77 The Myth of Balance You Don’t Find It — You Create It

Welcome to the Great Leader, Great Mom Podcast, where we trade in Mom Guild and Burnout for courage, calm, and a whole lot more joy. I'm your host, Liz Jolly, engineer, turn life coach, mom of three, and founder. of the School of Courage. Here we talk about leading at work and home without losing your sanity, your sense of humor, or yourself. Because being both a great leader and a great mom, it's not about doing it right. It's about being courageous. And if you're ready to drop the guilt and grow your courage, you're in the right place. This is episode 77, and we're in the midst of our courage series. where we're unraveling the myths we grew up with. And we're going to replace them with truths that actually create freedom in our lives. Joy, courage, balance, peace. We in this series have talked about perfectionism, money, self-worth, decision making, and the power of being uncomfortable. Today, we are talking about something that every woman I've ever coached struggles with. This quiet, invisible myth, this enigma that we're all after of balance. I think we all have this idea that if we just find the right mix, like the perfect formula for time at work, time home things for myself, my family, and then finally everyone would be happy. But here's what I've learned after years of coaching and interacting with women that are balancing Having a career while being a mom at any stage of momhood, even if your kids are totally out of the house, we're all under this myth that If we can just find the right formula of balance in our lives, we would feel great. We'd feel like we figured it out. Well, we're going to talk about how that doesn't exist. Balance doesn't come from some formula of how we are spending our time. It doesn't come from outside of us. Truly. As much as we all try to work out this perfect ratio of homework, life, fitness, friends, balance doesn't come from that. It comes from within you. I want you to be able to decide consciously how you're gonna spend your day. And notice the feelings that that creates. So often we end up completely exhausted because we're chasing the right ratio of how we balance our lives. We perpetuate this belief because we look at other people around us and we think they're doing it all right. Well if we look to others or we wait until everything is just perfectly balanced in our life We're going to end up exhausted at the end of every single day. So let me show you what I mean through three women that you might recognize in yourself. Today, I'm going to introduce you to these three women. And the names are not real, but the stories are. And each of them represents a piece of us, a pattern that keeps us exhausted. instead of living in the present moment consciously and feeling balanced. Let's start with Claire. And Claire's the kind of woman who built an incredible career She's smart, she's strategic, she's respected by the people around her, she's a great leader, and she's one of the people that everyone relies on to get things done. But when she gets home at night, her brain doesn't shut off Even when she's sitting on the couch with her kids, she's mentally rewriting tomorrow's meeting notes. She's thinking of the emails that she didn't respond to She's overworking throughout her day and she feels like she's constantly in tension. She's torn between work and home and everything she wants to do. And not everything that she just wants to do, but everything she wants to do perfectly or really, really well. She has this part of her brain that says, if I just drop a one ball, everybody's gonna see that I'm not capable. They're gonna realize I'm not good enough at this. And Claire, she's not chasing after peace. She's chasing after this proof that she can find balance in her life if she does it all right. If she can just find the right ratio, she will feel balanced. She's trying to earn the rest instead of creating it in her lives. And how many of these women are us? And I know Claire very well because she used to be me when I worked as an engineer, and I thought my value came from never missing a beat, from doing it all, from like the thought that I could figure it out. Like I could find this mythical balance. Because I'm intelligent. I I know I could do this. But this constant drive for me around Even though maybe at the time I wouldn't have labeled it perfectionism, it's what it was. And I think I was just afraid deep down that someone would discover I wasn't good enough or I I didn't have what it took to do having a great leader and being a mom. And I can remember finding out I was pregnant with my third baby in the doctor's office. I was excited. Let me just say I'm gonna put that out there. It wasn't a bad thing, but what my brain offered me unconsciously was all these thoughts about Well, there goes the balance of my life. Like I had it all balanced and figured out in terms of time at home, time in the office, time for me to like work out and do the things I wanted to do. And now my balance is destroyed because I'm having a third baby and I just don't know how I'm gonna do it all. Like that was what my brain was offering me. Totally a thought error. Like Not true. I c I figured it out. Obviously, my youngest is seven years old. Um, but that was what my brain was telling me. And it was like, okay Now I'm gonna need a new planner. I'm gonna need a new productivity hack. I'm gonna need a new schedule to get everything done. I'm gonna need other people in my life like my spouse or my nanny or whatever it is, uh my family supporting all the childcare stuff to help do more so that I could be balanced still in my life. And I had it wrong. I needed to clean up my brain because it was truly a hot mess, as evidenced by this awful thought that I had about it was no longer gonna have any ballots having three children. I had to learn to separate out the facts from the feelings my brain created. And I had to see for myself that all my messy thoughts were creating this craziness in my life, this exhaustion. And so for me, turning to more understanding what it was I was unconsciously thinking and becoming more conscious and intentional about it is what provided me balance. And this is so much of what I teach in the School of Courage with my clients one-on-one because what I have discovered is that you can work fewer hours and find peace. You don't have to go through and accomplish everything and find that balance outside of you. Real leadership, and when I say leadership, I go to the Brene Brown definition of leader, which is uh You see the potential in other people and in improving processes and you want to help develop that. And so I think we're all leaders, even if you're working on the floor of a factory, you're a leader because you want to improve the processes and you want to also improve and develop the people around you. So leadership doesn't come entitled necessarily I truly believe that real leadership, real courage starts with self-awareness, not self-sacrifice. And I know so many of you out there are trying to sacrifice yourself so that you can create the perfect ratio of balance. So let's introduce our second character for today. This is Melissa and she's vibrant, she's creative, she's the kind of mom who dreams big and cares deeply about everyone in her life Even people she doesn't even really know. Here's the thing. Melissa says yes to everyone, whether