If you landed here I imagine you are on the hunt for a work life balance. And while I would like to tell you there is a golden key for everyone, it isn’t a one size fits all, BUT I can give you tips and tricks that I have used in my life to make my work-life balance smoother, and for me to be the best mom all around for my little, not to mention happy as well!
So a little background here. I started my business in 2015. And I am going to guess that your story is similar to mine.
I worked my life and freetime for a corporate employer who wanted my ideas and my soul. I was always taught that hard work is what gets you ahead in life so naturally I worked harder, stayed later and was done with my projects earlier. I worked for a corporation in 2014, I worked 60+ weeks and the only life balance I had was going to the gym and trying to stay afloat. I found out that I was pregnant and I knew that life had to change. I didn’t want my little to not have a mom, let alone a present mom. I wanted to be there for every first, and I wanted to do all the things.
So I worked to quit my job by building my business at night after work. In 2015, about 6 months after he was born, I took the leap and quit my job so I could dive full time into entrepreneurship and being a stay at home mama.
Now let’s get to it, the real reason why you are here! How to have a work-life balance. Here are the 5 things I do to ensure that I have balance and can be the best wife, mom and business owner.
Take these, test them, try them and make them work for you! Like I mentioned prior, not every thing will work for you, but some piece of it might!
The first one I do to help with balance is to prioritize my self-care. Now I don’t mean taking bubble baths or going to the spa. I make sure I do things for me and my health every single day.
I put my kid to bed earlier so I can spend a few hours every evening with my husband reconnecting. We do puzzles, play games, talk, watch shows and do things to be a couple without leaving the house.
The other thing I do for myself every single day, is I spend time alone.
I know, sounds funny but I spend time by myself. I spend the last hour or so before bed. I read my business book and then I read my for fun book. I love reading and go through a few books a week! After wrapping up reading for the night I put on sleeping headphones, the ones I use are here, and I put on sleeping affirmations or subconscious works. I find the on spotify or youtube. I find that sleeping with the headphones on and listening through the night helps me wake up the next day happy and ready to go for the day feeling motivated for whatever may come. And when I am happy then my husband and my kiddo are too!
Number two on the list is having boundaries. Yes, boundaries. I have these with clients, with my family and with myself. It helps keep me in check and it helps set clear expectations on what I will or won’t do and when I am online and ready to help clients and when I am not around to do things.
As a mom of a second grader, I want to make sure I set aside time for him after school so I can be a mom. We can draw pictures, go to the park, make a treat or just do something together.
I set up my work day to be 9 – 4 for client work and then I am offline unless it is an emergency. I may jump on later in the day and work on my own business, but client work stops at 4. Because I have communicated it to my clients, they respect that boundary and know when I am off I am off. Now as a mom, my little knows when he is home during work times that mom is in work mode and if he can do things on his own, he should try and do it. He is watching me build a business that could one day be something he does and I want him to see it on the backend. I also have a boundary of bedtime. This is a non-negotiable for me. I do this not only so I can have self-care but so I can have time with my husband in the evenings.
Next up is planning. Now I admittedly am not a person that likes to have life planned to a T, but I do like to have an idea of what is coming the next day so I can gauge where my head needs to be at. If I know that it is a heavy work day, then I do other things to prep for it (like a dump dinner in the crockpot, or move laundry to another day). I like to carry around a notebook with me, yep I am old school, and write down all the things I need to accomplish, due dates, notes etc. Every night before I go to bed I review what I need to do, and if I have any appointments. It sets the tone for me.
I also love to schedule all my social media, blogposts and emails out in advance so I don’t have to stress about them during the week. I write these all out when I am feeling jazzed and amped up to write. This also saves me from the days when I am feeling off, not in the mood or am busy being a mom. It also helps me plan out launches, work with clients, and vacations while appearing to be online and active.
I created my business to work WITH my family, not against or around them. I am a mother and wife first. With that I take time every week to focus on my family. That means I spend time at night with them playing games, eating dinner and reading books. We also choose an activity every week to do together, and no… it isn’t always a big elaborate outing. We have done things like gone to our community pool, played video games together, go to a museum and gone to dinner.
I started my business so I could control my schedule and do things with my family on my terms, not someone else’s. So for me this is a big piece in running my business as well as keeping balance. When I spend time with them it allows me to unplug, destress and reset my priorities and my why.
The last thing to do for work-life balance is to give yourself grace. I know this one is a hard one to swallow, especially as business owners and us pushing ourselves to 100%, but having grace makes all the difference.
These last few years all of us have gone through a lot. We have lived through a worldwide pandemic and had to adjust our expectations and timetables. We had to pivot our businesses to accommodate those changes, and step up our business game in turn as well. And some of us who are mothers, we
learned how to homeschool our kids during the middle of this mess. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t go to school to be a teacher and I wholeheartedly think that all teachers need a massive raise. That shit was hard. While I am not one to give myself grace, and this is one I am working on, but taking time to understand that it’s ok to not have it all together all the time. None of us really do.
So tell me, which of the 5 things are you going to try? And is there something that you do that I need to try?
Did you hear I am hosting a masterclass?
It is all happening on October 6th, I am going to be teaching you how to start, grow and scale your virtual assistant business without making pennies! In fact I make over $60 an hour! So I know you can do it too!
It’s free, and I would love to have you! Register for your spot, they are limited, below!
