Work-Life Balance: It’s a Journey, Not a Destination
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Work-Life Balance: It’s a Journey, Not a Destination
How do you know when you’ve achieved work-life balance?
I’ve heard this question time and time again from women who have attended my in-person workshops.
The answer?
You don’t.
You don’t “achieve” work-life balance. It is not some end-goal that you will wake up one day having achieved, never to be thought of again. It’s a journey.
Work-life balance results from us being satisfied and competent in the various roles we play (e.g., wife, mother, employee, sister, friend, etc.) and living in accordance with our personal values. The thing is, those roles can change over our lifetime. As we learn and grow, we become more competent in those roles - sometimes to the extent that we get bored in them and want something new; something more challenging. Further, as life goes on, our personal values may shift. What is of the utmost importance now may not be as important to you in 5, 10, or 20 years.
You see, as much as you and I love to cross items off our to-do list, work-life balance is not one of those things. We can’t simply put a check next to it. At it’s essence, work-life balance is really just life. And the only way to experience a sense of balance at any given time is to get really intentional about it - designing lives we love to live; lives based on our dreams. But notice that word “design”, balance is not something that will happen by accident. It takes intentional action on your part.
I’ve spent the past two years writing and teaching about work-life balance on this platform. But what I haven’t done in the last 66 blog posts is share my own journey towards an elegantly balanced life. So today, I’m pulling back the curtain and giving you a peek into my life and how I got to this place - a place where despite the fact that my life isn’t perfectly put together and can sometimes even get a bit unbalanced - I feel confident enough to teach a community of women how to join me on the journey of creating better balanced lives for themselves. In reflecting on my life, I’ve identified six key moments in my journey which taught me important lessons and I’d like to share them with you now in the hopes that we can speed up the learning process for you!
Key Moments in my Work-Life Balance Journey
Watching My Mom
My introduction to work-life balance happened early in my life. I am the oldest of four kids and I can remember my mom working full-time, studying for her MBA, and raising us kids. Honestly, this is what peaked my interest in this topic and a main driver behind why I chose to study the work-family interface in graduate school.
I learned a lot by watching my mom navigate work and life. In fact, I could probably do an entire blog post on those lessons alone! She taught me things that I wanted to include in my own work-life balance (e.g., spending quality time with my kids, living out my Christian faith at home and at work, and utilizing the social support network that God has given me). Yet, watching her juggle all the things also taught me what I didn’t want (e.g., to hold myself to a standard of perfection or to say yes to every opportunity that comes my way).
But the biggest lesson she taught me?
That my daughter is watching me and taking notes about how I navigate work and life. And if that isn’t motivation to get intentional and to create a life I love - one that I get to share with my daughter - I don’t know what is.
Realizing How Short Life Is
The second key moment in my life that looking back now, I can see was pivotal in my approach to work-life balance was during my senior year of high school. I know what you’re thinking - “How can you have a pivotal work-life balance moment when you’re not even part of the workforce yet!?!”
Well, my senior year of high school, just a few months after my 18th birthday, I got sick. And not just a normal stomach bug… I got really sick. You see, what began as the normal flu quickly escalated into pneumonia and before I knew it, I was hospitalized and diagnosed with a staph infection in my lung. I spent two weeks in the hospital as doctors tried to treat me. We went through multiple treatments and medicines before they finally had to operate and remove that section of my lung. Throughout those two weeks there were a few times when I wasn’t sure (and neither were the doctors) whether I was going to make it.
This experience taught me that we are never promised tomorrow. It taught me to embrace even the smallest joys that life has to offer - warm sunshine on my face, an embrace from someone I love, the chance to sing Broadway tunes in the shower - nothing is too small to be cherished and enjoyed! In terms of intentional living, I’ve learned to make plans and set goals but simultaneously to hold them loosely. I’ve learned to strive to make each day count instead of going through the motions. Finally, I’ve learned that it’s not really that difficult or complicated to sprinkle bits of joy and beauty throughout the day. Because who knows? It might be my last.
Moving Away From Family & Friends
The next pivotal moment in my work-life balance journey was when my husband and I picked up and left everyone we had ever known to move from Illinois to Florida. This season in life forced us to 1) learn to lean on and support one another and 2) that social support networks (a key resource when it comes to work-life balance) can be built when you intentionally pursue it.
My husband and I are both introverts, so putting ourselves out there was a major challenge, but one that I’m so grateful that we tackled head-on. During those first few months in Tallahassee, we said “yes” to every invitation we received, we attended new churches each Sunday until we found one, and we even joined a community group at church before knowing anyone else in the group.
Was it easy?
No, definitely not. There were several times when we would much rather had stayed home in our pj’s and watched “How I Met Your Mother" on Netflix.
Was it worth it?
Yes. 1000x yes! At the end of our four years in Tallahassee, we had built a community of friends willing to live life with us. They celebrated the birth of our son by bringing food and gifts and they offered a warm embrace after both of our miscarriages. We laughed. We cried. We played a lot of board games. And most importantly, we felt loved.
