Work-Life Balance Is Not A Myth
BUt there’s a method for making it work
Let me guess: you’re reading this because despite your best efforts, you feel consumed by work, even on nights and weekends. You’re constantly ‘on’, never fully present with your partner or kids.
You’re exhausted, reaching your limit.
And burnout is knocking down your door.
You know you can’t go on like this. You know it’s not sustainable. You know you need more balance and…
…you want to have a LIFE!
You also know that having better work-life balance could improve your mood, your energy, and your relationships .
But you’ve tried all the things and you still struggle to get home at a decent hour, find yourself opening up your laptop on Saturdays, and you can’t stop thinking about work when you’re supposed to be off-the-clock.
“My job is different. Maybe balance is just not possible for me,” you think.
Here’s my response: NONSENSE!
Yes, there are employers, companies, and industries where creating healthy work-life balance can be more challenging.
BUT more often than not, there are opportunities for balance that we’re missing. So let’s identify and leverage them.
In this blog post, I’m going to give you my method for creating better work-life balance. It boils down to 4 steps: understand, envision, assess, and act.
Let’s break down how this works….
Step 1: Understand what work-life balance IS- and what it’s NOT
There’s a lot of misconceptions about what work-life balance looks like. And the more you understand what work-life balance is (and what it’s not), the easier it will be to create it.
Work-life “Balance” doesn’t mean 50/50
The first thing you need to know is that work-life balance does not mean you’re spending 50% of your time on work, and 50% on “life”. That might be true in rare cases. But more likely, your work-life balance will shift over time, from one day to the next, and even from one season to the next.
Think about it: some days work needs extra attention. Maybe a big project is due. Or there’s an out-of-town conference to attend. Other days, life will demand more of your energy and time.
This can be true over seasons of life, too. When you’re in the early stages of your career, work may demand more of you, and you may be more willing and able to meet that demand (think about 1st year medical residency, for example). Once you have a family, you’ll probably want and need the pendulum to swing back in the other direction.
You create Your own balance
The second thing to know is that work-life balance is something that YOU create- not something that your job ‘delivers’ to you. Sure, balance may be harder to strike with certain jobs or employers/supervisors. But ultimately, if you’re waiting for someone else to give you permission to create more balance, you’ll be waiting your whole life. YOU need to take back your power.
work-life balance is more than time management
Finally, work-life balance is not just about time management or leaving work at 5pm. If only! Things would be a lot easier and all we’d need is a good calendar system.
Truth is, you’ve probably already heard of all the time-saving and productivity enhancing tips out there. Instead, work-life balance is more about acknowledging your capacity; managing your energy on a physical, mental, and even emotional level; and living in alignment with your core values.
Step 2: Envision what YOU want your work-life balance to look like
We each have our own definition of work-life balance. You need to figure out yours- you need to know what you want, not just what you don’t want.
Me?
1) I want flexibility. I’m ok working weekends if that means I get to surf at 2pm on a Tuesday, when the waves are the best. 2) I want time to take care of me- to eat well, get to the gym, sleep a solid 8 hours, spend quality time with family. And 3) I want to feel ‘internally’ balanced- I want to feel fulfilled with my work. I want my work to mean something.
Another example: my coach. He works 365 days a year, usually following a strict schedule that starts at 4:30am. He likes it that way. He also loves his family and staying healthy, and schedules his work around those things. To him, that is balance.
But what do you want? Try answering these questions:
What would it look and feel like to be “balanced”?
What are your core values? (i.e., values that you’d want to be reflected in the way you work and live your life). What’s most important to you?
If anything were possible, what would be the ultimate vision for your life?
What would your ideal workday look like? Your ideal week? How would you spend your time and energy?
Most of my clients in THRIVE struggle deeply with work-life balance and often find themselves working on weekends (and not feeling happy about it). So we’ll always spend some time figuring out what they really want for their life- what their ‘ideal’ work-life balance would look like. As I think you’ll find, it can actually be quite a challenging exercise!