it's the people at work or her kids or committees at school. and she's running on fumes. She lays her head down every night and is thoroughly exhausted. She's over-delivering, she's over-promising, but she's ridden with guilt and overwhelm And she says to herself, if I say no, then they'll think I'm not good enough. Melissa is caught in this people-pleasing trap, which if you've listened to this podcast, you've heard me talk about this before. And Melissa is confused on how to create harmony in her life and she thinks that it's coming from all of the people around her's approval. Like if I just do enough and they tell me I'm doing it right They tell me I have the right balance, the right ratio, and I can do it all. She's ending her day exhausted. And I can remember a season in my own life where I would say yes to everybody around me because I really wanted to be liked I really wanted people to think like, oh, she's doing such a good job. And that wasn't leading for me. It wasn't leading myself, and it wasn't really leading from a courageous place for others in my life. And every time I ignored my own limits, my own needs, I paid for that because I was super resentful later. And that's how you know you're in people-pleasing mode is when you are in resentment. Because you're making decisions from a place of I have to so that they like me. I have to so they don't judge me. I have to so they don't think less of me. I have to so they aren't disappointed in me But what Melissa really wants is this freedom, this real balance, this feeling present in the moment. And What she found in working with me was that she can awaken to what is it she really wants and how to make decisions from a place of Love for herself, love for others, and not from a place of guilt or resentment or trying to people please and that there was no mythical balance ratio out there of doing everything right for others and sacrificing yourself. When she really understood that, she was able to have this room in her life to breathe and she didn't lay her down her head at the end of the day and feel exhausted. She felt present at home and at work. So let's talk about our third character, and this is Jasmine. And Jasmine is a wise, introspective kind of woman who's already done the inner work. But she still feels very torn, whether it's directly with the people she's around in her group or with these processes. And she serves others and she's all about growth. Yet she still feels off in her life, like she hasn't found this mythical formula for balance. And she finds herself overthinking everything. She's over volunteering, over-analyzing every decision She's ridden with this guilt and confusion and disconnection. Like I've come so far, but I must have more to learn to figure it out to feel better. But here's the reality. That peace, that satisfaction she's looking for It doesn't come from checking all the boxes or from doing everything right. It comes from herself. It comes from really Knowing that she can feel good now. She doesn't have to do all the things and do them right to get that feeling of, okay, I've arrived. And Jasmine, like so many of us, is looking for this clarity in her actions and her decisions before taking any action. So many of us have this myth that like If we can do everything right, we will feel better. Like it's this place outside of us and it just doesn't work that way. We will never feel better from Anything outside of us. The world can't solve your feeling of wanting balance, of wanting to feel better, of wanting to feel satisfied. We need to change the way we approach our day From this unconscious hustle to a conscious choice about what is it I really want in my life? What do I want to create? How do I want to feel in my day? And if you want to feel balanced, if you want to feel present in your day, you can truly create that now. Often we miss the fact that when we chase and hustle around this mythical belief of balance We are looking for the world to satisfy our needs that can only come from within. What Jasmine discovered was that she could be strong and balanced while still feeling uncertain, while still feeling like a human, like it's a little messy in our lives, because that's the reality is things are messy. We're always gonna be 50% getting it right and 50% getting it wrong. It doesn't mean that you give up. It's more about continuing on to grow and to unlock your potential. When we look for balance in our life, it's about consciously sitting down and deciding what is it I want to create today? What do I want to get done? I know I can't do everything. That is a huge acceptance Because it's not possible. Nobody has done that. I know I was reading an article one day waiting in the doctor's office about Ava Mendez, and I didn't realize she was married to Ryan Gosling. But and all the pictures they had of Eva Mendez, she was looking perfect and talking about how she does everything I'm gonna say perfectly, not with that language. And I was like, we perpetuate this this belief that there's this balance out there if you just get it right. Like if you just can get the right formula of a planner, a schedule, getting your spouse to do something, getting your life organized enough that everything would feel great, that you would feel balanced. But here's the thing, I guarantee Eva Mendez and Ryan Gosling still have a 50-50 life that it still is so hard and so messy half the time, but the other half of the time it can feel amazing. And let's not perpetuate this belief by looking for this negative evidence around us that says, oh, if you just you can have the perfect life they have on The internet, if you just buy this certain thing or do this certain thing or accomplishing this certain thing, it really does start with you consciously looking at your life and deciding that Balance today isn't gonna come from you looking and getting the perfect ratio of how you spend your time. And sometimes it's moment by moment. We need to look at our own lives with love. Like What do I need today? Because maybe your day isn't about doing everything and never sitting down and never resting. Maybe your day, if you really were to say, what is the most loving thing to do for me and for maybe your family and for the people you work with, it could be all about saying no. It could be about resting. It could be about taking a break and just getting things done in your office that are that may seem so petty to anyone else, but that you choose to do. Maybe it's skipping a load of laundry to go take a walk or letting your kitchen be dirty, God forbid, and And just sitting down with your kids and watching a movie. Balance isn't the goal from something outside of you. It starts within you and consciously choosing how do you want to spend your time What does good look like for you and it's not about perfection? Love yourself in this process and know that it's how it's a mess half the time. Really, if that's true either way, what do you want to go do about it? That's what I have for you today. If you want one-on-one help with this, go to lisjolly. com and you can book time with me and we can start this journey together because our brains are a hot mess a lot of the times and we do need someone to sit next to us and unravel our brain together. I can teach you this tools to do this yourself. And so I hope you all have an incredible week. And I'll see you next time. Bye everybody