114. Work-Life Balance is a Myth: Achieving Harmony for Mom Entrepreneurs

Phylicia Pough: 00:00:00

Hey, friend. You're listening to Harmonious Mompreneur, where faith, family, and business come together.

I'm your host, Phylicia Pough, a Christian wife, mom of two, and life and business system strategist for moms.

If you've ever felt like there just aren't enough hours in the day or find yourself craving more time for yourself but feel guilty about it, you're in the right place. While many strive for balance, I believe it's harmony, an integrated flow that works for you, that truly sustains.

Each week, I'll share insights from my personal journey and practical strategies to help you design systems that bring peace to your business and home life. So give your kids another snack, take a deep breath, and let's dive into today's episode where we'll start creating your harmonious mompreneur life.

Hey, friend. So, spoiler alert. Work life balance does not exist.

Okay, I know this is a little bit controversial, and, you know, people really start feeling a certain type of way when you talk about work life balance. But this is my experience, this is my belief, this is my philosophy. I just think it's a myth. And so why am I talking about this?

As a mom entrepreneur, I have just struggled with the idea of work life balance. It might be partly because my personality type is intj, and that means I'm a very, like, literal person.

And so when you say work life balance, that literally means that you are trying to balance work and life and you're trying to make it equal, like, all parts are equal. And for me, that just does not make sense, and it does not work. As a mom, as an entrepreneur, as a wife, that does not happen.

And it just causes me to feel like I am failing or falling short.

And so because we are moms, because we wear so many hats, the pressure to, quote, unquote, balance us all, it leads to this overwhelm and exhaustion that we tend to feel, this pressure that we don't need to be putting on ourselves. Right? And so for me, the real problem with work life balance is that the idea of equal time and energy for. For everything just is not realistic.

Because as my entrepreneurs, we need flexibility. Like I mentioned in a few episodes back, our priorities have shifted.

Our capacity is different, our energy is different, and equal time and energy for everything just does not make sense. And so when you are chasing balance, there's a lot of guilt and frustration that can come along with that.

And so for me, I stopped chasing balance and I started curating harmony. So what does this really look like? We already know what balance looks like. But harmony is more about integration, right?

It's about integrating and aligning the different parts of your life in a way that makes sense for you and your family. Based upon the season of life that you are in. You're bringing all of these different pieces together, right? Maybe it's 60% from one piece.

It might be 40% of another piece. Another piece might be. Oh, that's. That's already a hundred. So y'all know what I mean, though. But you're bringing all of these pieces together, and.

And when you put it all together, it. It creates a. A beautiful picture, right? It creates a beautiful sound. It creates a beautiful life for you, right?

Instead of, you have all of these things, and you are trying to give them all equal attention. You're trying to make them weigh equally, and sometimes certain parts of your life may weigh more, and so you have to give attention to that, right?

So that's kind of how you can start to shift into this concept of work life Harmony is understanding that it's more about integration and less about balance. Okay? So I want to give you a few practical steps that you can do to start curating or creating harmony for yourself or in your own life.

And so the first thing, what I already kind of just talked about, is to shift from this mindset of balance to harmony, right?

That's probably one of the biggest things that's going to jumpstart you and help you to be more at peace and at ease at this intersection of motherhood and entrepreneurship is shifting from this idea of I have to balance all of the things into how can I integrate all of the different pieces of my life in a way that feels good for me? Okay? So number one is shifting from a balance to a harmony mindset. Number two is identifying and maintaining your priorities.

So what is your priority? Not that you have to have one, but what are your priorities?

And it can be general, your overall life priorities, or it could be in this season, right? This is my priority. So you have to understand what your priorities are, because I'm going to talk about some other things.

Once you know what your priorities are, it will allow you to kind of do the rest of the things that I'm going to mention to you. And so as I'm going through this list, I've already said, number one, shifting from a balance to harmony mindset.

Number two, identifying and maintaining your priorities. If you are looking to dig deeper into these steps and to really have a framework and to really have.

Have some guidance in going through these different Steps, then you should definitely access the Harmony no Hustle private podcast. I'm walking through literally all of these steps and breaking them down.

How you can do it, providing guidance, and you also get a workbook with the private podcast to help you along the journey. All right, so let's keep going. Number three is creating and enforcing your boundaries.

So once you know what your priorities are now you can create boundaries around those priorities. You can create boundaries that will allow you to keep your priorities the priority. Okay? Number four, creating a rhythm for you and your family.

I like to think more about rhythm instead of routines because for me, a rhythm is more flexible, which as moms, we need. Routines are more time bound and rigid and like 10 o'clock, do this, 11 o'clock, do that.

But a rhythm is more flexible, it's more free flowing, it's more adjustable. And again, it's something that works for you and your family.

And the thing that's going to help you create that rhythm for you and your family, the main thing is observation. So observing how things are existing, observing, you know, how long it takes you to do things.

Like I mentioned in a previous episode, I observed when my children are able to independently play.

If you have a spouse, observing the habits of your spouse, so you can really create this rhythm that works for you instead of just creating a routine and trying to get your kids and everybody in a household to fall in line to the routine like it's the military, like, no, you're creating something that works for everyone based on, you know, existing habits.

I'm not saying that you can't push for improvement, but if you just create a routine just out of thin air, it's going to be challenging to get people to kind of follow that. So that's number four, creating a rhythm for you and your family. Number five, using time wisely. Right.

I talked about this in another episode back, right? About how since our time has become limited now that we are mothers only for the fact that we have more responsibilities, right?

We have to be more strategic in how we use our time. And so again, when you are using your time wisely, you are making sure that you are focusing on your priorities.

You are making sure that your rhythm incorporates all the things that it needs to incorporate and that you are being productive with your time or you are prioritizing the things that you need to prioritize, even if that is rest. Okay? And then finally, this is number six. Finally, number six is delegating responsibly. Okay?

And I say responsibly because you can delegate and it not go well because it was not done in a way that would be beneficial to you or to the person that you have delegated to. And so in the Harmony no Hustle private podcast, there's an entire framework for how to do that and how to do it with a biblical framework.

Okay, so delegating responsibly, is that going to be business tasks or are you going to delegate some household responsibilities? And who are you going to delegate it to? Are you going to delegate it to other members of your household? Are you going to hire somebody to do it?

Are you going to outsource certain things? Are you going to delegate? One of my favorite things, are you going to delegate to a tool using automation? Right.

So there are so many options here when it comes to delegating. So again, if you are just kind of looking to start curating or creating harmony in your life, number one, shift from a balance to a harmony mindset.

Number two, identify and maintain your priorities. Number three, create and enforce boundaries. Number four, create a rhythm for you and your family.

Number five, use your time wisely and delegate responsibly.

And if you would like, support and dig deeper into these six concepts, then there's a link in the show Notes for the Harmony no Hustle Private podcast that will walk you through exactly how to do each of the things I mentioned. Okay.

If you have questions about anything, as always, feel free to shoot me a DM or join our email community where you can get more insight about how to curate harmony in your life. Thank you for listening. With grace and gratitude. I will see you in the next episode. Hey friend. I'm so glad you tuned in today.

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