing that child with the best possible start in life so it’s up to you to make that happen.

What makes that even more challenging is that if you are the sole care-giver, then you already have a job 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  For every hour that you are not actively caring for that child, you need to find someone else to look after them instead, and will quite possibly have to pay for this.  However it is all possible and can be made a lot easier with some forward planning.

Lastly, I think it’s worth a mention that although your timeframe to produce your baby may be urgent and you’re currently single, having a baby by yourself doesn’t necessarily mean you will always be a single parent.  Who knows when your next ideal partner may come along?  It’s quite possible that the wonderful daddy can be added to the family after the baby is born, rather than in the usual order of events.  This can actually take the pressure off potential relationships, as it takes the urgency of committing to making a baby away.  And, after the event, it’s obvious that the child is part of the package, which quickly weeds out any would-be suitors that aren’t interested in kids.

Yes, it is a challenge to bring up a child on your own, but it’s also very rewarding and certainly not impossible.  Once you’ve got them, though, they’re here for good, so if you do want to have a child on your own, do your homework first – it’s not as easy as it looks!

© Jacqui Thomas, All rights reserved, 2010

A certain amount of independence is a good thing.  It’s useful to be capable of looking after yourself and to be responsible for your actions.  But being completely self-sufficient is counter-productive.  Being totally self reliant cuts you off from community which is essential for us to “thrive”, rather than merely “survive”.   

As humans we have needs beyond basic food and shelter.  We have an emotional need for community – to share, to love, to feel, to contribute.  Being part of a community is a two way street – you need to be able to “give” and to “receive”.  In order for the process to work effectively, receiving is equally important as giving.  One can’t happen without the other.  So it’s important to take your turn at both.

Sometimes we feel like we have to do it all, that there is no help available.  There is always help available, but you have to be willing to allow it.  Maybe you need to create some space to let the help in?  Allow yourself to receive.  Stop doing it all, so there is room for others to help you.  Ask for help and accept it graciously when it comes.  Let go of needing to control everything yourself, so other people can help you.  And remember that receiving help is just as valid as giving it.  Both sides of the equation are crucial to the process – so we all need to do our fair share of both!

© Jacqui Thomas, 2010 All rights reserved.

The woman behind showing me that successfully creating a website IS actually possible is the fantastic Belinda Duffy of Duffy Design.  Belinda was recommended to me by a friend who had endured three years of my website woes over numerous coffees.  And bless her, Belinda took it upon herself to personally guarantee that I would have a positive website experience, resulting in a fantastic website.  And she certainly delivered.

I have had many web companies tell me over the years that I couldn’t have cool design AND functionality, that I would have to choose which was my strongest priority.  I could never understand why I couldn’t have both and Belinda confirmed my gut instinct, that this is utter hogwash.  If your web design company is telling you this – RUN!  Yes, you can have a website that looks good, and also works.  No, it is not an unrealistic expectation!  If your company is telling you this, then it may be that they have staff that specialise in one or the other.

In Belinda’s case, she is primarily a designer.  She did all the design work for my brand and website www.jacquithomas.com from the overall layout down to individual little buttons and design features.  Belinda also works closely with a web development company that she uses to create the back end / functionality of the website, ie the code.  This can be where it all falls apart if the design team clashes with the development team.  As well as designing my site, Belinda project managed the complete website development and ensured that all aspects of functionality were covered off, as well as making sure that the design was fully implemented as she had intended.  

Belinda’s attention to detail and photographic memory is amazing.  No matter how stressful the project gets (and given my website history, it didn’t take much to push my buttons!) she manages to remain calm and good humoured.  I’d go so far as to say, she’s quite unflappable.  She really went the extra mile for me and for this I am extremely grateful.

As an aside she also is the parent of a small child and can be found working at strange hours of the night.  If you have weird  nocturnal habits like me, these crazy extra working hours can be an added bonus.  I am delighted to be able to recommend Belinda Duffy – Duffy Design to my clients, colleagues and friends.  If you would like to know more about her business and what she can do for you, check out her website or contact her directly at:

www.duffy.co.nz

Written by Jacqui Thomas, 2010 © All rights reserved.

 Many people say yes to things when they really mean no, simply because they don’t want to let the other person down.  Hello!  The very same person gets a much bigger let down in the long run when you can’t deliver what you said you would.  Most people would much prefer to have a no upfront, so they can make alternative arrangements, than be let down at the last minute.  Not only that, imagine how much easier your life would be if you weren’t racing around trying to keep everyone else happy and stressing out about letting people down?

Right now, decide to stop making promises you can’t keep, even better stop making promises at all.  Stop agreeing to things you can’t do, won’t do, don’t want to do, or aren’t even realistically capable of doing.  Your new mantra is “under promise and over deliver”.  

