27. Work-Life Balance Is Bullsh*t

In this week's episode of the School of Midlife podcast, we’re talking about the myth of work-life balance and why it simply doesn't exist.

Laurie shares her own experiences of trying to find the right equilibrium between work demands and caring for her family. She discusses why the messaging that we got as Gen Xers - that we could “have it all” - has actually become an unhealthy challenge for many women today.

She explores how the concept of “work-life balance” implies that if we just worked harder or got more organized, we could achieve that balance we’re all seeking. But the problem is not with us as individuals – it’s with a system and expectations that are flawed.

This episode is a must-listen for any woman who is being pulled in competing directions, and fears that she's falling short at work or at home, or both.

LINKS AND MENTIONS:
7. There Is No Such Thing as Work-Life Balance

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Transcript

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But even in the most pro women firms, There is this certain unspoken expectation that work comes first. The family comes second. So what that looks like is this. Implication this unspoken rule that if you're really committed to your job, You're going to find a way to make this work. Right. You're wonder woman. You're leaning in. Your doing it all, having it all being at all. So what all of this. Ball of messages. Translated to was this idea that as successful women, We're expected to master. Work-life balance. When you're at work, you're supposed to be all in on work. When you're at home, you're supposed to be all in on home. Welcome to the School of Midlife podcast. I'm Laurie Reynoldson, former award-winning attorney turned high performance coach for midlife women. I designed this podcast is your go-to place for weekly midlife inspiration, where I'll be sharing, inspiring stories, providing step-by-step actionable coaching and introducing you to some incredible women who are absolutely crushing it at the midlife game. And you'd better believe we'll also be having candid conversations about mid-life relationships, career moves, money, menopause, and so much more. So take out your reading glasses and notebooks. My friends, because the School of Midlife is in session. Hello. Hello. Hello and welcome back to the school of midlife podcast. I am so excited to be here with you today. On my mind today, we are going to talk about work-life balance. We have talked about this before. But. I for one. Find it interesting how we have to. And when I say we, I really mean me, but I think I'm not alone in this. But it's interesting to me how we have to keep learning certain lessons over and over again. So we're going to talk about the myth of work-life balance today, but also how boundaries. Factor in to the equation. Because I, 100% understand that. Work-life balance. That is bullshit. And I don't strive for work-life balance because I know it's a myth. I know that it is. This expectation that none of us can actually meet. And we'll get into that in a minute. But here's where I get tripped up. It's not so much work-life balance, but it's what I like to call the wonder woman syndrome. So it's not this idea that I can balance life and work. But it's this idea that on some level I literally can do all the things. All the time. All at once. And that's where I get tripped up. Where, you know, I find myself filling every single hour of the week, trying to do more and take care of all of the things. For everyone all the time. It's, it's a lot. You might have noticed that there was no episode last week. And although my plan for the podcast is to have episodes recorded weeks in advance. Since I have been recording the school of midlife podcasts. I think that that I have prerecorded an episode, maybe one time. Maybe. Because what usually happens is I end up recording them on the Monday night before they drop. On Tuesday morning, it's a very imperfect system and not at all how I had intended, but that's just sort of how life feels like It shakes out. So. A week ago. Monday last Monday, I was just completely spent. I had flown home on Sunday night. Before the, so the, the night before. I had been at a four-day coaching conference in Austin, Texas, and it was, the content was great. It was absolutely exhilarating. But we went from. Eight o'clock in the morning. Uh, less, there were a couple of days where we had meetings at 7:00 AM. So really early in the morning. Until seven or eight o'clock at night. The conference was fantastic, but it's that mental tired, right? Where you're learning so much content and strategies and you're workshopping a lot of. The coaching and how, what are you going to do with your business from a marketing standpoint? And so it was a great conference, but it was a lot. And because I was so focused on taking in as much of the conferences I could. It just every night I would be so tired when I finally got back to my room. So I was there for four days. Uh, ma my mother-in-law's stroller