Written by: Megan McCann and Jennifer Ludington, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Can women have it all? Yes, but do we want to? This is a narrative that is not generally approached for fear of polarization in our culture.
“You can have it all. Just not all at once.” ― Oprah Winfrey
Balance is a buzzword that from our perspective feels overrated. It insituates that a woman can perfectly dissect all areas of her life evenly. (For example, we give exactly 25% of our energy to family, 25% to work, 25% to self-care, and 25% to personal relationships.)
Is this possible? Maybe.
But is it necessary? No.
Balance is something that not even the most experienced yogi practicing her tree pose can master all at once. In fact, striving for balance could be the main thing fragmenting the in-demand woman of today only leading us to disappointment, running on a continuous hamster wheel of overwhelm.
Instead of creating a work/life balance sheet, we believe it is important to shift the perspective to create a harmonious melody of work and life. Developing a perfect equilibrium in your work and life is nearly impossible for modern women to achieve. So instead, we create harmony by establishing priorities.
The expectation of balance and “doing-it-all” is crushing our creative and innovative abilities in business by placing us in a state of fight or flight, leaving us feeling like we are in a pressure cooker soup of success, family, and financial stability.
Understanding our own bandwidth is crucial for women living in a world where we are expected to be successful entrepreneurs, nurturing mothers, loving wives, caring friends, social calendar managers for our family, home organizers, and caretakers for our ageing parents. We are expected to do it all as we volunteer in our kid’s classrooms, bake cookies for the school fundraisers, all while fitting into a size 2 dress by hitting the gym at 5 am, or sweating it out in hot yoga before the kids wake up. This seems to be a cultural expectation of roles that are impossible to fulfill while doing it in harmony ALL and at once.
According to the State of Women-Owned Businesses report by American Express, women are representing 41% of all businesses and in the most recent years, this number is fast increasing at a rate of 21% while the total number of businesses increased by just 9%.
The rise of female entrepreneurship, along with society pressures put on women to be mothers who are present for every milestone gives the illusion that women are doing it all and at the same time. The reality is that in our pursuit to “do it all” we are only left feeling fragmented and disappointed.
How can we then create the impact with our business that we desire, fulfill our unique purpose, and have harmony in our relationships and families?
We do believe that it is an “AND” world for women in business; however, we also believe that it starts with three things:
How to create clear priorities
A business strategy that doesn’t require trading time for money
A value-centered alignment system that will lead to harmony instead of balance
You will never achieve perfect balance but you can have priorities. So if you are a woman in business who seeks to create a big impact in and outside of your home, we have a few tips that can support you in your feminine leadership:
Take time to understand your intrinsic values. We call this value endurance. Your values will guide your priorities and getting clear on your priorities is the first step to harmony.
What is your threshold? Everyone has a unique emotional thermometer. What is yours? Taking your temperature is not just for the doctor’s office. What is your own capacity for deep work, relationships, sleep, and social life?
Survey the landscape. Take inventory of your financial, lifestyle, and health objectives. Which is out of alignment? Once you are clear on what needs to come back to the bullseye, focus your tasks on that area for a set amount of time.
Create a subtraction list. Most business owners have a to-do list; instead, can you make a list of everything that can be subtracted from your daily tasks that don’t align 100% with your values. Can you then outsource these tasks to ensure you are not adding things to your plate that take up unnecessary bandwidth? Who can you call on for help?
Create clear firm boundaries. Once you have established your values, emotional thermometer, surveyed the situation, and evaluated your subtraction list now it's time to create boundaries around your priority.
Women get to understand how creating a more harmonious melody of life can dramatically effect how we can have it all. But we can only accomplish this within a value-centered framework that creates a flow of abundance in all areas of our lives.
If you want more information in how we have created harmony as moms, wives, and value-centered entrepreneurs, head to our podcast episode where we discuss more ways to kick the balance act and instead shift into a harmonious symphony using clear boundaries as your maestro.
Megan McCann and Jennifer Ludington, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Megan McCann and Jennifer Ludington are experts in strategic leadership and business systems. As 1 amazon best-selling authors, in-demand speakers, and media personalities, they are on a mission to help over 1 million women scale their businesses. With a combined 30 years of experience bootstrapping multiple six and seven-figure businesses, they want to show others how to do it too.