Once you stop saying yes to everything and trying to be in multiple places simultaneously, you can practice being 100% present in wherever you are and whatever you are doing.  Become more in control of your choices, and then focus on and enjoy the choices you have made.  If you choose to be working on a project, then that is what you are doing.  If you’re reading your kids a bedtime story, you are not cooking dinner.  And if you choose to be having a coffee with a friend, be just as 100% focussed on that task.  If you’ve made the choice it is because it is important to you and should only be over-ridden by something that is even more important to you (and then only if it’s urgent).

We are aiming for quality here, not quantity.  Many of you will be arguing that this way you will only be getting one task done rather than five.  My point is that you will be getting one task completed well (and with no stress) as opposed to five tasks incomplete and not done well with potentially a huge headache and follow-on problems as well!

As you practice this technique, you will find that you actually get a lot more done and please a lot more people.  Also, things that aren’t that important to you start to drop away, leaving even more precious time for the things that are.  Eventually, it even becomes easier and easier to deliver even more than people expect of you, and this is done with a lot less effort because you are doing it because you want to and are able to, rather than because you are committed and pressured to.

By Jacqui Thomas

All rights reserved

Why?

* Because we’re scared someone will say No

* Because we’re scared someone will say Yes

* We don’t want people to think less of us for asking (ie, that we are weak, needy, incapable, dependent, bludging….)

* We don’t want the other person to feel bad for saying No

* Because we think other people should know what we want, without us having to ask

How ridiculous!

Life would be much simpler if people could communicate freely and clearly and ask for what they want and need.

Some solutions…

* If someone says No, it doesn’t matter.  It’s not the end of the world, it’s not personal – they simply can’t help and you need to either ask a different question, or ask someone else.  (Children do this well.  In fact, the other option they employ is to keep asking the same question, until the answer changes, however I don’t recommend this!)  Even if the person you’ve asked can’t help with your request, they will often offer alternatives or suggest someone who may be able to help, so you’ve still gained from asking the question.  And, often they will feel flattered by the request, even if they can’t oblige, so everyone wins.

* If someone says Yes – Great!  Remember they are adults, it was their choice to say Yes.  Accept it with grace and gratitude.  There is no need to feel bad about it.

* We are humans not robots.  It is impossible to be completely self-sufficient, we all need other people for all manner of reasons.  People don’t think less of you for making a request, whether it be for help, a date, or whatever.  Usually they are flattered, it makes them feel good to be asked, whatever their chosen response might be.  And in turn, it enables them to feel better about asking for whatever they need.

* If they have a problem communicating their honest response, then that is their responsibility to work through, not yours.  If it makes you feel better, you can let them know at the outset of your request that the choice is theirs – you just need a yes or a no.

This is a biggie in relationships, with partners, families and friends.  The truth is we all see the world from our own perspective.  You can’t assume that someone else sees what you see, and therefore can second-guess your needs and desires.  Save everyone a lot of grief by being upfront about what you need and want.  You won’t always get it but at least both parties know what the request is, and from there can make, and deal with, a clear response.

Written by Jacqui Thomas

All rights reserved

Lynette, known as Polly to her friends, is a vibrant Maori woman successfully operating several Harcourts real estate offices in the Christchurch area.  A working class background hasn’t stopped her from becoming one of Christchurch’s hottest businesswomen.  Not content with her own success, she shares her positive energy with all around her, inspiring others to succeed and grow into whatever they wish to become.

I come from a family background that is absolutely not business aware.  My family doesn’t have a single business brain among them.  My parents are very traditional Maori, working class folks.  They are very loving but traditional role models.  Mum was at home looking after the kids, while Dad went out to work.  They had us when they were about twenty, so they were quite young and carefree, and probably didn’t really settle until they were much older.  By that time I was about twenty and needed some guidance a bit earlier than that.  I had a real issue with achieving but looking back I think I was just trying to get my parents to notice me.  They were just drifting along in life and I wanted more, I never wanted to drift.

I was very driven at school.  With the absence of role models I wasn’t really sure where I was going, so I went nursing after I finished school.  I did really well in my school exams and retrospectively I would have preferred law, but that just seemed far too outrageous to even be considered.  It probably still would be quite unheard of for someone from our family to do law.  So I went nursing, which was deemed very good and special.  I enjoyed my nursing and made some special friends but eventually I got tired of it.  After twelve years of nursing, I was away with my husband and said to him “I don’t wish to go back nursing.  I wish to do something else”.  We’d been married ten years and had our first son, Harry.  He thought I’d be good at real estate.  We’d always bought and sold properties, done them up as investments.  It seemed like a natural progression.

