Is Better Work Life Balance Possible?

Things I’ve heard recently from friends or acquaintances when it comes to better work-life balance.

“You seem to have this whole work/life balance all figured out. It must be awesome to make your own schedule.”

“I want to be you when I grow up. You do things like go out with your girlfriends regularly {even overnight!} and have time to workout. How do you even do these things when you’re a mom and own a business?”

Welp…

Tell you what, it’s not luck, and it’s not easy. In fact, this is all hard work. And despite how things may sometimes appear on Instagram, I do not have the so-called work-life balance thing all figured out.

I was tempted to say work-life balance doesn’t exist, but I think it can exist if we change the way we look at it. Work-life balance isn’t actually something you achieve. You can’t determine a straight path and go right there. There’s no finish line. Instead, work-life balance is similar to fitness in that it’s a journey. The one constant will be change.

That said, I’ll do my best to give you some ideas how to help you enjoy the journey as you work towards the better work-life balance we’re all trying to figure out.

The journey involving better work-life balance will be hard.

Here are a few reasons why I personally find it challenging.

This parenting thing is hard. In fact, it’s harder than I thought it would be. {Also, love this recent post from Courtney: Why is Everyone Else Making it Look So Easy? specific to parenting.}

Maintaining a healthy relationship with my husband can be hard. There are weeks we feel more like business partners or ships passing in the night. And other weeks where we see each other a ton, love each other’s company and remember why we’ve been married for almost 10 years.

Running a business comes with new challenges every single day. Some expected and some wilder than you’d imagine. It’s fun, but don’t think for one day I pick and choose my exact hours. Things come up and I often work way more than it might appear.

Training is fun for me, but there are absolutely days when I don’t want to {my kid wakes up at night too} or have a much harder time finding the time than others {we haven’t had a full week of school yet since before Christmas.}

Eating healthy most of the time is not what I’d classify as hard for me anymore, but you better believe I had some dark times just like everyone else. I struggled with body image and I’m overly familiar with the binge and restrict cycle. It took time and a lot of hard work to put habits into place to make eating healthy feel easy. Don’t even get me started on my gut health. It’s still a battle I’m fighting and I almost didn’t post my insta-story Connor took of me yesterday bc I looked preggo and didn’t wanna start any rumors. {I’m not.}

Lastly, it’s really tough to find time to get together with girlfriends. We’re all busy. Most of my friends have kids, activities, jobs and other friends. Finding times that work for everyone can be tricky. Most of the time it actually requires putting things on the calendar weeks (sometimes months) in advance. All of the time it requires asking for help and being specific about what I need.

Here are 13 things to keep in mind on this never-ending journey to find your own better work-life balance.

Or at least some ways to chill out, knowing what you’re feeling and going through is NORMAL. This is geared towards working moms, but many points apply to everyone.

1. Realize that someone else’s ideal work-life balance is not the same as yours. And that yours is not going to be the same forever. And that what you think it “should” look like, might not even feel right once you put it into place. Be patient and know that most things are not permanent when it comes to work-life balance. It’s a steady stream of change.

2. Know that it’s not going to look or feel balanced all the time. In fact, most of the time you will likely feel like a hot mess. I’ve found this to be particularly true if you have kids. Most days I feel like I’m working too much and not focused enough on my kids. Sometimes the opposite is true when my kids are sick or I’m in super mom mode and not responding as quickly to my clients.

3. Exercise, walk and recover like a boss. Ugh, I know. That’s a lot for just one bullet point, right? My point here is that you need to make time to feel good. You need to nourish your body, mind and soul if you really want to come close to achieving some type of work-life balance.

Ideally most of you would benefit from something like 3 strength training days, a conditioning day or two, a daily walk and 7-9 hours of sleep. If that’s not possible…and it won’t be for many of you where you’re at right now, what IS possible? Focus on doing a little better than before. Which brings me to #4.

4. Start with small changes. Maybe you’re feeling super crazy out of balance right now. For example, you’re working way too much or not nearly enough. Don’t stress and try to change your whole schedule at once. Instead make small changes and see how it goes.

Maybe you need a bit more time to work so you don’t feel as overwhelmed. Can you hire a babysitter a few hours a week to start? If it’s working out well, maybe you’ll have the sitter pick up a few more hours. Perhaps babysitters aren’t an option for one reason or another. Can you ask your spouse or another family member to take charge one day or night a week so you can carve out a few hours of focused time?