surgery was Friday while I was away. Um, so there was a lot of back and forth on, you know, updates. Is she ha. How did the surgery go? Um, She was in pre-surgery for a long time, which also took a little bit of a mental toll to, you know, I wasn't sitting in the hospital. With them, but certainly getting text messages and making phone calls during breaks when I was able to, so while I wasn't there in person, I was certainly. Thinking about what was going on from many, many miles away. I did not sleep well while I was in Austin. There's something about being in a hotel room that although you can be in this. This super, super comfortable bed for me. I just, I have a really tough time sleeping in hotels. So I didn't sleep well. And then To top it off on Sunday, we started at 9:00 AM and went until about two in the afternoon. I got to the airport. Left Austin around, uh, four, five o'clock and my flight was delayed in Las Vegas. So I didn't even get home until. Oh, gosh, about 1:00 AM. On Monday morning. And then I had an early meeting on Monday morning and I worked all day on Monday. this is a long way of saying when it came time to record. Last week's episode. I just couldn't do it. I was completely spent. And I felt so guilty about it because. By not recording the podcast episode last week, what I was doing was. Not keeping the promises that I make to myself. Or her keeping the promises that I make to you, which is I'm going to serve you up a new episode each week. But I just couldn't do it. I, I didn't do it. I took the week off. So. You would think that I'd be fully rested this week? Right? Nope This week was a lot like last week. Uh, not that I was at a conference, but I was working at work almost as many hours as I did at the conference. I, so many hours spent. Working outside of work, which focused a lot on caregiving. Again, I'm I'm home, but I'm still not sleeping well, So I took some time on Sunday to relax. And I'll be damned if I didn't feel guilty about doing that too, because in my mind, there's still so much to do. Right. I've been gone. So we got to change the sheets and clean the house and send the weekly projects to my virtual assistant and make dinner and spend time with Mike. And meal prep for his parents. You know, It just, it feels like a lot and sometimes it feels a little overwhelming. And it did. On Sunday. But I decided. Did I decide, I finally gave myself the luxury of taking a nap on Sunday. Mike loves to vacuum the house or may pay me. I'm overstating that. Mike always picks up the vacuum and starts vacuuming on Sundays. He puts into his AirPods, listens to football games and vacuums the house. So whether he loves it or he likes it, or he just feels obligated to do it. He does it and because he doesn't, I don't worry about it. So when he started vacuuming the house on Sunday, Theo. And I went upstairs to the bedroom and took a nap. And it was fantastic because I needed the sleep. I really needed to just. Unplug for a little bit, close my eyes, catch up on my sleep. And it was the best nap. I got to tell you. I, even though I felt so good about, you know, I, I I'd done all of my chores. I had gotten a nice workout in, in the morning. There was something about taking an hour out of Sunday afternoon. That I felt like I was letting everyone down. Especially Mike, right? I mean, why should he be working while I'm napping? I will do an episode on this, the idea or why we feel guilty for taking time off or time for ourselves, because I think it's definitely related to what we're talking about today and definitely worth talking about on its own. Because I feel like I am not alone in this. Guilt shame spiral for, for taking time off or taking time for myself. So we'll talk about that in another episode, I promise. But for today, let's let's circle back to work-life balance. I've said it before. I'll say it again. I will die on this hill. Work-life balance does not exist. So we need to stop pretending that it does that everyone else. Has it figured out, but you, I mean, If you look at social media. You will see women everywhere with these perfectly curated lives. And it feels like they. They've got it all figured out. So, so why can't you, right. I mean, they're working more than full-time. They're throwing these Pinterest inspired birthday parties. They're cooking Instagram worthy dinners. How can they do it? And you can't, what is wrong with you? And it starts this kind of guilt shame spiral. That we just. Can't shake. That. This idea that if we were somehow better, we would finally figure this out. But. For some reason everyone else understands. It knows how to do it is managing it better than, than we are. And we're just kind of stuck in this spot where we have not yet figured it out. Most of us in the midlife. Camp those of us who would, you know, would describe ourselves as midlife at this point. A lot of us are gen X-ers. And that's important because we were raised to believe. That we could be anything we wanted to be. That we could absolutely have it all. Aye. I remember. Watching. Saturday