It was 1994 when I started to sell real estate.  Harry was only little, he wasn’t even walking or talking, and I was deciding to work fulltime.  In my first year in real estate, I was among the top Canterbury salespeople and had a six figure income.  I also had a change of office in my first year, which didn’t really work out.  I looked across the road and thought I saw something better, but it wasn’t, so I had to go back to my old boss with my tail between my legs, and he kindly took me back.  I had a couple of years of good sales and then John, my husband, decided he was sick of plumbing and he wanted to join me in real estate.  He came and worked with me for a while which was really hard because I was used to doing my own thing, and had been for a couple of years.  I had systems and routines established and he was coming in and mucking it all up.  He’d constantly be asking me what I was doing and where I was going.  It was pretty tough initially, until he got on his feet, which he did quite quickly, thankfully!

After three years selling, I reached a point where I was dissatisfied.  I felt there was something lacking in the business we were working in.  I guess I got to a point where I felt I could do it better, and I felt my boss was taking me for granted.  I left and so did my husband and two colleagues.  We left our businesses, the people we were working for, which was huge for them because big agents walking out the door is tough on a business.

We bought a business that was vacant, the Papanui Harcourts office.  It was vacant because the previous owner had killed himself, and the owner before that had run it down.  We inherited a business that was very rough around the edges but we believed we could make a go of it.  It was difficult and extraordinarily expensive.  It took every last resource we had.  We bought the office and walked into a meeting with about ten sales people.  Three of those got up and left.  We’d paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for this office with a history where someone had just killed himself, three of the staff just walked out the door, and a total of seventeen listings.  What had we done?  I remember going into my office and crying, thinking we’d made a dreadful mistake.

Excerpt from Lynette “Polly” McFadden’s story

Go Girl Go! – Real Stories of New Zealand Women in Business

By Jacqui Thomas

Published 2001, JT Publishing Ltd

No matter how bad things seem, it is never forever, it always gets better.  Sometimes you just have to trust the process, and focus on your intended outcome, and remember that the rough patch will pass. 

Change, and/or the need for change, can often be uncomfortable, but this discomfort is useful.  Often it is a signal that changes need to be made and if they’re not made, the discomfort will increase until you do.  At some point, the choice may no longer even be yours to make, and change will just happen with or without you.  They say the Universe sends you messages, and if you don’t listen it turns up the volume!

The uncomfortable part can also come in the midst of change.  You can ride this out, knowing that the discomfort is a natural part of the reshuffle forwards onto better things.  Again focus on your intended outcome, trust the process, and know that the rough patch is part of working towards the better place at the end.

I’ve had two examples of this myself recently.  One being a flatmate situation that was no longer working.  I knew I needed to make a change but kept putting it off (avoiding confrontation perhaps?) until eventually the messages were getting so loud that I absolutely had to do something about it.  The process was uncomfortable, but by focussing on my intended outcome, I knew I could ride it out and in the end, it would all be alright.

A second example is a new website I’ve been working on.  There have been moments when I could very easily get bogged down in all the glitches and hiccups in the development process, and think it’s never going to work, that it’s all gone wrong.  But by remembering the Dalai Lama, trusting the process, and focussing on the desired end result, the challenges and issues have been worked through and we’re on track to get to the intended outcome.

This is true of any situation.  Change is the one true constant.  Learn to work with it and you can save yourself a lot of stress.

Written by Jacqui Thomas

All rights reserved

What do you worry about?  Some common concerns are loss of income, your house burning down, losing your children, getting sick and not being able to pay for your medical expenses, not being able to afford to retire, having your home broken into, children getting run over, your car being stolen.

The first step in protecting yourself, so you never have to waste any more energy worrying about these things again, is to define what you have to lose and how it could be lost.  Then you can work out what strategies you can put into place to protect yourself against these possibilities.

One method of protection, which covers many of the main concerns, is insurance.  There are many different types of insurance to meet different people’s needs but most people should have some insurance cover of some sort.  There are general insurances that cover things like your house, your contents and your car.  Then there is personal insurance such as life insurance and income protection insurance that covers loss of income through illness or death.  Other insurance such as medical insurance covers medical costs when you need it.  See an expert to find out what best suits your needs and budget, because when you need it, it’s too late.

As well as the financial side of being well protected there are many simple things you can do to protect yourself.  Set up family systems so everyone knows what to do if there is a fire, or someone gets lost when you’re out and about.  Set clear rules about wearing seatbelts and not playing on the road.  Install smoke alarms and adequate locks on doors and windows.  Always lock your car and don’t leave anything valuable in view.  Start a savings plan so you have an emergency fund if you need it.  Pay your bills on time and minimise debt.  Have a current will that clearly states who will care for your children and who gets what if you die.