Step 3: Assess HOw & WHY your current balance is off
Unhappy with your current work-life balance? Once you’ve figured out the gap between your current situation and where you want to go, you need to identify what’s holding you back.
And in my book, it almost always boils down to 2 things:
a) How you’re managing your energy and, to a lesser extent, your time. When you’re low on both, you’ll feel unbalanced, that your work is stressful, and that you’re working all the time.
b) How closely you’re living according to your core values. When you’re living out of alignment, everything will feel off, and no amount of productivity or time-saving hacks will fix it..
Here’s what you need to do:
Identify how you’re currently spending your time and energy on a daily and weekly basis.
Assess what’s draining vs fueling your energy;
Evaluate to what extent you’re currently living in alignment with your core values.
Assess your actual capacity (in terms of energy/time). And from there…
Devise a plan to better manage (distribute) your energy and time, according to your values and capacity.
*Note that when it comes to assessing your energy and time, there are what I call surface-level energy/time drains and deeper energy/time drains.
Both can throw you out of alignment with your values (meaning, they can create a situation where your work/life feels unbalanced and does not reflect your core values or how you want life and work to look and feel). So it’s important to identify both kinds of drains in your daily life.
Unsurprisingly, surface-level energy and time drains are easier to see, both in your work and personal life. For example:
Saying yes when you really want to say no
Taking on tasks/projects that, logically, should be done by someone else
Checking work email after hours- having your work email on your personal phone
Lacking effective routines for productivity
Refusing to delegate - or not asking for support
Deeper time and energy drains take a little more work to acknowledge, and are often the root cause behind your surface-level drains. Examples include:
Perfectionism
People-pleasing
Excessively worrying about what other think (or imposter syndrome)
Deriving your self-worth from your performance or productivity at work
Inability to be fully present- thinking about work when you’re off the clock, and worrying about life when you’re at work
As I said above, the surface-level and deeper drains are usually interconnected. For example, I had a client who was working overtime, struggling to keep up, and also feeling extremely stressed about work. We assessed what was going on, and here’s one thing we discovered:
She was taking on projects that weren’t within her scope of work- and also did not advance her career at all. For example, she’d been helping colleague make powerpoint presentations on a regular basis. She’d say ‘yes’ to helping this colleague whenever they asked (even if she really wanted to say ‘no’).
That was the surface-level drain on both her time and energy.
The deeper issue that was causing her to do this?
She was afraid to say “no” because she enjoyed the feeling of being “helpful” around the office, and she had a tendency- in many areas of her life- to people-please. She didn’t want to rock the boat and worried about how people would perceive her. Being liked was a stronger motivator than protecting her own time and energy. So she had to work through that.
Maybe you can think of some examples like this in your own work/life?
Assessing what’s really going on and fully acknowledging where you’re at are tasks I guide my clients through in THRIVE. Since it can be hard to figure all this out just by ‘thinking’ or even talking it through in a private coaching session, I provide my clients more structured exercises that help them do this work and get really honest with themselves about where they’re at - so they can make the best choices about how to change their situation.
Step 4: Action - Use the RIGHT tools to achieve the balance YOU want
It feels a little disingenuous calling this a “step” because it’s more like an ongoing process of tweaking your life, your habits, and your mindset to create the work-life balance that’ll help you feel balanced.
In THRIVE I help my clients identify the right steps and the right time to take them, and brainstorm how to carry them out. If only there were a one one-size-fits-all answer!
That said, below are some of the kinds of tools, strategies, and mindset shifts that can help plug up common energy and time drains and create your ultimate work-life balance. I’m phrasing them as questions that you’d want to ask yourself, to help you figure out which ones are right for you.
To plug surface-level drains on your energy and time, ask yourself these questions like these:
Do you need to optimize your work routines and habits? (for example, strategically organizing your workday, blocking out time for uninterrupted deep work first thing in the morning, when you have the most energy…)
Do you need an end-of-day shutdown ritual to help your brain turn off from work?
Do you need to set better boundaries with colleagues, staff, and your time?
Do you need to delegate more (or more effectively)?
