You hear it all the time. Balance. It’s what everyone is looking for. Their ideal “work-life balance.” Searching for that perfect trade-off of work and home. Sounds great, right? Of course it does! So does a unicorn delivering me a million dollars every morning. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened yet. The reason why both of these scenarios sound so magical and wonderful is because they aren’t real. I hate to break it to you, but there is no such thing as a balance to life. You can stop looking, because you won’t find it. It doesn’t exist.
Ok, before you start calling me a liar and stop reading altogether, give me a second to explain what I mean. Now, if you want to get technical, I know on a physical level, yes, balance does exist and is a real thing. (I did go to school). I’m not here to argue that. The balance that I’m talking about is the one where you magically find yourself spending just the right amount of time at work and just the right amount of time at home, and feel completely content and fulfilled. Sounds dreamy, right?
My search for balance
It wasn’t until I had my first daughter that I learned just what everyone was talking about when they were striving for their ideal “work-life balance.” When Kya was born (and for many years before) I worked at a photography studio 30 miles from home. With the traffic, that meant a one hour commute each way. I never saw this as too much of an issue (even though it wasn’t ideal) until I had a baby.
After maternity leave, I headed back to work. I spent 10-11 hours away from home, 5 days a week. It didn’t take long for me to start to feel resentful of my long commute. I hated thinking about all the time I was missing with my little girl. Fast-forward a year and a half later, we added a second little girl to the equation. Heading back to work after having Luna only magnified the fact that I had a serious lack of balance in my life.
Work was becoming more demanding. Traffic had increased, and now I was spending 2.5 hours in the car each day. I would leave early in the morning before the girls were awake, and each day, I would brave the near 1.5 hour long commute home with stress and anxiety. Every day I would try to get home as fast as I could just so I could spend what little time I could with the girls before they went to bed.
It was awful. I wasn’t happy. It felt like I was never fully present at work or at home. I spent my days in a blur, trying to keep up with all of the things, and spreading myself way too thin in the process. Where was this balance that everyone was talking about, and how come I couldn’t seem to find it?
That’s when I started to think that maybe the perfect work-life balance didn’t really exist. In theory, it sounded great, but I just didn’t see how it was possible to achieve in my life. A more appropriate term would be “work-life blend,” but that still didn’t feel totally accurate to me.
The Breaking Point
After dealing with this less-than-ideal situation for 2.5 years, I eventually left my office job to work from home. I hoped that this would be the answer to achieving the balance I was lacking. I was able to spend much more time with my family, which I loved, and I was avoiding the long daily commute. But the work didn’t go away. All I did was trade working in an office for working at home.
I thought this change would have at least helped to offer some balance in my life, but I still felt a lack of balance. No matter what I did, it never seemed to be enough. On days that I worked longer than I planned, I’d feel guilty for not spending enough time with my family, and on days where we left the house to do things together as a family, I felt guilty for not getting enough work done. (What is that?!?)
That’s when I was finally certain that a balance to life didn’t exist. That really didn’t solve my problem, though. Ok, so there’s no such thing as balance. So, am I just supposed to be guilty and upset about it all the time? I had to figure out a way to change how I felt about not being able to achieve the balance I had been searching for.
So if balance doesn’t exist, what do I do?
I’ve always struggled with this concept, but it wasn’t until recently that the non-existence of it was validated to me. A friend of mine had posted a video on Instagram and shared it with me. She’s a mother of three, and her and her husband run their own company. She definitely has a full plate. In the video, she basically said exactly what I always thought. There is no such thing as balance. Ha! I knew it!
What she said next, though, was what made all the difference to me. She said, “In life, you’re not looking for balance, you’re looking for a rhythm.” Yes! So much Yes! A rhythm. Once I thought about it, I realized that she was totally right. I don’t need to beat myself up about spending too much time on one thing, or not enough time on another. I just need to find my rhythm!
There are times in your life when you’re going to have to sacrifice one thing for the other. One is going to have to take precedence over another, and that’s OK. Sometimes you have to focus more on work, and sometimes your attention is needed at home. You don’t have to spend an equal amount of time every day on each area of your life. That’s not possible. You just have to realize that your attention and time are going to fluctuate, and as long as one area isn’t ALWAYS taking priority over another, it’s all OK.
You can’t be amazing at all of the things all of the time, but you can be amazing at all of the things some of the time. Let yourself off the hook, and find your rhythm.
If you or someone you know is looking for “balance,” please share this with them. I hope it will give them a better perspective of what is possible, and the ability to be OK with their choices. And before you get down on yourself for not being as productive as you’d like to be, check out my post titled, “Your worth is not measured by your productivity.”
xo
