Finding the perfect work/life balance is a constant struggle. It’s one millions of Americans across all industries constantly face. It’s a trending topic that major companies are trying to provide for their employees. How do you balance out the complexities of work with the important things like your home life? It can seem impossible! We attended a photography event last week and the subject came up again and again. Many people asked us how we even find balance running our crazy schedules and being mom and dad.
When we started our own business a year ago, we knew that we would be stepping into something completely different than we had ever experienced with Jon’s corporate career. Even in his corporate job, finding a good work/life balance seemed difficult. It’s hard not to bring work home with you, if not the actual physical work, just the mental aspect of it as well. We knew being our own boss meant owning more of that, but we’d be lying if we could stand here and say we truly understood what that meant.
Running your own business means owning all of it. Every part. 24 hours a day., 365 days a year. The struggle to turn your brain off of work related issues is nearly impossible, and finding a way to balance that out with home life as mom and dad to two kiddos always seemed discouraging. We felt like we were always failing. If we were too focused on the business, we felt like we were neglecting our kids – and visa versa.
Early on, Jon met with our pastor for coffee. He asked Jon what our biggest hurdle was and Jon brought up finding balance in our lives. That’s when we got some of the best advice we’ve ever heard on the topic. He told us to stop trying to find balance – we’d never find it. It seemed so bizarre at first. Don’t seek balance in our lives? What kind of advice was this?
He explained that if we are always seeking to find balance in our lives between our business and our family lives, we’d be constantly discouraged and feel like we were on a path destined for failure. Instead, he suggested we seek to find a rhythm.
You see, balance requires that you find a condition in which different elements are equal or in the correct proportion. Finding perfect balance is elusive. Sometimes Brody and Paislee will be in a season that requires more of our attention and our business will find itself uneven on the scales. Other times, it’s just the opposite. The worst part is that we often can’t plan for those seasons – they just happen and disrupt balance.
In contrast, rhythm is a harmonious sequence or correlation of elements. This is where we have found success in being business owners and parents. It’s recognizing that attention isn’t always evenly distributed, and being ok with that. We found so much peace once we really got our heads around this. There’s freedom in recognizing that everything doesn’t fit nice and neatly in a perfect schedule every day. So we aim for a daily rhythm which allows us to accomplish the business tasks that keep the ball moving forward, while also being present as mom and dad to our biggest priorities, Brody and Paislee.
We’ll be real about it, that rhythm sometimes gets sloppy. Sometimes it gets off beat. But the freedom in finding rhythm over balance is that it’s ok. If your rhythm gets off beat, you adjust and keeping pounding the drum. The power is in finding the freedom to accept that, and not make perfect balance the end goal.
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