How To Find Work Life Balance With Family And Career

Work life balance is a topic that has been on my mind. But it is an idea that I want to challenge as a rebel mom.

I am thinking about work life balance, writing about how to figure out work life balance, I was even pondering it as I was strolling along the beach collecting shells on our summer vacation.

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There is a whole chapter on just this topic that I am currently writing for my book. To say that I am thinking deeply on the subject is an understatement. I approach almost every topic with the attitude of challenging “the right way” and stress testing it to see if it is actually the best way…like all the gurus say it is.

Then I saw this post in one of my mom groups:

Anyone else constantly feel like they are juggling all the things in life? And I keep feeling like I am always dropping one of the balls. When I am rolling along in my business, I will realize we haven’t done much as a family recently. I can’t seem to keep all the balls in the air and it frustrates me!

If we are honest with ourselves, I think most moms feel this way. We want to be able to keep all the balls in the air, but inevitability we drop one. Then we usually spiral down into a very bad day.

This is a pain point and a major frustration for moms. Especially, if you are working from home. You would expect to be perfectly zen every day, right? I find it is actually harder to find this perfect balance as a work from home mom because you no longer have the clearly defined borders between being in the office and being home. So how do we solve it?

What do We Expect from Work Life Balance?

This is one of those popular social science terms. We toss it around and say it flippantly. But let’s pause for a moment and really consider what it means. What are the results we want from having work life balance?

It is the promise that balance offers that resonates with us. If we could just grasp it and get it figured out then we will be happy and our kids will be happy. Life will be easier. It will be peaceful and serene. We won’t be workaholics, and we will still produce amazing work. If we could just get it, then all of our life’s dreams and goals will be fulfilled. It promises serenity, less work, better relationships, and more time to play.

I don’t know if there is any walking around saying, “I would like my life to be totally chaotic and out of balance. With my kids running wild and everything out of whack. That is living the dream.” Right, no one says that. We are longing for a better way to do this balance thing.

What does balance look like then?

Idea of a Perfectly Balanced Life

Usually, when we talk about work life balance, we think of those perfectly balanced rocks on the beach. But balance can have many different looks—walking a tightrope (this is more the balance of mom life), a teeter totter, or scales. All of these things require two sides to be in perfect equilibrium. At no point can one side tip further than the other. Everything must be equal.

So if we are saying that work and life need to always be equal, because this is balance, it is impossible to do. Then let’s throw in school. Where does that fit? Does it fall under work or life? I’ve never seen a 3-sided scale, so we should probably just add it to the life bucket because if we put it into the work bucket we will tip too far to that side.

If I work 6 hours a day, then I need to do life for 6 hours. We added school, so that is at least 4 hours on the life side. So now homeschool is not work at all but life, even though it really feels more like work. Which side do dishes fall on? I don’t get paid to do it, but it is definitely work.

Or my favorite idea of balance, I saw it in a meme so you know it is serious. It went like this, “Some days we complete all our lessons, read amazing literature, and work at services projects together. Other days we marathon “educational shows,” eat popcorn for dinner, and decide couch jumping counts as P.E. It is called balance.” This is a more accurate picture.

My friends this list can go on. But does this sound like balance to you? It may look like balance—spend 6 hours at work, then 6 hours at life. Let’s take a step back for a moment and ask the hard question, “Is this even possible?” If you are like me then the answer is no it is not possible at all.

At this point, you are either completely discouraged or you are hopeful. Yes, everything that was said should make you hopeful because you are realizing that you haven’t done anything wrong. You’re not a failure at finding balance. You can’t fail at something that doesn’t exist.

Is there another way to get the promise that balance offers?

It is a Journey not a Destination

I am a project oriented person. Working with a specific deadline in mind, accomplishing the goal, and then moving to the next thing is how I like to work. It is just how my brain is wired. So even with life, I break things into projects that are meant to be accomplished and then move on.

Work life balance is no exception. I want to figure it out, accomplish it, and then move on to the next thing.

Maybe because I am in my 40s now, and I have more years to look back and reflect on. But I’ve come to realize that most of life is about the journey, not a destination. I know it sounds so cliché, and I am not a fan of all the clichés. Yet, it is true. Finding balance is about discovering it in the season you are living.