night television. So, um, the love boat followed by fantasy island. And I remember the Enjoli perfume commercial. Do you remember that one? Where the. Uh, business woman is in her business suit and she comes home changes out of her business suit. To her. I don't know. Khaki pants. And then ultimately ends up in this slinky, sexy number dis all in a matter of hours because she's bringing home the bacon and she's frying it up in a pan. And she's never going to let you forget. You're a man because. She's Enjoli woman, she can do it all. She can be a business woman. She can be. Everything for the kids and still, you know, fulfill you in the bedroom. you'll never forget that you're a man. I was actually thinking about that commercial on my walk this morning. And I've decided that I'm going to do an Instagram reel kind of remaking that commercial. So stay tuned for that. I'll let you know when it drops in my mind, it's going to be spectacular. We'll see how, how I actually do with the execution on it. But I feel like that. Commercial and that ideal, that is espoused by the commercial that needs to be redone for modern day. Women. Anyway. as gen X-ers, we're the first generation that grew up with this idea that we could be anything that we wanted to be, and that we could have it all. And while that is a great sound bite. Practically. What happened with that is somehow. We, we took that message. And twisted it up in our brains a little bit. So that, that message of. We could be anything we could have anything. That became a challenge to us. And what that ultimately that challenge, what it threw down was. You can have it all right now and you can do it all freaking well. Like that was the standard. That do it all. Have it all, all at once. And so not only did we have this messaging that we grew up with, but then about the time that we are getting, you know, we're kind of hitting our stride at work. Then Sheryl Sandberg comes out with this book. She publishes lean in. Where. She the premise is that we need to aspire to do more. Right. Don't just work your way up to middle management. Keep going until you're part of the C suite. Sitting in the corner office with the floor to ceiling windows. I have to tell you, I had almost a visceral reaction to that book. Because here I am looking around the law firm because I was practicing law at that point. But I'm looking around at the other women in the law firm and we were working so damn hard and leaning in so hard already at that point that we were nearly toppling ourselves over. So. For me, the question was like, how much freaking farther do you want me to lean in? And while we're talking about law firms, I mean, that's where my experience was. So I can't speak to other industries. But the thing about law firms is the billing. Systems. So how we charged the client and then in turn how we were compensated. Those systems were set up for men. Men who could go to work and focus only on work. They, they were not the ones trying to juggle the family systems. Right. I and law firms are getting much better at offering flexible solutions for women. But even in the most pro women firms, There is this certain unspoken expectation that work comes first. The family comes second. So what that looks like is this. Implication this unspoken rule that if you're really committed to your job, You're going to find a way to make this work. Right. You're wonder woman. You're leaning in. Your doing it all, having it all being at all. So what all of this. Ball of messages. Translated to was this idea that as successful women, We're expected to master. Work-life balance. When you're at work, you're supposed to be all in on work. When you're at home, you're supposed to be all in on home. It's it's this. Be here now, way of thinking, you know, wherever you are commit to being there. Be where your feet are in. And I am totally good without approach. Right. Be here now. Wherever you are. Commit to being there and being all in when you're there. So here's where I think the myth. Of the work-life balance trips us up. There. Is this inherent expectation. For women. That if you just worked harder. Or had a better system or were more organized or better at time management. Or you work up earlier or had the perfect morning routine. Then you'll finally achieve the work-life balance that you're searching for. But. It's not that the system or the expectation is wrong and it certainly is. But the message that we have have gotten is not that the system or the expectation is wrong. But rather that there is something wrong with us. Because we can't figure out how to get it right. let that sink in for a minute, Because we are trying to aspire to. An ideal. That is inherently flawed. The expectation is wrong. And because the expectation is wrong, then. Instead of. Under cutting or exposing the fault in the expectation or the system. We turn that on ourselves. And we, we, we think that there has to be something wrong with us because we can't figure it out. But, but here's the thing. There will always be this interplay between