Three Mistakes You’re Making In Trying To Achieve Work Life Balance

I’ve never believed in work/life balance. Balancing is hard and takes tremendous focus. So instead of using precious energy and focus on maintaining “balance,” I tend to throw out the notion all together.

Especially during this quarantine, women who work full-time are now also full-time caregivers and full-time teachers. I’m watching my business owner friends spiral down into the impossible expectation of “balance” while having very little time to prepare for these new roles. I can confidently tell you that there isn’t one person I’ve spoken to right now who feels they are doing a great job of balancing it all.

Duke University’s Human Resources notes that in addition to the external responsibilities of work and family, there are internal pressures too, including unrealistically high expectations for oneself, poor health habits, negative attitudes and feelings, and ineffective behaviors. To circumvent some of these pressures, it’s best to be aware of common mistakes made while trying to “balance” – whether you’re currently struggling to balance, looking for ways to make your balance more effective, or considering a shift in career or family life that will create the need to balance or even if you need to achieve so-called balance.

Here are three fatal mistakes you should avoid while pondering this.

1. Thinking Every Season Will Require The Same Balances

A common frustration is feeling like the rug is always being pulled out from underneath us – we find a good swing of things for a month or two, then something else comes up. The trick to maintaining your footing isn’t creating one perfect schedule with every hour planned out and sticking to it – it’s learning how to be resilient and adjust when different seasons call for different priorities. For example: maybe a big client at work is requiring longer hours in Q2, or perhaps family responsibilities look different week to week. Rather than becoming attached to one right way to “balance,” seek instead to cultivate resilience and innovation in how you approach all the responsibilities. 

2. Putting Personal Time On The Back Burner

In the midst of so many responsibilities and always packed schedules, it’s often the last thing on our minds to take vacation time or even an afternoon for ourselves. And yet, we need this time off – spiritually, mentally, and physically – to continue on at the same rate of productivity. Project: Time Off’s 2017 report found that employees who don’t use the full extent of their vacation time actually don’t perform as well as those who do – a surprising revelation, considering we often feel pressure to hustle and prove our allegiance to our workplace or companies by never taking a day off unless it’s absolutely imperative. 

Same with our children and our families. If work is taking up a significant chunk of our schedule (late hours, or even a long commute to work and back home), there’s likely a sense of guilt when we aren’t there for the little moments. But, the ability to be present and show up as the best parent, spouse, sibling, child, and friend that we can be requires that we take a minute every now and then to decompress. Of course, there are ways to do this while involving our families: taking a long weekend in nature with the kids, or asking a friend to join for a spa day. Regardless of what it is, personal time must be held as a priority. 

3. Internally Believing You Can’t Have It All

Finally, don’t underestimate the power of personal belief. Penny Karabey, CEO and Creative Director of fashion collective Luxury Next Season, noted that believing that you can indeed “have it all” is a major contributor to finding comfort amongst the chaos of balance. “Work requires a lot of me, but I also find time to dedicate to my husband and my son,” she shared. “Each of us can have it all – as different as it looks depending on our lives and the changing seasons of demands and responsibilities. It’s believing that we ‘can’t’ or internalizing society’s disempowering ideals around women in the workplace that can get in the way.” 

How often do you tell yourself you’re doing a great job? How often do you commend or find satisfaction in the days that DO go smoothly, or how you found a way to dart amongst changing priorities and needs at home or in the workplace? Reminding yourself that you can have it all – and you’re handling the “having it all” in a remarkable and inspiring way – is key to standing in your full authority.  Continue to cultivate this self-appreciation in little ways, even on the hard days.



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