I began work as a Virtual Assistant in 2010, so not much about my daily routine changed in 2020 when people started to work from home. For others, though, the change was dramatic. There was no more commuting, packing a lunch, spending time in traffic, or dressing for the office. I noticed that many people who were unhappy in their jobs pre-Covid, experienced a wonderful change in their lives when working from home became an option: more time, less stress, higher productivity levels, and a massive reduction in office drama and politics. As time passed, companies asked their employees to retur ..read more

When you’re a Virtual Assistant who’s not making money or hitting your financial goals, it seems commonsensical to wait until you’re making money to invest in your business. Even if you have money to invest from your job or savings, you feel the business needs to deserve the investment by being able to pay for it. What you really might be thinking is that you don’t deserve to invest in yourself until you’ve proven yourself. The problem with this train of thought is that it doesn’t consider the money you’re losing while waiting for money to start ..read more

My husband Greg and I are in the process of moving from Connecticut to Virginia. We began migrating our things on January 29th when we closed on the house. We will be completely moved in, chickens and all, by April 1st. The distance between our old home and our new home is 415 miles, so there has been a lot of planning, driving, box buying, and packing. One of the great things about moving is that it requires you to touch every single thing you own, bringing back memories and creating images about how exciting it will be when your possessions are safely delivered to your new home. One ..read more

As Virtual Assistants, we are natural helpers. We enjoy making the lives of others better through our contributions. We’re driven by deadlines and an innate need to cross tasks off our to-do list. When our clients are action-oriented, responsive, and excited about our work with them, it’s exhilarating, and we can’t get enough. However, clients are often not as responsive or action-oriented as we’d like. Some Virtual Assistants find themselves feeling stuck, unappreciated, and ghosted. That’s a sign that the VA has made an emotional investment in the work that is larger than the investment thei ..read more

At the beginning of 2023, I decided to start saying no more often. No, to projects that weren’t moving the needle in my business and growing our community. No, to distractions and diversions in my day that took me away from how I wanted to spend my time. No, to people-pleasing. I remember the moment I made the decision. I was sitting at my desk, reading an email that asked me to speak at an event unrelated to Virtual Assistance. It was a perfectly reasonable request and one that I had said yes to many times in the past. I could feel a disconnect in the pit of my stomach when I read this ..read more

Have you ever been on an airplane and heard the flight attendant explain that in the event of a drop in the cabin air pressure, everyone has to put their mask on before helping anyone else? There’s a good reason for this - if you don’t take care of yourself first, you risk being unable to help anyone else. Think about that for a minute. Putting your mask on first helps extend your ability to serve. Yet, when working with aspiring and established Virtual Assistants who haven’t achieved the success they crave, I find they do the opposite of what the flight attendant instructs. They give every ..read more

When I started my Virtual Assistant business in 2010, I had my head in the sand when it came to my finances. Not wanting to know how much debt I actually had, I continued to make financial decisions based on my feelings and avoided the facts of my reality. For some crazy reason, doing this made me feel insulated and safe. My intentions were good. Every morning, I thought to myself, today is the day. “Today is the day I will look at my finances and figure out what’s going on.” Every night, I would ask myself, “Where did the day go?” I would rationalize and tell myself, “I’m too tire ..read more

In 2001, I became a first-time entrepreneur when I opened an online baby gift boutique named Blueberry Babies. Afraid people wouldn’t take me seriously if they knew I was working alone, I built a façade to make my business look bigger than just me. I created email aliases for “departments” in my business like “info,” “support,” and “returns.” While all the emails went to my inbox, doing this made me feel like I was in business for real and quieted my imposter syndrome. Often, I let the phone go to voicemail while I was busy filling orders. But one day, I answered, “Blueberry Babies, this is ..read more

When we want our lives to change, we usually hope our circumstances will be better than they are right now. The problem is that when that happens, and life improves, most of the time, we still want it to be better than it is right now. Not only is it human nature, but the result is we don’t realize our lives are getting better when, in fact, they are. Most improvements in life happen a little at a time and can seem undetectable. When I first started my Virtual Assistant business, I grocery shopped every other day, but only for the food my daughter Emily and I needed immediatel ..read more

Starting a business as a Virtual Assistant can feel like a roller coaster ride. One day, you're excited; the next, you're discouraged; and the next, you wonder what you were thinking.  In 2010, when I was starting my Virtual Assistant business, RocketGirl Solutions, it was not an ideal time to begin a new venture. I had six figures of debt, seven years of unpaid back taxes, no job, and a failed marriage; I was a single mom and had to sell my home.  I was also about to turn fifty, and as silly as it sounds now (at 62), I thought I was too old to change and had missed ..read more