Lifestyle
My Journey to Balancing Home & Work Life
This post is sponsored by Vocalpoint and Life Reimagined®. All opinions are my own.
Ever feel stuck in a rut with your life? Whether it is trying to find a bit of “me time,” trying to balance work and home life, losing weight, or having issues in a relationship or marriage, it would be so nice to have someone to really talk to about these deep issues to help us discover “what’s next?” in our lives.
Lately, I have been struggling with balancing my work and home life. Since I run my business from home, I can never seem to find that perfect balance of when to stop working, when to go relax, and how to manage my time wisely. Some days I find myself stressed out and in tears because I feel as if I am putting my work before my son and husband-can anyone out there relate?
My son has even noticed how much his mommy works because when I do not have my cell phone in hand, he will grab it off of the counter top and bring it straight to me: this was an eye opener for me that I needed help.
Thankfully, I had a chance to talk with a life coach at Life Reimagined®. Now, being somewhat of a coach myself on a health level, I saw the benefits of talking to a life coach, yet I still felt that I could handle all of my issues on my own. Often times, we believe that we can handle our own issues without the help of a “stranger,” but let me tell you this- talking to someone outside of the box truly opened my eyes to what my real issues were and how to move forward. Sometimes we need that stranger-yup, someone who has no idea who were are or what we do-to set us straight. Besides, life coaches are 100% trained to help people in various areas of their lives where they need it the most.
Life Reimagined® works on a holistic approach to helping you find all of the answers in life. Prior to my video coaching session with my life coach, I completed what’s called a LifeMap. It is a useful tool in your journey to helping you figure out what to do next in your life and current situation. Think of it as your personal action plan to helping overcome obstacles and acheive your goals. Your personal LifeMap is created when you answer various questions and assessments about what is most important to you and then you narrow down your answers and place them in order of most importance depending on your Gifts, Passions, Impact, Values, and Purpose.
As you can see from my map below, I want to use my gifts for empowering others and passions for well-being, to create an impact on my family and clients because I value my family and work. My goal is to use my LifeMap to help me make more time for my family and to stay healthy.
Using the information above, here’s how my LifeMap turned out:
After completing my LifeMap, I was ready to book my life coach! There were so many choices to choose from and luckily there was a bio for each coach that showcased their specialties. I chose to go with Elaine Chaney and I chose Elaine because she went from working in healthcare to starting her own business-just like I did! Also, she specializes in Work-Life Balance, Career, Well Being, and Personal Development-all areas that I could find myself benefiting most from.
I am normally not a huge fan of speaking live via video chat because I tend to feel a bit awkward when I hear myself talk, but 5 minutes into the chat, I knew I had picked the right life coach when I felt right at ease. Some of you may have no idea what a life coach is or what they do, but life coaching very similar to seeking advice, mentoring, therapy, or counseling. You tell them what is going on in your life and they help you find the solution to figuring out what’s the best next step to take.
During our chat, my life coach asked me a variety of questions that I answered which led to many eye opening discussions. One discussion that we had truly helped me have a reality check with myself and that was when I gave her a quick run down of how a typical day goes for me. I told her that I wakeup around 6am to make my son breakfast, work from 6am-8:30am, finally eat breakfast myself, take my son to daycare at 9:30am, come back home to workout until 10:30am, work from 10:30am until 2pm, go pick my son up at 2pm and come back home, work some more after my husband comes home at 3pm, work some more, cook dinner for my family, and then maybe work a bit more. WOW! I realized how much I worked before the life coaching session, but to actually hear myself tell her this really made me realize that I needed a change. Before I knew it, I was already discovering the steps I needed to take in order to overcome my time management obstacles.
We proceeded to discuss steps that I could take in order to create that perfect work-life balance by working on what’s called a Playbook together, as shown below. We both went through each question and I rated how I felt about each one, honestly. Then we created 3 areas or goals to focus on: spending more time with my family, creating a schedule to manage my time better, and finding a hobby/”me time.” After that, she asked me to jot down how long I thought it would take me to reach each goal or focus. This was basically my game plan to put what we discussed in our live chat in motion for every day life from that point onward.
What will I be doing differently to acheive my work-life balance?
- We decided to experiment with shutting off my computer one day per week. Together, we chose Sunday as my “rest” or off day from work. On this day, I will not write blogs or work-period. Instead, I will relax, have “me time,” and spend the day with my family. If this goes well, I will proceed to taking Saturdays off as well.
- I will find a hobby outside of home. Blogging and working out used to be my hobby.. before it became my source of income! So, we discovered that I needed a new (well, real) hobby to help me have some “me time” and have a source of happiness/relaxation/enjoyment.
- I will focus on my family more. The reason why I was focusing so much on my business is because for the longest time, I had no other choice. Owning a business and making it thrive is hard work and the first year is always the hardest year. I was so stuck in the survival mode of my business that I didn’t know how to switch that button off because I did not know any difference. Three years later, my business is thriving and going well and I need to realize that by taking a break, it won’t crash or crumble down.
- Making a daily schedule and abiding by it. For a while, to manage my time, I had a huge monthly wall calendar. Apparently, what I needed was a daily task calendar instead because we both found that I work better at micro-mangaging. By giving myself tasks to do each day along with times to complete the task, I will be able to stay on track and end my work at the designated time (or at least really try to).
I never knew how therapeutic talking to a life coach could be. I found myself tearing up at some points of the conversation and in shock during others, but most of all, I felt empowered. My life coach gave me a pep talk at the very end of our 60 minute video chat that really made me feel that I could do this. Sometimes, we need more than just a friend, family member, or spouse who knows us to encourage us. Sometimes, it takes a complete stranger who we are most likely willing to listen to.
Life coaches are qualified and trained to tackle these situations with you so that you do not feel alone. I did not want my chat to end! I loved it so much that I will be touching base with my life coach in 4 weeks through live video chat to see how I am doing and how my plan is going to acheive that work-life balance.
It doesn’t matter if you are going through a divorce, a job change, retirement, self-confidence issues, life transitions, a weightloss journey, or any obstacles that life may throw your way-I would recommend you trying Life Reimagined® out. You just might be amazed at how much clearer the next steps will be.
It has been four days since the chat with my life coach and I have already been practicing with using my time wisely and not being such a work-a-holic. I would say that the experience-even just an hour chat-has definitely changed my perspective on things. I am so thankful to have discovered Life Reimagined® and I hope you all have enjoyed my very personal experience.
Your trainer and friend,