The lesson learned here was that it truly does take a village. And if you don’t have a village, that’s okay. You can start building one, one relationship at a time.
4. Becoming a Mom
I bet you never saw this one coming! Becoming a mother for the first time was another key moment in my work-life balance journey. My son was born during the second year of my PhD program (an incredibly stressful time; in fact, I wrote a dissertation about it!).
The birth of my son was truly the point in my life where my interest in the work-family interface went from pure curiosity to a need to know how to do this well.
I look back at this time as the season in my life that taught me the incredible value of time management and deep, focused work. I no longer had the freedom (nor the desire) to work a 12-hour day. I had to figure out how to squeeze my work into as little time as possible so that I could be home with my new baby. The craziest part is that I soon realized that I could accomplish almost as much work in a focused block of 4 hours as I could in 12 hours!
Another important lesson from this season was that our personal values can change.
Remember - personal values are a key aspect of work-life balance. They’re also one of the reasons that balance is a journey not a destination where we someday arrive. They change throughout our lives. When my son was born, suddenly my work and my career goals didn’t seem as important as they once did. This led to a shift in how I defined my ideal work-life balance. Balance is dynamic. You can (and probably will) change your mind.
5. Letting Go Of Stuff
I love minimalism and living in a tidy house! However, this hasn’t always been the case. In college, one of my goals was to own a pair of heels in every color of the rainbow… Not exactly a minimalist mindset. My first encounter with minimalism was while nursing my son and scrolling through Netflix. I landed on a film entitled “Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things.”
There I sat in our 800 square-foot apartment. I remember looking around and realizing that the majority of stuff in our home wasn’t necessary. We had just returned from a trip to Illinois for my son’s birthday and several family Christmas celebrations, which left my son’s room bursting at the seams with clothes, toys, and books. But he was only 2 and just as happy playing with a toilet paper roll as he was with his new gifts. I remember feeling overwhelmed by it all… There was so much to pick up, find a place to store, and make decisions about. It was a burden and it felt like I was carrying all our stuff on my shoulders.
So the concept of minimalism intrigued me. I had never enjoyed knick-knacks but I’d also never been given the permission to own one pair of jeans. So, I started purging. It took several rounds of decluttering (we had a lot of stuff) but with each trip to Goodwill, I felt that burden get lighter and lighter.
Why does letting go of stuff matter?
For one, research has shown that the number of items in a woman’s house is positively correlated with her stress level. Put another way, more stuff = more stress.
But why is that the case?
When you have fewer things, you have fewer things to clean, maintain, and pick-up. You also have fewer decisions to make due to limited choices. This gives you back some valuable time, energy, and money to use on something that really is important to you.
I have found that to be the case in my life. Which is why we strive for, what I like to call, comfortable minimalism in our home. It’s also why I see minimalism as being a key player in my work-life balance journey.
6. Getting Intentional
I’m sure I will learn more lessons during my work-life balance journey. But for now, the final pivotal moment in my life was realizing that I had the power to create the life I’ve always wanted to live.
During maternity leave with my daughter, I read the book “Designing Your Life". Up until this point, I hadn’t given much thought to intentionality. Sure, I had dreams for my life - I’l love to have a blog, remodel a home (when in Waco?!?), travel the world with my family - but those were things that other people did. Not me. Right?
Wrong!
Other people did those things because they decided to do those things!
You would not be reading this if I hadn’t had this epiphany.
So, my husband and I sat down and talked about the goals we had for our family. Then we made a plan to work towards them. Today, we live in a 1958 mid-century modern home that we’ve spent the last three years remodeling. You’re reading my blog that I so desperately wanted to start. We’ve taken the kids to Mexico and have trips to Australia and France planned over the next few years.
Turns out it’s not just other people. We just had to get intentional about defining what we wanted and then take action to get us there. And when you’re spending your valuable resources of time, energy, and money on your dreams, you end up experiencing a much greater sense of balance.
When you think about your own work-life balance journey, what were some key moments in your life?
Before I leave you, sweet friend, I wanted to share a tool with you that will help you stay on track during this journey towards an elegant balance!
During graduate school, I started a weekly planning routine where I would sit down each Sunday and plan out when I would tackle the various responsibilities coming up in the next week. This practice was so effective - I mean it helped me complete a PhD program in 4 years while having a baby kind of effective - that I have continued using it over the past 10 years.
I’ve created a brand-new weekly planning training to teach you exactly how I plan my week. It’s a FREE 15-minute video training and I know you’re going to love it! You can get it here!
If you’re interested in creating a work-life balance characterized by simplicity, joy, and beauty, why don’t you start by checking out my Elegant Balance Workbook? In it, I help you define what work-life balance looks like for you and share some tips on creating that balance. I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it – Balance doesn’t happen by accident.