life and work. It's like a Seesaw, right? You've got one person on one side of the Seesaw. And another person on the other side of the Seesaw and there's this lever point or this balance point between the two of them. But. The Seesaw is in constant motion. And there is only a split second. Where are the Seesaw? It is completely horizontal to the ground. That's when the balance happens. Right? So on the Seesaw, it's this constant up and down the it's this constant fluid motion. And that balance point. Where one person is exactly. Balanced where the other person that split second, where the seaside is horizontal. That happens. For a second. Most of the time on the Seesaw. It is out of balance. So. What I like to think about instead of work-life balance. The goal. Should be figuring out what's most important. In this season or this week or today? That just like the Seesaw. We have to recognize it. Our life and our work. That those priorities, that balance is in constant shift. It's constantly changing. There are some days where work is much heavier and needs more of your attention because you have a big project coming up or. You are preparing for a hearing or a pitch or you're heading out on vacation and you have to complete, you've got clear desk and complete all of those to do's before you leave. So sometimes work. Needs it commands more of your attention. On the flip side, there are some days where your life outside of work. Needs way more of your focus. I mean. Maybe you're caring for an ailing parent, obviously that's top of mind for me right now, because of, of what we're doing. With Mike's parents. Um, at the time of this episode is airing. We are smack dab in homecoming season. I have a lot of friends with kids who are seniors. So for the last time they're going to be experiencing. You know, spirit week and the homecoming football game and the homecoming court and homecoming dances. So your focus should be at home right now, right? Because these are moments that. You won't get back there. There. You're your child's a senior one time. And. Then, and then they move on. So your focus should be on home right now. I had mentioned. Heading out for vacation and focusing a little bit more on work when you are preparing to leave the office for a while. I think we also need to think about that. After we're on that vacation. The one that we were preparing for the one that we were focusing so much of our work time and attention on. When you're on the vacation. You have to step away and actually enjoy the vacation. Right. Don't be checking emails. Don't dial in for conference calls or show up on zoom calls. But. You focused, you focus more of your attention on getting ready for that vacation. You spent more time at work. So while you're outside of the office, Spend more time focusing on that vacation and enjoying it with the people that you are with on vacation. what this all comes down to is. When you try to balance the two. You will inevitably give short shrift. To one of them. Or both of them. Or you'll end up running yourself completely ragged and going at a pace that is not sustainable. Interestingly, that is exactly where I am right now. And for some reason, I tend to find myself here a lot, not as much as I used to. But remember how I said that at the top of the episode, that work-life balance is also intrinsically tied to boundaries. Well, in some instances, I am, I'm really good at claiming and holding boundaries. In others. I am. Terrible. Particularly when it comes to saying no to others. So there are a lot of demands on my time right now. Because of. What I'm doing for work. And the obligations that I have. To care for family. That. I'm pausing here because what I'm really trying to figure out is, and I hadn't thought about this. So this is going very meta on you, but. I'm talking about. Saying no to others is especially as it relates to the caregiving duties and obligations. But I'm actually trying to figure out. Who is imposing those obligations on me. Is it someone else? Mike or my in-laws or. Mike's brother or is it me? Right. Um, and I think that there's a little bit of both. So it's not so much that I am saying no to others, but I'm feeling obligated to help out in. A lot of different ways. I got to keep thinking about that though, because I literally had not tumbled to that until I was recording this. But. I'm in that spot where I'm running myself a little ragged and I feel like. Not only is. Work and life and not balanced in my life right now. But because I'm trying to do too much. That I feel like. I'm doing. Like a C plus job at both. I'm not doing great at either. So. Because I need the reminder clearly just as much as anybody here are a couple things that I like to think about when I am struggling with work-life balance. And hopefully they'll be helpful for you too. Number one. Figure out what's most important right now. And then give yourself permission to focus on that. With the understanding that the pendulum is inevitably going to swing the other way at some point in the future. So you are not stuck