Balance when I have an infant that needs to nurse and doesn’t sleep, looks a lot different than balance with a toddler that is getting into everything. Seriously, if I could just get 5 minutes where she doesn’t move or steals my pens. Balance on a busy day full of activities looks a lot different than on days when nothing is planned. Or days when projects are coming from clients at a rapid pace.

Work life balance is finding calm in the midst of your busyness. Yes, sometimes we need to make it happen and sometimes it just does. It is not filling either side equally, it is living and enjoying your life now.

Or struggling through the day because let’s face it stuff happens and sometimes it isn’t fun. It isn’t fun being pooped on, trying to teach your kid chemistry, or doing both at the same time. Let’s just accept that we will have bad days, and it has nothing to do with being balanced or not.

We will fail at keeping all the balls in the air. Don’t judge your accomplishments through the lens of your failures.

You accomplish a lot in a day, even if you didn’t check everything off your to do list.

Rebel Mom Mode

When I was talking to my husband about this, I do like to talk through my ideas with him. Especially, if I am in rebel mom mode (throwing out the accepted idea of balance is total rebel mom mode). My husband said, “We shouldn’t even use the term balance because it is such a bad analogy. We just need to throw out the whole idea.”

While I do agree with him, it is a bad analogy, I am still going to use the term because we all know what we want when we say balance. But for this rebel mom post, we know that when we say balance we aren’t talking about this perfect place of equilibrium. We are talking about a journey and it is finding those moments of serenity and better relationships in the midst of our crazy. And, I think, most moms can embrace this.

How do We Find Work Life Balance in the Midst of Our Crazy?

We’ve settled that we aren’t going for this equally balanced life. There are crazy busy times and then there are slower times. We are finding balance one day at a time. But there are things that we can do, and should do, to create a peaceful and serene life. There are things that we need to do to invest in our relationships and our health. These things don’t come with a wave of the magic wand (no matter how hard we wish for them).

How you do these things is going to be unique to you. However, there are some general principles that we can all apply.

1. Don’t set goals, create habits

Goals and the popular goal systems really don’t work for moms. I wrote about goals and habits in greater detail. Essentially, goals are just too easy to fail at. Then we go through the mom guilt of not achieving what we wanted to. Even though we followed all the steps to the letter. We still didn’t accomplish our goals.

If you want to find work life balance, create habits instead. Habits become automatic behavior, so you start doing them without thinking. James Clear’s book Atomoic Habits dives into this idea in greater detail. Once the behavior becomes automatic, you start doing it without thinking, then it frees up space in your brain because you aren’t always thinking about it.

With habits you are more than likely to be more consistent. It is easy to commit to something for 5 minutes a day, and work on it in small consistent steps. Instead of committing hours or a whole day to try to achieve your goal. We are moms, we don’t have the luxury of a lot of free hours. But we can easily find 5 minutes.

2. Let go of the perfect

I did mention this in my previous post on how to find the balance between life and work, but the more I read and dive into this topic the more convinced I am that this is the biggest obstacle, especially for moms.

We want our homes to always be guest ready, and our meals to be perfectly balanced and Martha Stewart approved. If you have more than one kid in your home, this just isn’t going to happen. If you want to have work life balance—serene and peaceful life—then let go of the perfect, so you can embrace the good.

3. Accept the slower pace

This is the one that I love to hate because I don’t want to slow down. I want to be able to move at the same pace as I did in my 20s before I had kids. That’s not too much to ask, is it? I want to take on the world and conquer it. That’s what I used to do.

But reality must be faced. I have 6 kids and one is still a toddler. That is a recipe for exhaustion all the time. I am running two businesses. There is an expectation to be fed. I can’t run at the pace I used to run at because I am carrying a heavier load.

If we are going to find balance in life, then we need to accept that we are moving at a slower pace. Everything is going to take longer to accomplish. Here’s the thing, if we can accept it, then we can plan around it. And that will make our habits and goals more easily achievable.

Conclusion: You can have Work Life Balance with Family and Career

It is possible to have work life balance, we just need to change how we view it. What is your rebel mom view of work life balance? Do you accept the idea of the gurus or are you charting your own path?