Work Life Balance Tips for Moms

Being a mom is a full time job already. Add work or owning a business on top of that and you can find yourself wanting to tear your out with how crazy things can get trying to balance life.

I know all too well how it feels. After seven years of balancing life as a mom in business, I found a few things to be true and helpful in creating a balanced life.

Why Work Life Balance for Moms is Important

Finding work life balance will help you in so many ways. The mom guilt you feel? That can be eliminated by just understanding how to balance work and family the right way.

The burnout? You don’t need to feel that either. Take a step back and create the life you love with these five tips.

5 Tips to Find Work Life Balance as a Mom in Business

1. Understand when you need to stop and rest. 

As moms, we tend to plan our schedules to the minute, making use of every moment of the day. It’s great to be organized and productive, but we often forget to stop and rest. Then we ask ourselves, why are we so burnout? Work life balance is not about being busy.

Sometimes life forces us to stop and rest in ways we don’t actually plan. Health issues don’t ask permission to stop in to disrupt your daily routines. It just shows up. You are forced to pause and take care of yourself. Some health issues come from being overwhelmed and other issues are things we can’t control. If you can stop to rest before your body crashes, please take that sign your body is giving you and rest. If you have an illness that is not created by your workload, don’t forget to take time and visit your doctor.

2. Be Present.

Do you struggle being present at home when you have so much going on at work? You have so many unfinished projects hanging over your head. You remember that you forgot to do this or that. I get it. Owning a small business, I am constantly thinking of the ongoing list of to do’s. But is it helpful to keep thinking through those things while you are spending time at home with your family? Not really.

Here is a work life balance tip that helped me:

If you are constantly remembering things through out the evening about the things you need to do and not forget, write them down. Keep a piece of paper next to you or have your phone nearby to write them down in your notes to take care of them later. Get it off your mind and on paper so that you can be present with your family. Work life balance is not about having no thoughts about work come to you when you are with your family. Gather them and think through them when at work.

3. Be Honest. 

This work life balance tip may be a little bit contradictory to the one above, but I want you to hear me out. Be honest with yourself. There are days when it is just a lot! Work stress and all the to do’s are just consuming your mind and you need to talk about it. I am going to give you the permission to do that.

Talking about your workload when it’s stressful is helpful too. We tend to focus on only sharing with our kids our positive experiences to protect them from all the negativity from this world. I understand why we want to do that as parents, but I am not sure we are teaching our kids the truth and giving them the reality of what life will be like as they grow up to be adults. We can protect them from negativity and stress until a certain age and then they will become adults and will need to understand how to deal with pressures of life and how to do it will.

Be the example. Manage stress and do it together with your family. I have been a very transparent mom with my kids. They knew from a very young age that business can be overwhelming. Owning a business has it’s pluses, but my kids know the workload that comes with having a business as well.

Be hones with your family. They are there for you.

4. Take control of your time.

In other words, put some boundaries on your time. Don’t allow just any person walking by steal a minute of your day just because they feel they need it.

I struggled with this for a very long time. When someone asked for help, I was there. Volunteer? You got it! Babysit? Bring the kids over! By the time the week was over, I was ready to pull my hair out and scream from burn out and exhaustion.

Learning when to stop and when to go is very important. Only you know when to do that. Finding your sweet spot in boundaries may take some time. You may have to cancel some activities or commitments. Don’t feel bad. At the end of the day, you are in control of your time and you know what is right for you.

I know all too well the guilt that comes with canceling or saying “no,” especially when you first start learning about taking control of your time. Don’t let that distract you from placing boundaries and developing great patterns in your life.

5. Ask for Help. 

I struggled with this one a lot in the beginning. I grew up with a mom who was the super hero. She did it all! I mean all of it. Laundry, dishes, house cleaning, breakfast, lunch, dinner, hosting guests, taking kids to school, homework, and on top of that doing this with nine kids. That’s insane! I thought this was what a mom should be doing and what life should look like for me as mom. Little did  I know that my mom was exhausted!

After having five kids of my own and opening a full time business, I realized that being a super hero of a mom was not my life goal. Doing it all was impossible. I wasn’t happy, but yet frustrated and angry at life.

I set out on a mission to change that. The first step was delegating. I took time to teach my kids chores and laundry. I am so glad I did that because now as teenagers they are doing their own laundry and helping the younger siblings with their laundry.

Mom, you don’t need to do it all by yourself! Where can you start delegating or asking for help? Here are few things you can for help with and don’t need to do it alone:

• Laundry
• Dishes
• Dinner
• Grocery Shopping
• Homework with kids
• Meal planning
• Weekly chores around the house
• Hosting guests

Conclusion

Momma, take these work life balance and start incorporating them one at a time. I promise you will feel freedom in your heart and daily living.