in focusing on what you're focusing on now. You're just simply focusing on what's most important right now. And the key here. Is to be guilt free when you're doing this. Because. You can't say you're focusing on work right now and then beat yourself up because you feel like you're dropping the ball at home. or, or conversely, you can't say you're focusing on life outside of work and then letting work creep happen. And then feeling guilty that, that you couldn't hold the boundary. Um, Work creep is a term that I use. Oh, hold the time. And I'm not talking about the asshole in the office. He's not the work creep. Work creep is when your work starts creeping into your life. And it starts. Really innocently enough, like. I've got a couple of extra minutes. I will just check email really quickly, or, oh gosh, I've been waiting all day for this phone call to come in. It's way after work hours. But I'm just going to, I'm going to answer the phone. It'll be a quick call. It just won't take me long. Work creep is where you let work creep into your life. Okay. So. If we're focusing on life outside of work. We can't let work creep happen. And then feel guilty that we couldn't hold the boundary. So see how this guilt spiral starts itself and perpetuates right. It's it's super easy. It's super natural For it to develop it just kind of sneaks up on us. So. We have to figure out what's most important now. And focus on that without any guilt. Number two. Get comfortable with saying no. And honoring the boundaries you set. So this is one of those, listen to what I say and not what I do kind of moments because listen, This, this is all a work in progress for me too. Boundaries are hard. For many of us they're new. I mean, we didn't grow up with them. Right. No one was talking about parenting our inner child when we were younger. If they knew about internal family systems and inner child trauma, they didn't talk about it. If you're not familiar with inner child. Trauma or internal family systems there. Gosh, there's so much incredible information about. Those types of. Habits that we developed. When we were young And what's interesting is. what we were exposed to really, really early on. That has informed how we've grown up. So for most of us, like Brené Brown and I love her. But she talks about that. We have created this protective armor to keep us safe. And we started it very, very young. Uh, likely before we, we were even intentional about doing it. So it's happening on a subconscious level. But this protective armor. Becomes this way of. Coping with certain situations and. That has led to our people pleasing tendencies or how we say yes. More times than we care to just to keep the peace. Or if someone asks us our opinion, we, we tend to stay quiet instead of rock the boat or tell someone something that we don't think that they want to hear. Right. These are all kind of coping mechanisms from some. Childhood trauma that we've experienced. But because. We didn't grow up with boundaries. Instead, we grew up with these coping mechanisms, but because we didn't grow up with the boundaries. They're new to us, right. Just like any new habit or skill. It takes time and practice. To get comfortable with showing up in a different way. We, we, we literally have to get the reps in. We have to, we have to practice them. It's not one of those things where we say, you know what. I'm going to start. I'm going to start boundaries today, and then you expect to be perfect with them. These, these are just like anything. that is new. You have to get the practice in. It's not going to come naturally to you in the beginning. There there's actually a past episode on boundaries. I'll link it in the show notes. And I think it's probably worth doing another episode again. In the future with a slightly different spin. So stay tuned for that. But for right now, um, Take a listen to the past episode on boundaries. I think you'll really get a lot out of it. I'll drop a clickable link in the show notes. Before we go on though. Let's, let's talk about boundaries in particular, as they relate to work. So we've already talked about. This work creep and that could show up. As you know, in the morning, before you leave for work, you're going to check your email really quickly and maybe just fire off a couple more. Emails in response before you leave. To go to work. Um, Maybe your checking email or taking phone calls or working on documents at night. So work creep is a real thing. And. I'll say that the pandemic. Kind of screwed us up when it comes to boundaries. Particularly as they relate to work. Because. During the pandemic. We are doing anything. So our clients developed this expectation that because we weren't doing anything. I mean, we were all at home, right. We couldn't go out. We couldn't, we couldn't travel. So we're all at home. So. We kind of trained them because we would respond to them that it was okay to reach out to us. You know, it's seven 30 or eight o'clock at night, or sometimes even later. And because we weren't doing anything anyway. I mean, maybe