081: A different way to view (and experience) balance

What if we didn't view balance as something we need to achieve?

The concept of work-life balance is often talked about in a way that’s unhelpful and makes it feel unattainable – especially for business owners. 

Viewing balance in a different way might make it easier to experience.

In the episode, you'll hear about

1. Two unhelpful "facts" about work-life balance that make it seem impossible

2. A different way to view balance that makes it more accessible and easier to create

3. Five things you could consider as ways to increase balance in your life as a business owner

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Show notes

I’ve been hearing a lot of people talk about how work-life balance is a difficult or impossible thing to achieve. There are two main arguments that I’ve seen going around:

1. “It’s hard or impossible to split our time 50/50.”

2. “Keeping business and life completely separate isn’t realistic as a business owner, therefore balance isn’t possible.”

Both of these points are a reflection on how we usually view or define balance; balance is something to achieve or do (“a balancing act”).

Seeing it as something we have to achieve or constantly do can become a source of self-judgment and frustration. Feeling pressure to balance life and work can feel really hard on top of everything else.

But what if we saw balance as something you can experience?

Instead of thinking about balance as something to achieve or do, we can see it as something we can experience and feel.

How do you feel when you feel unbalanced? What does it look like to you?

To me, it feels kind of like wobbling with my feet in two separate boats, like I have to put in a lot of effort to keep both sides of a scale level.

In practice, it shows up when I’m working but feel like there are life things I should be doing, or when I’m away from my desk, but feel like there’s stuff I should be working on. It’s like a constant conflict between what I’m doing and the other things I could be doing.

What does it feel like to be balanced?

To me, it’s kind of like standing on solid ground.

It’s having a certain degree of confidence that I’ve got things under control in both areas (to the degree one can control life and business.) I can stand on one side of the scale without having to worry about the other; I can be present with what I’m doing.

How to experience more balance

When you think about balance as something you can experience, as something you can feel, instead of something you need to make happen by making it fit some rules and definitions, it becomes easier to experience (and feel) more of it.

What helps you experience balance might be very different from what helps me experience balance, but I’ve got 5 ideas to consider:

1 – high-quality hours vs a high quantity of hours

How many hours you spend on your business and life doesn’t matter nearly as much as how you’re spending those hours.

Let’s say you’re going on through a busy week in business, so you don’t have as much time to spend with your partner as you usually do. But if you do spend the limited time you have together in a way that is of high quality to you, it might weigh equally as much.

Similarly, maybe you’ve got things happening in your life and you only have a couple of hours to get work done. Spending that time on your most impactful work helps you make progress.

2 – planning

When you’re clear on when you’ll get your work done, it’s a lot easier to trust that you have time to spend away from the business, too. And it doesn’t hurt to block out your free time in your schedule in addition to planning out your work.

It’s a lot harder to step away from work when your free time isn’t planned for – because there’s always more to do!

3 – being intentionally flexible

Many people I’ve coached are great planners, but they may not always follow through 100% – and can be really hard on themselves when that happens.

When we make plans we’re essentially making a wish that everything will turn out in an ideal way – but once we’re living through it, it might go very differently.

We can learn to plan for some unexpected things; we can try to anticipate what might go wrong, but things still have a tendency to pop up in life – good and bad.

I’ve found that taking a moment to make an intentional decision about what to do when plans change makes me feel so much better about not getting to everything on my list.

4 – setting up systems that support you

You can have things in place in your business that keep it humming along without you having to be present for it 24/7.

For example, I’ve set up my service bookings in a way that I don’t have to be involved in the actual process. When someone goes to my website and books coaching with me, they can pick their call slot, they’re invoiced automatically, they are sent the contract right away, *and* once they’ve signed the contract they’ll also get a link to the questionnaire that I want them to fill out before we get on their first call. This way I don’t need to be involved in the booking process, unless someone has questions.

5 – Boundaries and integration

Some people may very well need clear boundaries between work and life, like clear stop times for the work of the day or having a separate space to do their work – and not going back to the laptop once it’s been closed for the day.

I on the other hand like to blend or integrate work and life a little bit; I think it’s natural and doesn’t take away my feeling of balance as long as I’m making intentional choices.

You could think of this blend or integration as the yin-yang symbol: a circle divided into two swirly halves – and both have a dot of the other in them.

For example, I often listen to work-related podcasts when I’m walking the dog, or I might wanna go to a coffee shop during the weekend to write some podcast scripts because I feel inspired. I’ve worked with clients who are in a completely different time zone than me, so sometimes I’ve responded to a voice note at 9pm.

That being said, I don’t always listen to podcasts when I walk, I don’t always bring work with me when I go to the coffee shop, and I definitely don’t always answer voice notes at 9pm.

The point is, we get to choose what we spend our time on even if it goes against typical boundaries for work-life balance.

To note

Even if you do everything “right” it won’t guarantee that things won't feel unbalanced sometimes.

Life will always bring with it events that can throw things out of balance, plus we move through seasons in our lives and businesses that may require new ways of operating to experience balance.

If you’d like to experience more balance in your life as a business owner, but aren’t sure where to start or how to change things for the better, we can team up and come up with solutions together through my 1:1 coaching. Hop on over to my services page to find out more.