Work-Life Balance is BS!

Ditching Work-Life Balance Guilt: Embrace Work-Life Harmony

In this episode, Michelle VandeHey, Certified Holistic Life Coach and Compassion Fatigue Specialist, challenges the concept of work-life balance, arguing that it often leads to feelings of failure and guilt. She introduces the concept of 'work-life harmony' as a more flexible and realistic approach to managing life's demands. Michelle discusses the pitfalls of striving for balance, emphasizes the importance of eliminating black-and-white thinking, and invites listeners to join her community for support. By shifting the mindset from balance to harmony, listeners can alleviate the pressure of balancing all aspects of life and learn to flow with its natural rhythms.

00:00 Introduction: The Myth of Work-Life Balance
00:22 The Guilt of Failing at Work-Life Balance
00:38 Rediscovering Yourself
01:25 The Power of Words: Balance vs. Harmony
02:33 The Problem with Work-Life Balance
06:20 Introducing Work-Life Harmony
07:40 Creating Harmony in Your Life
09:28 Conclusion: Embrace Work-Life Harmony

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Transcript

  📍 Work life balance.  It's BS.  When we say work life balance, it sounds nice  do you feel like it's completely out of reach? Even when you try to have balance, something comes up that puts you right back to where you started, and you start feeling hopeless?  And even guilty that you're not doing it right, you don't have to feel this way anymore.

In this episode, I will help you ditch the guilt of quote unquote failing at work life valence. Don't go another minute feeling weighed down and stick around to the end for the one word shift that'll change everything for you.    📍  📍  After a lifetime of always prioritizing everyone else's needs over your own, do you feel like you don't know who you are anymore? 

You're moving into this next phase of your life, or maybe going through a major life transition with different family dynamics, your career, a partner relationship changing, and you're saying to yourself, I lost, or who am I? You're not alone. It's time to prioritize yourself and power your mission. It's time to love your life on purpose.

I'm Michelle VandeHey, Certified Holistic Life Coach and Compassion Fatigue Specialist to mission driven leaders around the world. Let's explore who you are and who you want to become, because you are worth it.    📍  I often talk about how words matter.

And when I went through my trauma center, trauma sensitive yoga certification, also known as TCTSY, there was an entire week where we talked about the importance of language.  So let's talk about The word balance. When you hear or think of the word balance, what comes to mind? For me?  A balance beam  and someone walking across a tightrope or the third thing for my fellow Libras out there is a scale, you know, like the scale of the judicial system right there.

There's two sides of this scale. So when you're trying to balance something, how are you feeling?  I'm truly curious when you think of the word balance and especially work life balance, how does it make you feel? Do you feel light and free or does it make you feel a little nervous and tense? If you're on YouTube, leave it in the comments. 

There's really no right or wrong answer here.  I'm curious,  because for me, the first issue,  from my perspective, is that balance is so hard, no matter what you're trying to do. And when things in life aren't balanced, and they fall,  We feel quote unquote bad, right, that we feel like if we're not creating this work life balance, if things aren't perfectly the same on both sides, that all of a sudden we're a bad parent, we are a bad business owner, we're a bad employee, we're a bad partner, we're a bad wife, we're a bad husband. 

That's it. Are you telling yourself these things when it feels like, oh my gosh, I need more work life balance, but I can't do it?  I want to help you to alleviate that.  Think of the tightrope walker. When they don't make it across and fulfill what we all came to watch them do, they have failed.  A gymnast, if they fall off that balance beam,  there's no way for them to win anymore.

They have failed.  Me, when I'm not balanced and I'm trying to carry a lot of things and balance things in my hands, either I break something or maybe I hurt a part of my body. You get the point.  You're either in balance and everything is great, or you're not and everything is not great.  And that's a really terrible way to live, right?

That it's this like black and white. Either you're balanced and you're good, or you're out of balance and that's bad.  And that's just a terrible way to live. And I often talk about this when I talk about the amper sand symbol. It's always behind me. It's in my logo.  I talk about it in prioritize yourself and power your mission that it doesn't have to be this either or mentality.

It doesn't have to be black and white thinking that you don't have to be in order to be quote unquote good. You don't have to be. balanced So that's issue number one. Issue number two with work life balance, and why I think it's BS, is when you think of work life balance, how many sides are there? Especially thinking of that scale. 

There's two sides, right?  So for using the scale analogy, that means the amount that you work should equal the rest of your lives.  And last I checked, we're all humans.  And we are multi faceted people, and we shouldn't be expected to fit all aspects in our life in this nice, neat box that matches the same as our work. 

So you might be saying, Michelle, what else can we say? What is that one word shift? And we're almost there. But before we get there,  I want you to know that  when I talk about these mindset shifts  in last week's episode and this week's episode, You don't have to feel alone and that you don't have to feel this guilt of  failing at work life balance. 

And you don't have to do this alone. And that is why I created my community for this podcast, Love Your Life on Purpose,  where you won't feel like you're failing at these things that we're told that we're supposed to be doing. And when you join, you'll be welcomed by myself.  Or my team, plus other mission driven leaders from around the world.

And you deserve to feel less alone and like you're not failing at things. So go to Love Your Life on purpose.com and click join or Search Love Your Life On Purpose on Facebook.  We'll ask you a few questions and then we'll add you to the group.  Okay, so  what is that one word shift That'll change everything for you. 

Just like. You are a multi faceted person that has more than two parts.  So does music.  Music has several notes. So I want you to start thinking of your life as trying to play music, as opposed to trying to balance on a balance beam, or trying to balance these scales.  And instead of being stiff and nervous and scared to drop things, that instead you're trying to figure out how to flow with the music.

What notes do we need to add in here? Maybe what notes do I need to take away here to create harmony? Because music notes create harmony. I think of the Trolls movie. Harmony, harmony, harmony. I'm not good at singing.  Work life harmony. That is the shift that will change everything for you, and that can change everything for you.

It's gonna be hard because we've heard work life balance for I don't even know how long, and it's a really big topic still, especially when, you know, Things during the pandemic went very virtual and then our work and lives really intermingled a lot more. This harmony is that much more important now than ever before. 

And sometimes, sometimes when you're playing music, there's more notes being played than others. That's just like in life. Sometimes you have to work more than you have to be with family and there's other times where maybe something's going on in your family and you need to be with your family more than you can be at work. 

Why does it have to be balanced? It doesn't have to be. And when we feel like it has to be balanced and one, we have to focus on one more than the other, that's when that guilt comes up.  That's when it's like, oh my gosh, now I'm failing at everything because I have to focus on this one thing so much. No, that's okay.

That's called life and we should be allowed to do that and not have to feel guilty.  So when you're playing music and creating harmony,  you can add in notes here and there. You can have multiple notes playing at one time as well. Doesn't have to be either or, you can play both at the same time.  Think of the context of structure with flexibility.

I love that. I have that within my schedule. I do that with parenting. That structure with flexibility is so helpful and allows for real life to happen and that we don't have to be this perfect person that has work life balance. That you can create work life harmony and it can help you to lighten that load of feeling like you're failing because you're not in balance.

So creating that work life harmony and shifting that word can help you to shift your mindset, which is going to help you to let go of this idea that everything should be balanced when  in reality, most things aren't balanced.





What do you think? Have you heard of a different way to say work life balance? Does work life harmony feel like it fits more for you?  Is this helping you to let go of that guilt? , if you're watching on YouTube, leave it in the comments.

You're welcome to send me a message on any of the social media platforms that we are connected. Always remember that you can prioritize yourself and power your mission because you are worth it.