we were watching. Schitt's Creek or succession or some other bingeable TV series. But because. We were sort of looking for a different distraction than hanging out with our family all day. We would respond to our clients because. We didn't have anything else to do. But when we do that, then we train them. That it's okay to reach out to us. At all hours of the day and night. And then that work creeps sets in. So if we're going to. Get comfortable with saying no. And honoring the boundaries that we set, we have to, that's not just for. Lip service. We have to actually. Set and hold those boundaries. If you're a visual person. To help you set boundaries, it might help you to time block your calendar. I actually have a couple of pointers on that. Number one, schedule your vacations. First. Those should be the very first things that you put on your calendar. Then schedule other life events and appointments and special dates that are life related. Because the key here, when you are time blocking your calendar. As you want to be scheduling your work around your life. Hear me when I say that. Schedule your work around your life. And that's important because so many of us are doing this wrong. We've become beholden to work. And then we try and pepper in our life, around our work. But that's not where the goodness is. That's not where when we get to the end of our life. You've heard all of the studies you've heard. All of the interviews with people on their death bed. None of them have said, I wish I would've spent more time at work. So. Let's let's flip the script and not have those regrets when we get to the end of our life. Let's schedule life first. And then work. And once then you have time blocked your calendar. Once you have your schedule set. Be at work. During work hours only. As much as you can set and hold and honor those work boundaries. Because the work creep has real. But remember. We're learning to set boundaries and hold them. And part of that is getting comfortable with saying no. And honoring the boundaries we set. Number three. My third tip to help you. With work-life balance. Let people help you. I know that. Asking for help can be hard. I get it. A lot of us feel a little. Shame. When we asked for help, like everyone else is doing this on their own. Why do I have to ask for help? What is wrong with me? But it doesn't make you a bad mom or a bad wife or bad employee. When you ask for help, it simply means your human, your normal, all of us at some point or another, whether we want to admit it or not. We have to ask for help. it's like that whole idea of a self-made millionaire or a self-made. Overnight sucks. Blue the blue success story, right. No one gets there on their own. Whether they want to admit it or not. There are plenty of people that have helped them get where they are. So let people help you. Think about it this way. A question I get from my coaching clients a lot is they have friends who are in. A tough spot. They're going through maybe something painful or stressful, like a divorce or a cancer diagnosis or job transition death of a parent, you know, something that's, that's tough. And. The question for me is how can I help them? Right because they know that they can't take away the pain or the stress. So that they don't really know. How to help them. They w the, the desire to help them is palatable. It's they want to help so much. But they can't. They can't take away the pain for them. So, you know, we figure out ways that they can help, but, and a lot of times in acts of service. So showing up and bringing food or running errands, cleaning their house, taking their care of their kids or their dogs. Sometimes it's just sitting and listening to them and holding space for them. And in Showing up for them. And that way then. Your you're actually taking a burden off of them. Right. Your helping them in. In the only way that you're able to. So here's my question for you. Why should it be any different for you? Right. Our standard response, when something gets hard for us and somebody says, How can I help you or standard responses? Oh, I'm good. I have got this. I don't need help. Thank you for asking, but I'm good. Why don't we do that? Right? I mean, In rejecting the help. We're just, you know, increasing our own stress, making things more difficult for us and they have to be. When we have someone. Uh, oftentimes more than just one, someone. We've got a whole. Tribe of people. Trying to help us. Most of us have an inner circle that, you know, 3 4, 5. Sometimes 10 people that when we're in a bind, those are the, those are a writer, dies. Those are the people that we can call. And we know that they will show up for us. We need to get comfortable with letting them help us. When we need help. I. I think I've told this story before, but. When my dad died, I was talking. With my friend on the phone. And I was, it was kind of ticking down through this whole list of things that I had to do after he died. And one of them. Was I had to get a dumpster. Delivered to his new house. And. I didn't really know