Being well protected doesn’t mean focussing on the doom and gloom and all possible disasters.  It means never having to worry about the “what-ifs’ ever again because you know that you have the systems in place to deal with anything that could happen.  This leaves you free to get on with enjoying life today!

By Jacqui Thomas

All rights reserved

Louise is the driving force behind Inkspot Digital Ltd – an Auckland based IT / Animation / Entertainment company leading the world in computer animation. This small youthful company works alongside big players such as Microsoft and shows the world what a couple of Kiwi’s can achieve when the put their minds to it. For Louise, the secrets to success don’t lie behind a university degree or loads of investment capital – success comes from lots of hard work, personality, and undying belief in your idea.

With Inkspot Digital we saw an opportunity in the market for a clipart product for people like myself who can’t draw at all. In fact, all our sales and marketing materials use my appalling stick figures drawings as an example – “if you draw like this, then you need this product!” We wanted to produce something different, and to that end all our products have our personality stamped on them. They are very cartoony type characters and you will either love them or hate them. We are not ashamed of that – we were never trying to appeal to the entire audience. We were confident a percentage of the market would take it and think “Wow, that’s really cool”.

There were a lot of differentiating factors between our product and everything else that was on the market. We researched it and decided there was a gap we could fill. Most people do market analysis to find their biggest competitors and then try to figure out how they can compete with them. We took a different approach and looked at who the biggest players were in the marketplace and thought “Ok, we want to play with them.” You can’t compete with someone like Microsoft. So we went and saw Microsoft with the aim of working alongside them and they were fantastic. We launched our first product in association with Publisher 98.

Ever since that first deal, our business has always been based on finding out who are the biggest players in the market, then working alongside them and using our products to enhance what they are doing. This is how we’ve been able to advance and grow in the IT industry. In the US we work with the biggest IT companies, which is definitely a strong suit.

We are a very youthful company – I was 26 years old when we started. The oldest person in the company now is the CEO, who’s 32 years old. I fully believe that age has nothing to do with it. It’s all about attitude – particularly in the IT industry where everything is constantly changing. Another advantage in us all being so young is that we were able to learn and make mistakes and nobody judged each other. We’ve always allowed ourselves to make mistakes and sometimes that’s cost us money but we’ve never blamed each other if something goes wrong. I think most people are their own hardest taskmasters anyway, you can’t say anything to someone who’s made a mistake that they haven’t already thought to themselves but ten times worse.

The main key to being successful in business, I think, is you have to have so much belief in yourself, you can’t take on board other people’s insecurities. There will always be people out there who will think “that’s a bit different, a bit risky, too difficult, too expensive”. That’s where a lot of people with good ideas fall over. Their great ideas never get to market because they don’t fully believe in themselves, or they’re not prepared to take the risk. People are always complaining there isn’t enough capital in New Zealand to get ideas off the ground, and I agree with that to a certain extent but it’s also a case of natural attrition. It is hard work, you will have to work long hours, there will be setbacks – are you cut out for it? You need an absolute undying belief in yourself right from the start to be able to last the distance.

Excerpt from Louise Rutten’s story

Go Girl Go! – Real Stories of New Zealand Women in Business

By Jacqui Thomas

Published 2001, JT Publishing Ltd

Stop!  Enough of trying to be super-human, enough of not wanting to disappoint others, enough of putting everybody else before yourself.  It is time to start saying no more often.  I guarantee not only will you reap the rewards, but those closest to you will benefit as well. 

Here are a few places to start:

*  Start putting your own needs first and although there may be some initial backlash, I guarantee the positive results will be worth it.  “But I feel so selfish!” I hear you say.  Think of it this way, there is a very good reason why the airline safety messages say “please fix your own oxygen mask first before attempting to help others” – it’s because you are no help to others if you haven’t already taken care of your own needs first!  So say “no”.  It’s not in anyone’s best interests for you to agree to help others if you haven’t already looked after yourself.

*  Eliminate the “shoulds” in your life.  Don’t say “yes” to anything you don’t want to do, even if you feel you “should” do it.  Trying to do the “shoulds” in your life is a major waste of time and energy.

*  Focus on your priorities and what is really important to you.  You always have choices, but you don’t physically have enough time, space and energy to say yes to everything.  Say no to low priorities so you can say “yes” to things that really matter to you.

Tips on How to Say No

*  The word “no” should start the sentence
*  Speak clearly and confidently
*  Say what you mean
*  Be decisive
*  Be polite but firm
*  Keep your tone neutral, not emotional
*  If you want to, you can explain why
*  If you want to, you can offer an alternative
*  If it’s appropriate, thank them for the offer
*  Don’t feel guilty!

By Jacqui Thomas

All rights reserved