Early in my career, I was surrounded by amazing women who taught me about the world of business, finance, and life. Amazing women who filled the role of mentors as they carried the title of manager or boss. As a twenty-something newlywed, eager to take on the world, I was clueless about the cost to make a difference and do great things. Growing up in a generation that taught women they could be anything, do anything, achieve anything, and still have a family and a home; the expectations felt high. We also live in an economy that often demands two incomes to get ahead (or even just survive), faced with few options; we attempt to have it all, career success, and family success.
One day, a fantastic mentor friend told me something to the effect of “We can have it all, Career and Family. We just can’t have it all on the same day.” Some days we might hit a home run at the office but overreact and yell at our kids when we get home. Other days we nail family dinner but leave work with a stack of incomplete tasks and looming deadlines. We can have the skills to be a great parent and a great employee, yet there are only so many hours in a day and so much mental and emotional capacity. Which generally means we can not be great at everything all the time every day of the week.
We can have it all, Career and Family.
We just can’t have it all on the same day.
As many of us find ourselves working from home or heading back to work, managing adjusted school systems with our children schooling at home or hybrid models, how do we find balance in a world that currently seems so out of balance?
Let’s start by acknowledging that we can not be all things to all the people. And that is OK. We do not have to be. Often we get frustrated because we set our expectations at a level that is impossible to meet. Let’s give ourselves some grace and set some manageable goals.
Rhythms are crucial in helping us to be proactive versus reactive. Taking some time to establish healthy rhythms can be difficult when we already feel overwhelmed and behind, but it can be life-changing once we start practicing routines. Let’s think about how our rhythms are working for us, and if they are not, let’s change them.
Myself, I have found scheduling Focus Days to be life-giving. Emily P Freeman, the author of The Next Right Thing book, shared her use of Theme days to manage all the different aspects of her work. While my theme days do not look the same as Emily’s, this idea has served me well as I plan out my week ahead and give each day a focus. One day might be food prep for our weekly meals or baking, another day laundry. Looking at the tasks I want to accomplish that week and pairing them on similar days is helpful. I am not transitioning from paying bills to mopping floors. Instead, I am paying bills, making phone calls, and cleaning out my email inbox on the same day. Let’s look at ways we can work smarter, more efficiently in our days.
There is a business model that says you should overestimate how long it will take you to do a job and then impress your client by getting the job done in less time. Things always take us longer than we think they will; it’s just life. For some reason, we still like to write long lists and tell ourselves we can get it all done today. Then walk around, feeling as if we failed when we don’t have all our tasks checked off. Taking the business model of overestimating, I like to write lists of the things I need to get done. Then combine that with my focus days only put the priority items (have to do) on my daily planner. If I get those done and have time, I can go to my list and handle more. Let’s set more realistic goals; knowing life is full of unexpected. Then impress ourselves when we get more done.
As a planner, I sometimes struggle with spontaneous. Add a child into unplanned situations, and it can make someone like me go crazy. I knew I did not want to miss out on living life and wanted to enjoy the moments, so I decided to plan to be flexible. When the kids were little, it looked like restocking the diaper bag with supplies when we came home, so we were ready at a moment’s notice to go out. As they got a little older, it was extra clothes, towels, snacks in the car. We could stop at the park to play after preschool without worrying about getting dirty, getting hangry, and just enjoy the moment. I still very much use the concept of flexible planning when it comes to activities, meal planning, and my task list. I almost always have a plan with a side of flexibility, aka a back-up plan for those crazy, unexpected days. Think ahead about some of those stressful trigger situations. Let’s preplan ideas that might save us from the stress of the unplanned moments.
Have a plan with a side of flexibility,
aka a back-up plan for those crazy, unexpected days.
Don’t let your personal goals always be what suffers. When the days get crazy, we tend to eliminate the things we need the most. We skip our workout time, meals, rest, reading, and all the activities that keep us fueled and our emotional buckets full. This practice has been a bad habit of mine for years. Being a task-focused person, I tend to find it easy to skip meals in favor of getting things done. While I may get a lot done, I am also hangry and not handling life well. This bad habit mostly impacts my interactions with my family and not in the right way. If we don’t take care of ourselves, we can not care for our families well. Let’s keep our physical, spiritual, and emotional tanks full, so we can care well for the people that matter most in our lives.
Take time in seasons of transition to reflect before moving forward. It is easy to set up rhythms and routines that become habits. We do things because we have always done them. But life is constantly changing. It’s essential to notice as seasons of life change so we can adjust our rhythms to help us operate best in the next season. As we look to start back to school virtually this year, our regular school year routines may need to be adjusted. As we’ve been home, we’ve recognized benefits in a less cluttered calendar and want to carry a few new rhythms with us into this next season. Let’s pause to reflect and make sure we are not just doing what we’ve always done but rather what works best.
What matters most? A question often answered with God, Family, and Friends. Let’s take a minute and think about our pre-pandemic life calendar. If these things are common answers, how is that reflected in our schedule? There are certain things like work that we may not have much control over. When it comes to what we can control, Let’s consider using the filter of what matters most to decide what we say yes to and how we invest our time?
With different skills, capacities, and priorities a balanced life doesn’t look the same for everyone. What fills my emotional bucket might empty yours. It is important not to compare ourselves with others when seeking to find balance in our lives. Learning from others, taking what works best for you from a situation, and applying it is helpful, attempting to recreate someone else’s balanced life, not so much. These eight reflections shared are lessons learned over the years, after trying different things and learning what works and what doesn’t. Every life stage has other challenges, and next year we might find a new process is needed. As we seek to live this one life we have well, let’s give ourselves and others much needed grace.