what the process was. But I knew that. All of my dad's belongings were in two pods that he had packed in Arizona and had been driven up. And stored in Boise. Until he closed on his new house. So all of his belongings were still packed in the pods. I also knew that there was a bunch of shit in the pods that. I didn't want that. We. I just knew that there were things that we needed to get rid of and they, they weren't necessarily things that we could donate. So I needed a dumpster. Didn't know it was one thing on my to-do list. I didn't know how to get to the dumpster delivered. And my friend, when I'm talking to her on the phone, says. Let me call and figure that out. And I said, oh, you know what? Don't worry about it. Thank you so much for offering, but I've got this. I'll figure it out. Oh, you know, I'm just, I'm going through the list. We've finished our conversation. And I thought about it for a couple of minutes and I called her back and said, Will you please figure that out for me. W will you figure out how I get a dumpster? Delivered to dad's house. I didn't need her to actually call and pay for it and, and get it scheduled. I just needed to understand the process. And she offered to help me. And even if she didn't offer to help. There is no shame. In me saying, Hey, could you help me? Figure out how I, how I need to do this. The thing about accepting other people's help. Is, there's nothing wrong with you. And I think. We need to get comfortable with that idea. That there's nothing wrong with asking for help. There's nothing wrong with you because you asked for the help. Think about it this way. Your just giving. The people around you, an opportunity. To help you. Just like when your friends are going through. Difficult situations and you want to help them. If you deny. There help to help you. If your. Feeling like, you know, Your you're too strong. You'll figure it out. You're the lone Wolf. You've got an under control. When you act like your too strong to accept their help. You're actually robbing them of the chance. To show up for you, just like you've done for them. Let that sink in That that. You. Want to show up for your friends. And. Maybe. On some level, you don't think that you're. Worthy of that help. Or that you're not enough for that help or that, that having that help. Means something about you other than the fact that you're human and you, uh, you know, w we are a communal society and we are a communal species and we need. Community and. Relationships and help from others. There's nothing wrong with you. All you're doing. Is giving people the opportunity to help you. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Quick recap, the three things. To think about when you're struggling with work-life balance is. Number one, figure out what's most important now and give yourself permission to focus on that. Number two. Get comfortable with saying no. And honoring the boundaries you set. And number three. Let people help you. let's stop pretending that work-life balance is a thing. And let's stop celebrating this. Fabricated reality, where we can do. It all at the very same time, right. That we can have it all. All at once. if we listen to the maybe the best advice giver ever, Oprah Winfrey. She says you can have it all. Just not all at once. And I, I completely believe and subscribe to that idea. You can have it all, just not all at once. So let's stop feeling guilty. Or ashamed or feel like we're less than because we struggle with work-life balance. Because it doesn't exist. It will always be this constant state of flux where. At one moment, work is more important. At another moment, life is more important and it's this dance between the two. Which is going to show up every single day for our entire lives. And we just need to know how to respond to it and how to deal with it. When it comes right down to it, we kept one life. Right. So the real question isn't are you successfully balancing your work and your life? But the question that we need to focus on is Are you placing a higher priority on your work? So that you're missing out on your life. You get one shot at life. You better figure out how you want to spend it. And if. Everything we hear from the end of life interviews. You are not going to be one of the people that gets the end of your life and says, I wish I would have spent more time at work. So it's important to get your priorities straight. It's important to ask for help when you need to. It's important to understand that work-life balance is bullshit. Get busy. Putting the focus on your life. Get busy living it. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the School of Midlife podcast. I'd love it if you would take a moment and leave me a five star review so that we can spread the word to other mid-life women. Then join my mailing list. The link is in the show notes. And if you're ready to make midlife your best life, you can also find out more about how to work with me in the show notes. I'll see you right back here next week when the School of Midlife is back in session.