Don’t Buy Into the B.S. of Work/Life Balance

Last week was perfectly designed to make me feel like I was failing in the most critical roles in my life. My 16-year-old daughter plays competitive volleyball and traveled to New Orleans for a national tournament; lots of college recruiters, super competitive teams, and tons of pressure. Of course, at the same time, a critical client was holding an important planning meeting with members who flew in from offices nationwide and needed me to attend. Saying yes to one meant saying no to the other leaving me with the impossible choice: do I choose my job, or do I choose my family?

Now that I’ve been in demanding jobs and “momming” at the same time for more than twenty years, I can look back on countless scenarios like the one I experienced last week. For years I attended workshops and read articles to learn how I could achieve “work/life balance.” Despite my best efforts I spent half of my working life feeling guilty, certain that I’m disappointing someone. What’s ironic is that in addition to the guilt I felt about not giving enough to my work teams, friends, community, health, and family, I also felt like a failure because I couldn’t attain this seemingly obvious accomplishment that so many experts were writing about – the ever elusive “work/life balance.”

In my 10 years of coaching, most clients also struggled at some point with this same thing and many of them even changed jobs in an effort to find it. After a few years of managing my own quest toward work and life integration, I realized that I hadn’t met a single person – not even one – who actually achieved sustainable and ongoing “balance” in all the areas of their lives. Then it hit me: The problem isn’t that we need to work harder to find balance, it’s that we ever believed there was such a thing in the first place! Below are a few realizations that have helped me make peace with my competing priorities:

Wherever I go, there I am. Sometimes I daydream about having a job where I have less responsibility, like making pizza. But then I remember that like most people in our industry, I’m an overachiever and always have been. Chances are that after the first hour of thoughtfully placing pepperoni, I’d probably get bored and offer to help the owner reorganize their toppings for a more efficient system or offer to revise their training program to provide better customer service. My tendencies of overcommitting have been consistent throughout my life and have had little or nothing to do with where I worked.

I can have it all, but I can’t have it all at the same time. Most of the chaotic times in my life, both at home and at work, tend to run in seasons and most of those seasons last 8-12 weeks. I give myself permission to focus more of my time and energy in one area of my life for a season, like work during busy periods, and then intentionally shift my attention to focus on family relationships for the next season. At the start of each chaotic season, I list out all the key roles or priorities in my life (mom, spouse, business leader, mentor/supervisor, friend, fitness focused human, community member, etc.). I commit vigorously to the top 1-2 and give myself grace to focus more on the others during a different season. It’s not as if there is zero attention paid to the items that didn’t make the top two, I just work to schedule significant commitments of my time in the seasons when it matters most. This process has relieved stress and has prevented me from overcommitting.

I will find work/life balance the same day I see Bigfoot. I’ve stopped searching for both. My goal is no longer to be balanced equally, but to appreciate how the bold, rich, and meaningful experiences I have in one area of my life fuels me to be better in all the others.

Stay boundless,

Danielle