#162 The Myth of Balance

Hey, this is Melissa Parsons, and you are listening to the Your Favorite You Podcast. I'm a certified life coach with an advanced certification in deep dive coaching. The purpose of this podcast is to help brilliant women like you with beautiful brains create the life you've been dreaming of with intentions. My goal is to help you find your favorite version of you by teaching you how to treat yourself as your own best friend.

If this sounds incredible to you and you want practical tips on changing up how you treat yourself, then you're in the right place. Just so you know, I'm a huge fan of using all of the words available to me in the English language, so please proceed with caution if young ears are around.

Hey there, welcome back to Your Favorite You. I'm Melissa Parsons, and as always, I am so grateful that you are here listening with me today.

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I want you to just be honest and tell me how many places you're trying to be at once right now. Even as you're listening to this, are you thinking about what you need to do next? Are you at work wishing you were with your kids?

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Are you with your kids, thinking about the work emails piling up? Here is what I have realized. The problem isn't that we can't be in three or 17 places at once. The problem is that we think that we should be.

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Today, I want to talk about why work-life balance is a myth and why it's making us miserable and what to aim for instead. So we talk a lot about work-life balance as if the issue is how we divide our time.

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But I think the real pain comes from never being fully present where we actually are. You're at work thinking you should be spending time with your kids. You're on vacation, finally getting a break from your day-to-day, and you're constantly thinking about work or your kids or doing anything other than enjoying the time away.

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You're at your kiddo soccer game, but you're scrolling through work messages. You're in a meeting, but you're mentally making your grocery list. How much of the pain of not being able to be in all these places at once comes from thinking you should be anywhere other than where you are in this moment?

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I've certainly gone through different seasons where this has looked completely different for me. As a resident, I was working countless hours. I remember calculating my hourly wage once on call and getting an answer that made me cry and be enraged all at the same time.

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Then, as an early attending, I was doing shift work. I once forgot to pick up Jack from his daycare, which miraculously was open until midnight. And my immediate thought at like, I don't know, 11:58 when I was supposed to be 20 minutes away picking him up at midnight was who forgets to pick up her child from daycare? And actually, it was me, an overworked, overwhelmed, overexhausted young mom and physician. That's who. And then I had to put a note on my computer every night that I worked. And Jon was on call. Don't forget to pick up your son. And I felt shame every time I saw that post-it note, honestly. And then later, I was working three and a half days a week, but putting in full-time hours and private practice. I was constantly changing my schedule to make soccer matches and taekwondo belt tests, making last-minute changes when muffins with mom was announced by the school two days before the event at an hour when I would have already been seeing patients at the office.

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And now I'm creating my own schedule as an entrepreneur with a quiet house where the chaos that used to happen when the boys were younger seems like a fantasy I made up in my mind. But here's what was consistent throughout all those seasons. When I was at work, I was wishing I was at home with the family. When I was at home with my family, I couldn't stop from ruminating about work. What did I miss? What should I have done differently? I never felt enough or adequate in either place.

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And that's the real problem with the balance myth. It's not just that we can't divide ourselves equally. It's that we torture ourselves for not being able to. And just because we can have it all, which is what our sweet moms drilled into us because they were so proud of all the strides women had made over the past few decades, just because we can have it all doesn't mean we ought to have it all.

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Our mothers fought so hard to give us choices. They wanted us to know we could be doctors and mothers, CEOs and have families, attorneys and raise children, pursue our passion and be mom of the year. And that was a gift, a hard-won gift. But somewhere along the way, you can have it all turned into you should have it all, which turned into you should excel at it all simultaneously. And here's the thing. Just because we can does not mean our nervous systems were designed to do it all. I promise you, they were not. Our nervous systems and our brains have not caught up with what is happening today. Our bodies and brains were not built to be constantly toggling between roles, constantly feeling like we're failing at something, constantly trying to prove we can handle it all without breaking a sweat.

