Adventurous is not a word commonly used to describe me, I would never sky dive, I hate flying in any sort of plane and I can’t even swim! The most adventurous thing I have ever done is move to the UK from Melbourne ten years ago. Since then, I have worked in a number of different jobs, most provided a great social life, but not a chance to do something in an industry I was actually interested in which built on any of my strengths. Five years ago I had my little boy and I, like so many other mothers got “stuck” working in a job that wasn’t me, it did however, pay the childcare bills but landed me with no job satisfaction and no chance of finding anything else that fitted around childcare. I was completely stuck, and completely over it.

Then one Thursday morning it all changed, I came across an article on Twitter ( I spent a large percentage of my working day on Twitter, ) introducing Digital Mums. It talked about the chance to work from home and actually do something that interested me that I might even have the skills to do, and (gasp) be good at! In my life before motherhood ( I like to call them the sleeping years.) I had worked as a reviewer, blogger and event organizer for a review website. It was a job I loved and had missed greatly, it was all based around social media but I felt I didn’t have the right skills to pursue a career in this area when it ended. The Digital Mums way of learning seemed to be a great fit in a similar sort of way to this and a great opportunity to enhance the skills I had already acquired. It also gave me the chance to learn at my own pace from home without having to work around childcare. So I applied, thinking I’ll probably not get in, but it can’t hurt to apply.

I now sit here at Week 20 putting the finishing touches to my final ever Digital Mums assignment and it’s astounding to think about what I have achieved over the past 6 months. I was so nervous meeting my Program Partner Klerissa over Skype for the first time, it seemed what lay ahead was such a huge responsibility and so daunting. It reminded me of bringing my little boy home from the hospital and neither myself or my husband wanted to bathe him because we were too scared we would break him. I felt exactly the same way when I sat in front of Curly By Nature’s Twitter feed for the first time, logged in and ready to go, terrifying!

Luckily the training was done in bite sized pieces week by week which made it not as overwhelming — not too many baby in the bath moments, and my peer group, our Tutor and the G + forum helped when it became too much. One amazing aspect of the Digital Mums experience is having a peer group, and ours was brilliantly executed. We took turns to have breakdowns, or “I can’t do it” moments, so that pep talks were always well spread out and available from another peer. Analytics week was hard, as was Ad week, there were numerous breakdowns and I think we all abandoned our Whats App group for copious amounts of alcohol. But looking at it now — and I say that with an ever eternal hate of Facebook analytics, I actually know what Facebook analytics is, and I know how to run adverts on Facebook and Twitter, not something I ever thought I would be able to do.

I was lucky with my Digital Mums experience, I was teamed up with a fantastic small business and a business owner who has been super enthusiastic throughout the whole process, and, although shaky at first, completely trusting of my vision for her business. I cannot thank her enough for her positivity and praise, for my peer group’s unbelievable support and hilarious Whats App comments that always made me feel better, and I will always be grateful that Digital Mums had faith in my skills and accepted me into their community and gave me so much in return.

Yes I’ve probably gained a stone through stress eating, my little boy has seen a lot less of his mother and my husband has had to make copious amounts of coffee and do more housework than any man has probably ever done! In return, I have stopped eating Toblerone for breakfast (don’t judge me that was a bad week), quit the job I hated so much and am looking forward to a freelancing future doing something for the first time in my life that I love and am looking forward to learning more about. All that’s left to say is thank you Digital Mums, it most definitely has been an adventure.