If you’re feeling like you work too much and want to give more focused attention to your kids, make small changes there too. If you’re addicted to your phone, can you lock it in your room for a few hours every day so you focus more on your kids and less on your work? Start small. It doesn’t mean you need to put your prize possession away from 3pm on every day or all weekend long. That will just feel like a huge punishment and I bet you’ll end up taking it out on your kids. Baby steps. A few hours here and there and be proud that you’re making strides. This one is a struggle in our house.

5. Structure your day so it’s actually possible to fit your priorities into your life. I’d recommend making time for your family, friends, work and health {mental, physical and spiritual}. And not necessarily in that order.

The best time to exercise is when you’ll actually do it. It doesn’t matter much physiologically if it’s day or night. It matters that you get it done. Work-wise, the best time to work on creative projects is when you are able to focus and when you feel your best/most energetic. For many people that is the morning, but, like all things, you do you.

6. Set some work/family boundaries. …but be okay with the idea that these boundaries will not always be set in stone. Give yourself a little wiggle room, especially if you love your job or own your own business. Your kids just might benefit from seeing you work hard. I saw my parents work their butts off for years and you know what? I respected them so much for that. My kids are young, but they already understand why we work, and how it benefits them. 😉

One of my own boundaries is that I’ll close my computer as soon as my son gets home either on Tuesday or Thursday. These are the two afternoons I’m home with my older son alone. If I have to work the other afternoon that’s okay. Sometimes I end up working both if there’s a deadline to meet or I’ve taken time off. Other times I’ll focus on my son more and close that computer both days. It’s all good. Right now we have swim lessons which actually helps with cementing this habit because we leave the house that afternoon.

7. Ditch stereotypical roles… or don’t. Listen, I don’t think many people expect women to be June Cleaver anymore, but I do think there are still a lot of people who grew up with mom doing all or most of the cooking, laundry, cleaning, chauffeuring the kids, etc. while dad was at work. That doesn’t mean it has to be that way in your house. Or maybe it’s what works best for you right now. Communicate with your spouse about who’s in charge of what duties. Come to an agreement. Sure, it might be a tough conversation at first, but it will help both of you know what’s expected of you and what you expect of each other. Expectations matter.

7. Delegate. Ugh. I suck at this one. Think about what you’re really good at and what you enjoy doing. If something you’re doing doesn’t fall into either of those categories, can you delegate it to someone else? Can you ask coworkers or assistants at work to take on some of your roles? Can you hire a house cleaner, landscaper, babysitter, etc. for home and childcare? Do the things you enjoy, the things you’re good {or the things that make you the most money}.

9. Drink more wine. {Kidding, but only kind of.} I forget where I heard this because I am constantly listening to books and podcasts, but sometimes if you are super type A and set on perfection, you just go go go go. You say no to all social invites because of werk, werk, werk as Rhianna would say. Sometimes the fulfillment you get from a night out connecting with friends, family or coworkers is so very worth a break in your rigid routine. This is a balancing act. Obviously you don’t want to say yes to going out for drinks every night, but you don’t want to be so rigid that you miss out on enjoying life either. That is not balance.

10. Be a quitter. You know we all have the same 24 hours in each day. Right now you probably have your routines pretty well set, whether you are consciously aware of all of them or not. Remember, it’s okay to quit something in order to make room for something else. In fact, unless you have a lot of downtime in your days right now you’re probably going to have to quit things every now and then to make room for something else that’s a priority.

12. Do work you love and realize that most of the time there is no REAL work-life balance. Like I said above, this journey towards work-life balance is ongoing. It’s likely that if you do work you love you’ll end up with a lot of intermingling between your work and home life. That’s okay and generally accepted in today’s world.

Maybe you just need to give yourself a break and allow more gray area between your work and home life for now. This all depends on where you are in your journey. My work and home life are pretty much one and the same a lot of time and I’m okay with it. Sure, I work to separate when possible, but I’m learning not to stress. It’s okay if my kids know I need to send an email or make a quick phone call. I am creating independent/grateful kids. At least that’s what I’ll tell myself for now. 😉