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Balance implies equal distribution. Like if you could just get the formula right, exactly the right amount of time for work, for family, for self-care, for friends, for hobbies, for volunteering, then everything would be perfect. But life does not work that way. Some seasons require more of your energy to go to work. Some seasons your kids need more of you. Some seasons you need to focus on your health or your healing. And beating yourself up for not maintaining perfect balance through all of it is just another way we torture ourselves.

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And here's the extra layer. We're not just supposed to do it all. We're supposed to make it look effortless, like we're not even working hard to achieve it. Hair perfectly in place, calm and collected, never breaking a sweat.

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Conversely, some women are praised for doing the work of three women as one woman, and they wear their frazzled personas as badges of honor. I'm so busy. I barely slept. I haven't had time to eat today. As if exhaustion is an achievement. So which is it? Are we supposed to make it look easy or are we supposed to broadcast how hard we're working? The answer is neither, but the mixed messages keep us spinning.

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So, of course, I want to give you some client examples. So I have clients who finally take a vacation, their first real break in a really long time, and they can't stop checking their work email. They're sitting on a beach feeling guilty for quote unquote wasting time relaxing.

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Their body is in paradise, but their mind is back at the office, catastrophizing about what might be going wrong without them. The balance myth tells them that they should be able to completely disconnect and be present, but they can't.

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So they feel like failures on vacation, too. Another example is a mom who's at her kids' soccer game scrolling through her work messages. She's physically there checking the quote unquote be present for my kids box, but mentally she's everywhere else.

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Then she feels guilty for not being fully present. If she stayed at home to work, she would have felt guilty for missing the game. She can't win. I work with a lot of entrepreneurs who work from home.

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They're in their office, but their kids are home. Maybe it's summer or maybe one of them is sick. And every moment they're working, they're thinking, I should be spending time with them. But when they do spend time with them, they're thinking, I should be working.

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And they never are fully anywhere. Or the lovely woman who gets an evening to herself finally. She's been looking forward to it for weeks. But when it arrives, she spends it feeling guilty instead of enjoying it.

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Guilty for not using the time more productively. Guilty for wanting time away from her family. Guilty for not loving every moment of motherhood. She wanted the time, but she doesn't give herself permission to actually enjoy it.

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One of my clients said to me, I just want to be good at everything. And we had to sit with the truth that that's literally impossible. And she actually doesn't want it because you cannot be equally excellent at being a professional, a partner, a parent, a friend, a daughter, and a self-caring individual all at the same time.

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Something always has to give, and the balance myth makes us feel like we're failing when it does. So Melissa, what should we aim for instead? I bet you're wondering, what is she going to tell us to do instead?

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Instead of chasing balance, I propose we aim for trying to stay in the present moment as much as possible, not depressed about what we did wrong in the past or what we didn't do enough of in the past, and not anxious about what we might mess up in the future.

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Just here, now in this moment, doing what we're doing. If you're at work, be at work. If you're with your kids, be with your kids. If you're resting, actually rest. The torture isn't in the distribution of time.

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It's in being split between past regret and future anxiety instead of being where you are. Different seasons of life require different things. There's a season for building your career. There's a season for intensive parenting.

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There's a season for healing, a season for growth, a season for rest. You don't have to give equal energy for everything all the time. You just have to be honest about what season you're in and what that season requires.

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So maybe instead of work-life balance, we think about work-life integration, perfect separate boxes, but allowing them to flow together in ways that feel sustainable for you. Maybe some weeks work gets 70% of your energy and that's what's needed.

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Maybe some months your family gets 80% and that's what's right. The goal isn't equal distribution. It's sustainable distribution that honors your current reality. And here's what I've learned. You can love your work and want more time with your family.

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You can love your family and need time away from them. You can be grateful for opportunities and feel overwhelmed by them. You can want to succeed professionally and not be willing to sacrifice your well-being for it. It's not either or, it's both and, and that's beautiful. So I'm going to give you some permission slips. Here's what I want to give you permission for. Permission to not want it all. You don't have to pursue every opportunity or excel in every area.

