When it comes to setting yourself up for success in all things work-life balance, it might be helpful to read the top 5 tips from working moms on work-life balance. Of the more than 100+ interviews with working moms that I did for both Mompowerment books, these are the top 5 pieces of advice. Doing these things won’t automatically make work-life balance happen, but they will likely get you closer to what you’re looking for.
Who gave this advice?
Before I share the advice, let’s talk about who I talked to. As an introduction (or maybe a reminder), I interviewed more than 110 professional working moms. These are women in all sorts of professional fields. They are engineers, medical professionals, financial services professionals, lawyers, consultants, social workers—you get the idea. They are professionals. About 62 percent work for a company, big or small, and the other 38 percent work for themselves. The average level of experience is about 14 years in the workforce.
Get Help
The #5 tip was to get help. Remember that asking for and getting help doesn’t mean that things aren’t under control. You’re human and you can’t and shouldn’t do everything. Help can take a lot of different forms. It could be carpooling to get kids to activities. It could be getting a housekeeper (many women I interviewed mentioned this one) or some other type of service that’s helpful to your specific needs.
The women I interviewed talked a lot about meal prep, which is broken down into planning your meals, buying the groceries, and prepping the meal and then cooking or heating up food each day. Can you get help in any part of this? Remember that most major grocery chains these days have services to do your shopping. Many of them will put the groceries in your car. Some even have delivery services. That could change your grocery store visit from nightmare-ish to a breeze, especially with kids in tow. I’ve heard of working moms hiring someone to fold laundry or getting a mother’s helper each afternoon. See what can help you on the personal side of things.
And, if you’re an entrepreneur, could you hire a VA? Maybe someone can take over your social media or do a specific task that you dread or that takes too much time. I am starting to think through what I’d like someone’s help with and hire out a few hours of time to a VA on a consistent basis. I already hire out specific tasks to people, especially related to all things Mompowerment.
It’s a matter of figuring out what you need that will help you in whatever area you’d like.
Boundaries
No other tips or tricks I share related to work-life balance will matter if you don’t have boundaries. And that’s personal and professional boundaries. It’s helpful to have these early on in new professional relationships with clients or your team. One area that is really helpful is to agree early on about what is an emergency. Essentially, when can the agreed-upon boundaries be crossed?
And don’t forget that boundaries can help you figure out how to divide up your time throughout the day as well. You can take back control of your schedule by creating and maintaining boundaries. For example, you can take meetings during certain times or make calls during a specific block of your day or week. Consider this an option instead of reacting to what comes your way.
Be Passionate
The third most common advice I heard was to be passionate about what you do. Work is generally the biggest chunk of our lives, especially in the US. If you’re working 40+ hours each week, shouldn’t you love what you do, at least at some level? Or maybe you love the company you work for, but not your current role? Something about what you do should light you up. If it doesn’t, you might want to start changing things up a bit.
Understand Your Motivation
Before you start making changes and trying to create more work-life balance, take time to understand why you want to make the changes. This why becomes your compass and helps you understand what things to say yes to and what things to say no to. You can understand how to set up your schedule or what you want to request in a proposal to your manager. It allows you to be more intentional with your decisions about all aspects related to work-life balance. Who doesn’t want more of that?
If you want to explore this a bit more, check out the Know Your Why Guide. I walk you through several exercises to help you understand your own motivation for change.
The #1 piece of advice from working moms to help you find more work-life balance was to network. This might seem counterintuitive, so let me share more. If you’re reading this, chances are you are not quite where you want to be when it comes to work-life balance. That’s OK. That is normal. According to a study done by Pew Research, a leading research organization, 60 percent of working moms struggle with work-life balance.1
As the women I interviewed realized that they needed to make changes, they started talking to others. One of the reasons for this was to find mentors. For others, it was to find a new role at their employer that allowed for more space to create more work-life balance. Some women decided to start a business since they couldn’t find what they wanted in their industry, so they needed to network to find clients.
That networking enabled them to take the next step. It became integral to putting all the pieces together. And before you say you don’t have time for networking, you do. I suggest you take your focus from trying to figure out when to fit in time to network to networking where you are each day. More on this in my recent blog.
If you’re looking for more advice from the more than 110 interviews that I did, grab your copy on Amazon of either of the books related to different aspects of work-life balance. You can go wrong. Mompowerment, the award-winning first book, helps you successfully transition to a professional part-time role. The most recent book, The Mompowerment Guide to Work-life Balance, helps all working moms create more of the work-life balance you crave. It launched at #1 in its category on Amazon. Find both on Amazon. (Please note that there are affinity links in this paragraph.)
1 http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/05/10/facts-about-u-s-mothers/
