There is the odd time in life when you're thriving in all areas: friendships, family, relationship, work, finances, personal and spiritual growth, health and hobbies.
But most of the time, I believe a lot of people and business owners are stressed because they hold the unrealistic (and usually unconscious) expectation that we can and should be thriving in all of those areas at once, all of the time. So when we're not, we guilt, pressure and beat ourselves up about it.
We compare ourselves to Nancy on Instagram with the six figure launch and the perfect husband and the daily workout routine and the 3 kids and meal prep and the daily Instagram reels and the 5 books she somehow manages to read each month.
We keep living in silent expectation that one day we will reach a place where we'll just Have It All Figured Out and every area of our lives will perfectly align.
We keep trying to cram our schedule with things that will help us reach our many goals in our many areas of life so we can finally feel like we're living our best lives…
And wonder why we feel overwhelmed.
The truth is… work life balance is a myth. We can’t balance every aspect of our lives, at all times. If we could, we’d all be perfect.
Really, work/life balance is about choosing what your priorities are and giving yourself permission to drop the other things for now. Just until you have the space to pick them up again.
Let's discuss replacing the elusive quest for work/life balance with radical prioritization instead. Tune in to learn more!
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Transcript
Something I've learnt over the years is that there's no such thing as work/life balance, but the truth is way more liberating.
There's the odd time in life when you're thriving in all areas: friendship, family, work, finances, personal and spiritual growth, health and hobbies. But most of the time, the reason we feel stressed is because we hold the unrealistic expectation that we can and should be thriving in all of those areas at once, all of the time. So when we're not, we guilt, pressure and berate ourselves.
We compare ourselves to Nancy on Instagram with the six figure launch and the perfect husband and the daily workout routine and the three kids and the 5 books she somehow manages to read each month.
We keep living in silent, unconscious expectation that one day we will reach a place where we'll just Have It All Figured Out and every area of our lives will align.
We keep trying to cram our schedule with things that will help us reach our many goals so we can finally feel like we're living our best lives, and wonder why we feel overwhelmed.
The truth is, work-life balance is a myth.
But really, work/life balance is about choosing what your priorities are and giving yourself permission to drop the other things for now.
That permission is key.
When we haven't allowed it, we feel stressed because we believe we should be doing XYZ. For example: "I should be going to the gym. I should stop being lazy and I should do it. Karen manages to do it and she has more kids than me."
There's a lot of shame and pressure in that which creates stress, versus choosing your priorities right now and giving yourself permission to de-prioritise everything else.
That sounds like, "my priority is x y and z in this season of my life. I don't have the bandwidth to prioritize going to the gym because it simply isn't most important to me right now. That doesn't mean I can't prioritise that in the future, just not just right now."
In that honest and radical prioritisation, there's no pressure. There is self compassion, acceptance, and balance.
Trying to do All The Things and thrive in all areas of your life = pressure, stress and a constant feeling that you are not doing good enough.
But when we prioritise the most important things and drop the others, that results in more peace and calm, which is what we were seeking when chasing the elusive idea of work-life balance anyway.
My friend and I were talking about this recently and she shared an illustration she had heard on the subject. I don't know where or who the illustration is from, but it goes like this:
It's like juggling too many balls. Some balls are made of plastic and some are made of glass. We don’t want to drop the glass ones because they're the most important - the ones that will break potentially beyond repair if we drop them - but we CAN drop some of the plastic ones because they'll be there waiting for us when we are ready to pick them up again.
The glass balls would be things like your family, your marriage, your mental health. There are things like these that we can't drop because that may result in them breaking beyond repair. But we can drop the lower priorities if we don't have the bandwidth for them right now: the gym, the hobby, the new business idea we want to launch but don't have time for right now. Because those are things we can pick up again when we have more space for them.
Just remember: the key to successful radical prioritisation is giving yourself permission to drop some things, whatever they may be for you. And not beating yourself up over it.
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About Nesha
Hey there! I’m Nesha, 10-year traveling entrepreneur and host of The Simple Business Show. I teach freedom seekers how to make a full-time income online without working full-time hours, so they have the time, location and financial freedom to live the lifestyle they dream of.
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