Ideally, being an entrepreneur gives you flexibility to schedule your work life around home life and vice versa. But in reality, instead of the elusive work-life balance, it often looks more like trying to be everything to everybody all day. Is work-life balance even possible?
In this episode, Pam and Teri challenge the notion that balance is possible. Instead, we talk about managing all our various roles, defeating guilt, setting boundaries, and finding a happy medium where we take care of ourselves, our businesses, and our families.
Do you think balance is possible? What steps have you taken in your life and business to find a happy medium? Comment below and let us know!
What We Talked About
- Balancing work and home life: Is it possible? [00:00]
- Managing a woman’s many roles and guilt over not fulfilling them all perfectly [05:48]
- Setting boundaries with between work time and family time [09:28]
- Managing business and adult relationships [15:50]
- The importance of surrounding yourself with supportive people [19:22]
- Taking care of yourself to avoid burnout [22:44]
- If balance doesn’t exist, what do we pursue instead? [23:20]
- This or that: Rich and famous or rich and unknown? [24:52]
Key Insights
- I think what we really need to look at is managing home and life, rather than balance, becuase there’s always going to be one that is taking precedence over the other at any particular time of day or season in life. – Pam
- I thought about that too, about how grace fits into all of this. We can’t be everything to everybody all day. And I think the beauty of kids is that when you say to them, “I can’t do that today. You’re going to have to figure this out,” it actually is a gift we’re giving to them to be like, “I’m not here to solve whatever is going on with you. I will help you but I’ve got to then get back to work. this is my priority right now.” – Teri
- If you can do what you can do to be present in those moments that you’re like, “Okay. This is the time that I’m going to be in the mom space. This is the time that I’m here with you. We’re cooking meals together. We’re hanging out, doing homework, having movie night,” whatever. Working really hard to be present in those moments so that they don’t feel like they do come second all the time to your work. – Pam
- To have a happy medium in all this, it really, I think, is the best of both worlds if you really can build relationships with people around you where you feel supported in what you’re doing. – Teri
- You have to have boundaries on all this to keep the happy medium of work, and life, and family. And then somewhere, you have to put yourself in, which I think probably is super hard for most of us. But the truth is, if you get really burnt out, it’s going to come across everything. Not only are you not going to feel balanced, you’re going to feel very unbalanced and very just not okay. – Teri
- Let’s stop requiring ourselves to do things that are not possible, and let’s do the things that are possible, and then give ourself, like you said, grace to just be human, and to live, not balanced but not unbalanced. – Pam
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