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Permission to know when to strive and when to rest. I actually did a whole episode on this recently. It was episode 151, if you haven't already listened to that, about the difference between striving and resting and how to know which one you need more at the moment.

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Permission to stay in the present moment instead of torturing yourself about where you're not. Permission to not enjoy every damn thing. You do not have to love every God-blessed moment of motherhood or every aspect of your career.

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Permission to want to spend time with your family and permission to want to spend time without your family. Permission to love what you do at work and want to dedicate more time to it. And permission to not love your work and want to dedicate less of your energy to it at the moment.

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Permission to not want balance at times. Maybe you're in a season where things are intentionally imbalanced because that's what's required. Start by simply noticing when you're not present where you are.

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When you're at work but thinking about home, when you're at home but thinking about work. Just notice it. Always no judgment, just awareness. You might be shocked by how often you're splitting yourself between past and future you instead of being in the now.

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When you notice you're not present, try naming where you actually are out loud if you can. I'm at my desk. I'm at the soccer game. I'm on vacation. Then take three big deep breaths and notice one thing about where you actually are.

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The feeling of your chair, the sounds around you, the temperature or the breeze in the air. This brings you back to now. Ask yourself, what season am I in right now? Not what season do I wish I was in, or what season I should be in, but what season am I actually in?

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Is this a season of building something new? A season of intensive caregiving? A season of healing? A season of transition? Once you name it, you can ask, what does this season require of me? What can I let slide during this season?

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And what actually needs my attention right now? Look at where your energy is actually going, not where you think it should go or where you wish it would go, where it's actually going. Then ask, is this distribution sustainable for this season?

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If not, what's one thing that I could shift? You don't have to change everything. Just notice the truth and make one tiny adjustment. Pick one permission from the list I shared. The one that made you the most uncomfortable or the one that you may have immediately dismissed, that's probably the one you need most.

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Ask me how I know. Write it down. Say it out loud. Let yourself actually receive it. Remember, balance is a myth that keeps us feeling inadequate. The goal isn't to perfectly distribute yourself across all the demands of your life.

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The goal is to be present where you are, honor the season you're in, and stop torturing yourself for being human. You don't have to have it all. You don't have to do it all. You don't have to excel at everything simultaneously.

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You just have to show up for what matters in this season and be kind to yourself about what you're letting slide. If you're exhausted from trying to achieve perfect balance and ready to honor your actual reality instead, I would love to work with you.

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In my coaching, whether it's group or individual coaching, we figure out what season you're in and what sustainable actually looks like for you. Because becoming a favorite version of you does not require perfect balance.

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It requires being honest about where you are and giving yourself permission to be there fully. Thank you so much for listening, and do not fret, I will be back next week with another amazing episode for you all.

Hey - It’s still me. Since you are listening to this podcast, you very likely have followed all the rules and ticked off all the boxes but you still feel like something's missing! If you're ready to learn the skills and gain the tools you need to tiptoe into putting yourself first and treating yourself as you would your own best friend, I'm here to support you. As a general life coach for women, I provide a safe space, compassionate guidance, and practical tools to help you navigate life's challenges as you start to get to know and embrace your authentic self.

When we work together, you begin to develop a deeper understanding of your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. You learn effective communication strategies, boundary-setting techniques, and self-care practices that will help you cultivate a more loving and supportive relationship with yourself and others.

While, of course, I can't guarantee specific outcomes, as everyone's journey is brilliantly unique, what I can promise is my unwavering commitment to providing you with the skills, tools, support, and guidance you need to create lasting changes in your life. With humor and a ton of compassion, I'll be available to mentor you as you do the work to become a favorite version of yourself.

You're ready to invest in yourself and embark on this journey, so head over to melissaparsonscoaching.com, go to the work with me page, and book a consultation call. We can chat about all the support I can provide you with as we work together.

I am welcoming one-on-one coaching clients at this time, and, of course, I am also going to be offering the next round of group coaching soon. 

Thanks for tuning in. Go be amazing!