Want the biggest tip I have ever received on how to balance life, motherhood, work, marriage, and friendship?
You don’t.
Harsh, I know. But don’t stop reading just yet. I heard someone say once that you cannot balance it all. It’s physically and mentally impossible.
You have seasons. In these seasons you get to choose where you place your time and energy. Some days it’s being a fully present mom. On other days it’s working hard at your work. Someday’s it’s going on a date/trip to pour into your husband and marriage. It can also look a lot like taking a few hours for yourself. To fill your cup. Something even as simple as reading a book, journaling, doing your makeup, going on a coffee date, etc.
Balance is an impossible term to fulfill. If you try to balance your life perfectly all the time. This will inevitably lead to burnout.
So what do you do? You take a step back. Evaluate your life. Maybe your child’s been acting up, which means you need to place some focus on your child. Maybe you and your husband have been off recently and you need some time to connect. Maybe you aren’t seeing the results in your work and need to ask for some outside help to watch the kids while you push your work further to its future potential.
I learned this juggling analogy that originally came from Coca-Cola CEO Bruan Dyson. He says in life you’re juggling two types of balls. Glass balls, which are the most important things, and rubber balls, which aren’t that important. It’s our job to keep the glass balls afloat. For if a glass ball is dropped too many times, it shatters.
Oftentimes, we have a hard time differentiating which ball is made of glass and which ball is made of rubber. It’s our job to identify our glass balls. Such as our marriage, children, faith, and friends. For example. If you are sitting in front of your husband (glass ball) on your phone (rubber ball) not paying attention to him. Focusing on things that are not of importance to us. Or that can wait for another time. You are dropping a glass ball. Habit’s like these that occur too many times like this will lead to a glass ball being shattered.
This might look like leaving the dishes (rubber ball) dirty and taking 30 minutes of undivided attention to your child (glass ball).
Choosing happiness (glass ball) by going for a walk and not letting that rude comment someone made about you (rubber ball) steel your joy.
Rubber balls will bounce back up if they are dropped. For example, the laundry, dirty house, makeup, social media, etc. They are replaceable and unimportant.
You get the picture. So, if you hear someone try to give you advice on ways to “balance it all”. Do not believe them. There’s no way to balance everything in this life equally. It’s our job to find out what’s most important and prioritize your glass balls by keeping them afloat.