Thriving in the Web of Balance (and why other models fail)

Feeling overwhelmed by the quest for "work-life balance"? Join me debunk the myths surrounding this tricky concept, which originated in the 90s. 

In this episode, I’ll explain why striving for balance often leads to disappointment. With over a decade of experience working from home and leading corporate workshops, I’ll share my own stories and offer practical tips to help you find a more fulfilling way to juggle work, home, and community responsibilities.

I'll share with you new ways to think about and manage your daily life and why the traditional idea of balance might not be working for you and offer fresh perspectives for a more harmonious life. 

This episode is full of relatable stories and actionable advice to help you feel understood, inspired, and ready to live with purpose. Whether you're in survival mode or looking for a new approach to your busy schedule, this one is for you.

What you'll learn in this episode:  

• Why the traditional concept of work-life balance might be flawed
• How various aspects of your life are interconnected and supportive rather than competing priorities
• A series of interconnected spindles rather than a strict, weighted scale called "web of balance"
• How to rebuild and strengthen different areas of your life when they falter
• Ways to seek inward growth and spiritual support to rebuild and strengthen weaker areas of your life

Click HERE to watch this video to learn The 3 Things to Avoid When Reading Self-Help Books

How to Connect with Lara:

Web: www.larajohnsoncoaching.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/j.lara.johnson/

Facebook: www.facebook.com/larajohnsoncoaching

Work with Lara: www.larajohnsoncoaching.com/work-with-me/

Transcript

Welcome to the Mom On Purpose podcast. I'm Lara Johnson and I'm here to teach you how to get out of your funk, be in a better mood, play more with your kids, manage your home better, get your to-do list done and live your life on purpose. With my proven method, this is possible for you, and I'll show you how. 

You're not alone anymore. We're in this together.

Hello, it's so wonderful to have you here. You know I was thinking about you, where I'm at. Summer is almost coming to a close. I don't know where you're at in the year, especially your school year, but I hope that you are surviving. I was telling someone the other day that I feel like at this point, the last couple weeks before we go back to school, it's like we're in a Minecraft game and we've switched from creative mode to survival mode, where everybody could die at any moment. 

That's about what it feels like. That's where we're at friends, so I do hope that you are surviving in your survival mode, All right. So, a couple of things that are in the works, and I'm so excited about all of this. I want you to go to my website, www.larajohnson.com, and download your free Discover your Purpose Guide. In this, I present the discover your purpose formula, which is a very simple formula, so that you are able to figure out what your purpose is, and you can live up to your full potential. 

It's a guide that is invaluable for you so that you can live on purpose. And then the second thing is I want you to know that the program's coming. It's getting pretty close, so I will have a release date pretty soon for you so that you can mark your calendar and be one of the first that's able to jump in and start working through that program. It is an invaluable resource. I've had so much fun building it out for you and I know that you're going to love it. 

So, as I was preparing this episode, I was thinking a lot about work-life balance. I've done corporate workshops on this for years. It's something I love being able to talk about. I've worked from home for most of my kids' lives and I've had to find that delicate balance for many years. For over a decade it's been 13 years or so, but not everybody works. So, I want you to think about this in terms of maybe it's kid household balance or maybe it's service life balance, like there's so many different things that we can juxtapose for this analogy, okay. 

So, when I was doing some research on this for the corporate workshop, I found that this phrase and again you can change it to whatever words speak most to you in this the work life balance. But this phrase came up in the nineties and it was a way that they were trying to help the industry focus more that people are more than work, that like they're well rounded and we need to have conversations about what's happening at home and how that impacts the workplace. But that was many years ago and since then this phrase has become very detrimental for a lot of people, because when we put two things, you know, opposing to each other, our mind immediately goes to one of those like weighted scales where works on one side, life's on the other, and if you're feeding one, then the other one starts to suffer. Now this feels horrible, okay. And when I've learned about work-life balance, people will say. 

And when I've learned about work-life balance, people will say, oh, it's more like work-life harmony. And I'm like, okay, well, that's fine. Or, you know, people will say I've heard like it will never be in perfect balance, like you can't walk a perfect line. But that doesn't feel good to me either, because then it feels like you're always disappointing something, disappointing someone either people at work or people at home, or you know, in whatever capacity like your home is suffering but your kids are not being neglected. Or if you're focusing on your kids, then it feels like your home is being neglected. Okay, so there's all different aspects of this, and so when I think about work-life balance, every way that I think about that, it actually makes me really frustrated and very discouraged. 

So, this was a few years ago when this really like this image stood out to me as I was thinking and pondering and contemplating, and I turned to nature, which I often do, and I realized that there's very few things that are perfectly balanced in nature. Instead, what happens is things are unified or connected or intertwined in order to provide something stronger, like if you think about a jungle, like you always learned about the canopy over above that was all connected and how the roots were all intertwined and that created a safe home in the jungle. 

