I received a lovely thank you card in the post from one of my clients the other day. It is always rewarding to feel that you have made a difference for your clients, and I read the card with a sense of satisfaction…until I read the last sentence: “You are an awesome example of how to balance it all”.
Crikey, I thought, does she mean me? You see, I feel like I spend my entire life running from A to B, doing nothing particularly well and feeling completely unbalanced 99% of the time.
On any given day, I’ll be in gym gear to do the school drop off, then change to do a couple of coaching sessions, then throw on jeans to watch one of the boys play sport and do pick-up and then collapse into “leisure wear” before the tidal wave of evening admin. Sound familiar?
Don’t get me wrong, a lot of this is my choice. I made a deal with myself that when I left my full-time job, I would be there for the boys and prioritise them. I’ve honoured that deal, but
as we all know, balancing it all has its challenges. To be honest, most of the time I am staggering over the finishing line at the end of the day, wondering how on earth I am going to solve the jigsaw puzzle that is the next day.
However, along the way, I have learned a few things that make my life just that little bit easier. None of them are particularly groundbreaking, but they at least help keep me sane, and it seems, present the appearance to the outside world that I can “balance it all”!
GET SMART WITH YOUR DIARY
Determine your absolute non-negotiable priorities, mark them in your diary in RED and honour them. For me, exercise is super important, and I schedule 3 – 4 sessions a week and stick to them, fitting work meetings and events around them. The same goes for school events that I don’t want to miss, and making sure I have regular meet-ups with friends planned so I have something to look forward to.
MAKE PEACE WITH COMPROMISE
Honesty time, you can’t have it all. Working out where you are willing to compromise in life will make this a lot easier to accept. Through trial and error, I have worked out how many coaching clients I can handle at any given time, whilst still allowing me to be there for my family. This means I have had to make peace with the fact that
I will only ever earn a certain amount of money, and I often have to turn work down (a tough compromise for me), but I can still make time for the boys, my friends and exercise, and that’s what balance means to me.
HAVE SOME BACK-UP
Have your person that you can call on for the times when you need childcare. Organisation is key. I look at the next 3 months in my diary and work out when I
will need help (either for work or play), and I get it booked in as soon as possible. That way, I know that I have cover where I need it, and avoid those last-minute panics.
GET GOOD AT SAYING NO
You can’t do everything, in work life or home life. It’s OK to say no. Your friends and family will get that sometimes you just can’t fit everything in, or need to bail at the last minute. And from a work perspective, saying you can’t do it right now doesn’t mean you won’t ever be asked again, actually it can be a good thing – companies or prospective clients will often take it that if you are busy, you must be good and therefore worth waiting for!
In the end, I always say one thing is certain: once you have children, change is a constant, and you will be in a state of playing catch-up / winging it most of the time. But a little bit of organisation can go a long way to at least feeling like you have a small amount of control.