We All Have the Same 24 Hours… But That’s Not the Whole Story
A lot of people say it.
“We all have the same 24 hours in a day.”
Technically, yes. There are 24 hours in every person’s day.
But anyone building a business while also raising children, supporting family members, doing client work, and managing real life knows that this isn’t the full story.
Time equality doesn’t mean opportunity equality.
Responsibilities change what those hours actually look like. And when you’re building a business (especially as a birth worker) that difference matters more than most people acknowledge.
Let’s unpack it.
The Truth About Time and Capacity
Yes, every day has the same number of hours.
But the capacity inside those hours is not the same for everyone.
For example:
Someone in their twenties with no children will naturally have more time and energy to dedicate to building a business.
Most birth workers are parents.
Some of you also supporting ageing parents or disabled siblings or children.
Many of you are carrying significant emotional labour alongside practical responsibilities.
And then we add client work on top of that the actual fulfilment of the services we provide. There is a lot going on!
This is why comparing your pace of growth to someone else’s rarely makes sense.
When I was building my business, two people I looked up to were Amy Porterfield and Carrie Green. Amy doesn’t have children of her own, and Carrie built most of her business before she had kids. That meant they had a very different level of capacity during their growth phase and therefore al lot of what they were teaching just wasn't practically applicable to me.
This isn’t about who works harder or not. It’s about recognising that different life circumstances create different starting lines and comparing your pace to someone else’s without acknowledging that difference is a recipe for frustration.
Instead of Comparing… Look at Your Capacity
A much better question to ask yourself is:
What capacity do I actually have right now?
And from there:
What capacity do I think I have?
Is there any capacity I could create by changing priorities or boundaries?
Because here’s the other truth. Shock horror - growing a business does take work.
There is a lot of talk online about manifestation, ease, and effortless growth. And while mindset absolutely matters, businesses don’t magically grow on their own. Especially in the first one or two years, you’re very much in a building phase.
That phase takes time and energy.
So we need to hold two things at the same time:
Compassion for our real-life capacity.
Honesty that effort is still required.
Growth & 'Balance'
If you have fewer responsibilities, growth might happen faster. If you have more responsibilities, growth might happen slower.
But slower does not mean failing. It simply means you are building your business within the context of your life. And come on - that’s exactly how it should be!
Then people always talk a lot about “work–life balance”. But balance suggests perfectly equal scales and we know that’s rarely reality. Instead, I like to think of it as a pendulum.
Sometimes the pendulum swings towards work. Sometimes it swings towards family. And sometimes it lands somewhere in the messy middle.
For example:
If you’ve just had a newborn baby, the pendulum will be firmly on the family side.
If your children are older and in school, you might have more space for work.
And some days the pendulum will swing completely unexpectedly.
You might wake up ready for a productive workday… and then a child gets sick. Suddenly the pendulum swings straight back to family. That’s just life and the quicker we accept it the easier it will be because real life doesn’t care about your business plans.
I’ve had plenty of moments where the pendulum had to swing suddenly. A couple of years ago, my mum had a serious fall and broke her hip. I was about to go into a big launch for The NEST programme at the time. Instead, my focus shifted to supporting my family. With my background as a social care worker, I ended up coordinating a lot of her care — speaking to social workers, organising rehab hospital support, and helping navigate the system. The launch had to slow down.
Then last year my husband was hit by a car while cycling (again, but it was pretty bad this time). Again, I was preparing for another launch. Again, life had other plans. But these experiences reinforced something important:
Life doesn’t know you’re about to launch a programme.
It just happens.
Which is why building flexibility and buffers into your business matters so much. And when things do shift, it doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It simply means you’re responding to real life.
Your Business Is Like a Baby
One way I like to explain business growth is this: Your business is like a baby.
When it’s brand new, it’s like a newborn. It needs constant attention. It needs feeding, nurturing, and a lot of energy from you. Everything feels intense and chaotic. Then eventually your business becomes more like a toddler. Still demanding but slightly more predictable.
At this stage you might have:
Some systems in place
Some structure
A bit more flow in your processes
You might even start delegating small things. Eventually, what we’re aiming for is an adult business.
That’s a business where:
Systems are running in the background
Referrals are happening naturally
Your website and marketing foundations are built
You’re not constantly scrambling to find clients
You’re still doing the client work, but the infrastructure is supporting you. The business becomes easy to run. But that ease comes after the work of nurturing the newborn phase.
Honour Your Capacity
So when someone says: “We all have the same 24 hours in a day.”
You can quietly ignore that.
Because the reality is:
Everyone’s responsibilities are different.
Everyone’s capacity is different.
Everyone’s season of life is different.
And that’s okay.
You are allowed to:
Grow your business slowly
Build it around your life
Honour your real capacity
In fact, you should.
Because if you don’t, burnout will arrive long before your business becomes sustainable.
The Bottom Line
You probably don’t need another strategy.
What you likely need is:
A clearer understanding of your capacity
A realistic view of your season of life
And the permission to grow your business in a way that actually fits your life.
Because sustainable businesses aren’t built by pretending life doesn’t exist.
They’re built by working with it. And if you need support in that check out my coaching options or my membership.