Well, when I was thinking about all this, the image that came to my mind was about a spider web, and I do apologize if anybody is very uncomfortable with spiders. We have a tarantula at our house named Fluffy, named after Hagrid from Harry Potter, his three-headed dog. So, I'm very comfortable with spiders when they're away from me. It's not like I want them crawling on me. 

But when I thought about a spider web and this image came to my mind, I thought about how intricate each web is. Image came to my mind. I thought about how intricate each web is depending on the species of spider. It may be even like an individual spider I'm not sure has their own web so you can identify them and then if there's a point where, like a wind blows down, you know part of the web, the rest still stays intact. It actually takes quite a bit to take down an entire spider web and then, if you look at it like all the different spindle, we'll call them sub spindles are what connect all these spindles together and it's very connected and intertwined and it provides something of strength and strength for this spider. 

So when I was thinking about this in terms of the work-life balance, I thought you know, I feel like my life is so much more like a web of balance where I have all these spindles which are like my priorities that come off, and within each of these priorities there's these sub spindles where it's the lessons I'm learning, the skills that I'm developing in one area, and they directly impact another area. 

Now there are times where pieces of my web comes down and there have been times in my life where the entire web comes down and it takes a lot to rebuild it. But I rebuild it and it's stronger than before. But that feels very different than the work-life balance where something's always suffering, right? So, I want you just to think about this for yourself, like open your mind up to the possibility that you have a web of balance where everything is intertwined and connected and strengthening all these different areas of your life. Now I'll share just a couple examples from my own life, but also what I've seen in clients of as I've coached around this. 

Now, typically when I'm doing this activity in a workshop or with clients, I ask them to identify five spindles. It's just very easy. Most people can go on and on and on with their spindles. We want simplicity here. So, five spindles that might be your family, that might be work, that might be health, spirituality, relationships, your household management, it might be volunteering or community service, whatever those pieces include. It might be marriage; it might be friendships. 

Okay, there's no right or wrong and, yes, I know you have lots of priorities. We're only picking five right now. It doesn't mean you love the other priorities any less, okay. So then, at this point, I want you to just draw, you know, a spindle, or think about these sub spindles that are connecting each of the priorities, and I want you to think about what are the skills or lessons that you have learned in each of these areas. 

Now, when I ask this question, almost always someone will say well, at work, I have learned amazing communication skills. I say, okay, well, how does that impact your family? I said, well, it's everything, it's I'm. I'm learning to negotiate with my children, I'm learning to listen better to them, I'm trying to hear what my wife is saying, or my husband is saying, okay, so immediately they start seeing that when they're at work, there is a direct benefit for their family. Now then, a lot of times, I'll ask okay, well, what about your family? What are some of the skills that you have learned there? 

And almost always something similar comes up of. You know, I've learned a lot of confidence. I didn't know how to parent and I had to work really hard at this, and it's starting, even though I don't always think it's working. I can see some benefits that are coming, and I say, okay, well, how does that confidence help you in work? I say, oh well, that's everything Right, okay. 

So, then you know another one that I see a lot is trust and love, and how that then impacts people in a different area. Maybe it's not work, maybe it's your spirituality or your relationships, and being able to practice love and forgiveness and trust then impacts all the other relationships in your life, whether with extended family, parents, friends, et cetera. Okay. So, another one that I see a lot is people will say, all right, well, household management. I say, okay, what skills have you developed there? They immediately will say, well, organization, that it takes a lot of organization to manage a home. 

Say, exactly, now, how does that impact your work? I said, well, it's everything Okay, because it takes so much organization to handle all the expectations that come from work. Okay, so you can start to see how all these things are benefiting the other areas and when they start to feed into each other, it shows you that these are not competing priorities. In fact, they're supportive priorities, where God has created this perfect system, this perfect web, so that everything is interconnected to your benefit, to your family's benefit and all the other areas that you're involved in. 

Now I again. There will be times when some spindles will fall off. There are very few times when they all do, but it could happen. That's the time when you are able to go inward to really see where are my areas of growth. If this spindle isn't as strong as I want it to be, what are the skills that I already know that I can now employ in this area to rebuild the spindle? It's a very heartfelt process. It's something that you can do with God. 

It's something you can hire me to help walk you through that, but that's where you're able to start building it out even more, so you never have to stress again about being in that perfect balance, about disappointing people, about walking this weird line that doesn't even exist. Now you can start seeing how all the areas of your life are connected and how they all can be for your benefit and those around you’ s benefit. Have a wonderful week.

 Thank you for listening. Please share, review and subscribe to this podcast so that together we can live life on purpose.