Why It’s Time to Stop Striving for Balance and Just Embrace Reality

Ever feel like you are completely failing at this whole balance thing? Yep, me too. In fact, most of the time, I feel like just making it to the end of the day with my sanity still intact is a major accomplishment. As a working mom with a demanding job, it sometimes feels utterly impossible to be everything to everyone, all the time. I constantly feel the pull in all directions, and the weight of the fact that every time I choose to focus my attention in one area of my life, I am by default not choosing someone or something else.

And yet, as women, we seem to have this idea in our heads that we’re supposed to be completely balanced in all areas of our life at all times, whether it be in our career, as a parent, in our homes, with our health and fitness or with our hobbies and spiritual life. For whatever reason, we’re made to believe that if we somehow can’t juggle all of these balls successfully, we’ve fallen short. There’s even a name for this phenomenon: mom guilt. But even women who aren’t moms feel this way.

Guilt, after all, isn’t unique to mothers. It can originate from that little voice inside all of our heads that’s constantly telling us that our lives are out of whack, and that we need to be doing more in order to feel fulfilled.

And the voice is always there. All. The. Time.

But what if balance doesn’t actually exist? What if that little voice is lying to us? And worse yet, what if all this striving for balance is actually what’s holding us back? Maybe our desire for balance is completely wrong. That’s why it’s time to silence that voice once and for all. It’s OK to become obsessive and strive for perfection on the things that truly matter to us and are important, but we can’t be everywhere at once or everything to everyone.

If you’ve ever felt as if you’re failing at striking the right balance in your life, this latest Do It Scared podcast sheds some light on why you should cut yourself some slack and learn to appreciate the value you bring to the table.