5 steps for Creating your why as a doula

Sometimes when you first begin your doula journey, it's pretty simple. 

Your "WHY I AM DOING THIS" is that you experienced what a doula could do at your birth or at a friend's birth, have fallen in love with the idea of birth
​ and want to help others recreate that feeling.

Once you've started working as a doula, you may want to refine or completely rewrite your WHY.

The average doula leaves the business between 2-3 years after they start.

I believe one reason is because they haven't fully developed their own unique WHY.

Start planning on sustaining your doula work BEFORE burn out feeling begin.  

Regularly revisit your WHY! I suggest visiting this every 6-12 months.

When you lose sight of your why, you can forget what this career is about for you (and your clients) and it can lead to burn-out, overwhelm, and feelings of being taken advantage of when you aren't working from that passion point anymore.

 Without your WHY to help build a framework for your goals in an authentic and heartfelt way, you don't know where to focus or what to do next with your doula work. You aren't sure if you should pivot your business or learn a new skill.

Here are five tips to help you discover or re-discover that WHY to bring fulfillment into your business.

1) Take a look at what some of your most memorable moments as a doula have been for you. If you haven't been in business long, look back at moments that lead up to you taking a training and moments at your training. Make a list of 5-10 moments that stand out the most. Do not edit your list as you are making it. If something comes to mind write it down. You'll have time to reflect later.

They don't just have to be client-centered, but could be connection or family-centered as well.

 Really spend some time on this. What were some of the small details of this memorable moment? What spoke to you most at that moment? Why did it make the list? What were the emotions you felt? 

Here's a list prompts to get you started if you are struggling:

• Client stories and testimonials
• A client you had a special connection with
• An event you attended or hosted that affected you in a memorable way
• A comment from family, friends, your children about your work that touched you
• Something valuable you learned from a training you took
• A new perspective you gained
• A positive impact your work made on your family or yourself
• Something FUN that happened because of your work
• What your income did for your family
• What your work did for you it could be added self-confidence, the ability to provide support to others, how the income made a difference in your life, etc

A word about negativity here: Be very careful with listing negative moments. While negative events are memorable, unless there is a postive change that came out of the negative event, please leave it off your list. When your list contains negative moments, your mind struggles with the emotions attached and it becomes a challenge to use the exersize to move you forward. 


2) Do NOT judge your list! Your list will be completely different from someone else's list and that's wonderful. There are no wrong answers here. No one else can define your memorable moments. Your list isn't required to be only altruistic in nature. If it was, go back to the prompts and add a few other memorable moments.

3) Now that you have your list of memorable moments and details about each moment, look at each moment and look for overarching themes. Where your memorable moments connection (family, client, making friends)? Where they about service (giving back, paying your knowledge forward)? 

​Other potential overarching themes could be:

• Teaching
• Learning
• Self improvement
• Meeting your goals
• Providing for yourself/your family

4) Now take those themes and write about what you love about each one. WHY the theme is important to you.  Again, take your time here.

5) Now you have your current WHY. Keep it in a place that you can see it. Use it for helping you get over hurdles in your business. Let it motivate you or keep you moving when you wonder if doula business is really for you, or doing the tasks that aren't your favorite.

BONUS TIP TO EXPAND UPON
6) Use your WHY stories and themes for guiding you when making decisions in your business.

Example: If one of your overarching themes is connection, use that to move forward and make decisions in your business. Maybe you can host a pregnancy or parenting group, hold doula gatherings to meet others in your area, reach out to other businesses that have similar clients and philosophies to create collaborations, host a pregnancy fair or baby fair.

6) Tell me your WHY! Pop over to my Facebook page  or email me at [email protected] and let me know!