Do you need to prioritize better? For instance…
When you get to work in the morning, do you focus on what really moves the needle? Or are you constantly putting out fires?
Are you focused on what YOU and ONLY you can do best? Or are you taking on other people’s responsibilities?
To plug DEEPER energy and time drains, begin by asking yourself:
Do you need to train your nervous system to be “ok” with spending less time and energy on work?
Do you need to schedule in time for true rest and recovery?
Do you need more FUN in your life so you have something to look forward to beyond work?
Do you need to work on your relationship with work? Do you derive your sense of identity and self-worth from your work?
Do you need to practice doing “imperfect” work- and being ok with it?
Do you need to let go of the need to please or help others?
Is FEAR keeping you stuck in habits that add more work to your plate?
In THRIVE I support women with both surface-level and deeper-level approaches to plugging energy/time drains and achieving work-life balance that feels good. Truth is, you need to do what works for you.
Even with simple things, like daily work routines (the kind you’ll find if you Google “productivity tips”), it can be challenging to know where to start, or what’ll really work for your situation.
With the deeper stuff, it’s even harder to figure it all out on your own. I find that my clients often already know that they’re perfectionists or have a hard time saying ‘no’, for example. But they don’t know how to break those habits- even though, in the rational part of their brain, they really want to do it! We’ll work through this in 1-1 coaching, using tools like structured journaling, somatics, and specific action steps, tailored to their situation.
For example, when it comes to saying no or setting boundaries more generally, together we’ll brainstorm how to start doing that- often down to very specific details- and how to work through the discomfort that naturally pops up when you set a new boundary with someone. (Because discomfort is why you’ve been avoiding doing it!)
And in all cases, this is an ongoing process of stretching the limits of what feels ‘comfortable,’ and stepping into a the next-level version of yourself.
“But… I’m afraid work-life balance is actually going to hurt my career. What do I do?”
This is a very common fear that keeps too many women stuck, burnt out, working too many hours, and never really living their lives.
You probably have one of the following stories running through your head:
I can’t possibly have a life and also succeed at work.
If I pull back even a little at work, everything will fall apart and I’ll be blamed.
People are going to see me as lazy and uncommitted if I don’t respond immediately and on nights and weekends.
These thoughts are a completely normal reaction to possible change and uncertainty.
Truth is, you’ll never know exactly what will happen if you (for example) say “no” to that coworker, or stop responding to emails after hours. Because of that, your brain will try to keep you “safe” by making up all these stories about ‘what might happen”. These stories hold you back from creating the life you really want.
So you have a CHOICE. You can listen to those stories and let them control you.
OR:
You can choose to change the story in your mind to one that’s more empowering:
I can desire a life outside of work and care deeply about my job.
I’m more focused and creative- and more productive- when I give myself permission to take time to rest and recharge.
People with work-life balance are more effective in their careers.
Oh and by the way, these alternate stories are grounded in evidence! You will absolutely be more focused, a more creative problem-solver, and more productive if you’re fully rested in body, mind, and spirit (instead of exhausted and in constant fight-or-flight).
You can also choose to take scary action and see what happens. Both of these things- changing your actions, and changing your thoughts- are important tools to help you move forward.
If you want a more balanced life is possible- you can create it
I believe this 110%. Better work-life balance is available to you- but it won’t magically appear. You need to take action to create it.
That means getting really clear on what balance means, looks like, and feels like to YOU. Identifying what’s currently in your way - what’s draining your energy and time, and where you’re living out of alignment with your values. And finally, taking action, even when it’s scary.
Working your life away can be a thing of the past! Missing family dinner every night and putting the gym on the back burner can be things of the past! Struggling through the workday unfocused and unproductive can be a thing of the past, too!
You’ve got this.
Ready to REbalance your work and life?
Then THRIVE was created for YOU.
THRIVE is my 1-1 private coaching program designed to help high-achieving women like you heal burnout without taking a step back in your career.
I’ll guide you step-by-step to create the work-life balance you desire using my signature THRIVE approach. Click below to learn more:
