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Hey there, everyone. It's Megan Kristel with The Well Dressed Life and Kristel Closets.
Today, we are shooting a video or a series of videos we're doing based on reader's questions.
We get a lot of questions from our readers of The Well Dressed Life blog and followers
of Kristel Closets and our monthly newsletter on Facebook page that have nothing to do with
fashion or style. I thought, "Wouldn't that be a great way to maybe share some ideas and
start conservation within the community?" There are so many like-minded women who are
a part of this and women love to give advice and we love to get it and we love to learn
from each other. This could be a great opportunity to do that.
The first question that we're going to start off with today is from a woman named Lisa.
And Lisa writes, "Hi, Megan. I'm a busy mom like you with my own small business. And I
wonder if you have found a happy balance between running a business and raising a family. If
so, what has worked for you? I love hearing how other working moms are pulling this off.
Love your blog. Lisa."
Lisa, I love to hear how other women are managing their lives and the little secret strategies
or even the common sense things that they're doing that I have totally forgotten to integrate
into my life. So I love this question and I would love to know what everybody else does.
So in the comments below or on our Facebook page, please post some so we can share all
these ideas together.
In thinking about your question, I think that my life is probably balanced but my day-to-day,
I wouldn't consider it balanced at all. When I hear the word balance, I think everything
is equal and everyone is getting all the attention that they need in equal parts every day and
that's just not realistic for the way that we live our life and how busy our lifestyle
is. But I do think that at the end of the day, at the end of the month, at the end of
the year when I look at my life in its totality, I really do think that I have been able to
strike a good balance between doing what I need to do working and doing what I really
want to do with my family.
I came up with five strategies that have worked for me. Most of these I've learned from other
people. One of them I kind of figured out on my own although I'm sure it's pretty common
sense. And I'd love to share them with you and let you know what you guys think.
And so, the first thing is I learned to say no. This is obvious. Everybody says just say
no and it's in every woman's blog and magazine. You really have to be in the right place to
completely understand what that means. What I did was I just wrote down what my priorities
are and it's my family and friends and building my business right now. That's my priority
for today. It's been my priority for the year. It's my priorities last year. And that helps
me say no to things that do not feed into accomplishing being there for my family and
friends and growing my business.
That doesn't mean that I say no to everything. It just means that when I'm faced with a decision
that I really don't want to do or I really don't have time to do, what I do is ask myself
how does this fit into what my goals are and will saying yes accomplish one of those goals
or will saying no just take time away from everything?
My husband reminds me all the time that a yes to one thing is a no to something else.
So you better be sure that what you're saying no to makes sense in that time and that it
sets right with you. It's also good to just trust your instinct.
There are so many times especially within business and as a business owner, you probably
know that when you start to say yes to things and you get that feeling in your stomach and
you think, "Oh, I don't want to do this." Just say no to start with. It makes life a
lot easier.
The second thing I do is sometimes I suck it up and that means I say yes to something
that I don't want to actually do. This goes back to the idea that if saying no is going
to somehow accomplish a goal, saying yes is probably going to accomplish a goal too. Meaning,
I don't always want to make cupcakes for the bake sale but for some reason, I'm always
signed up for it. And I would love to say no. I don't have time for that.
But the truth is, is that when my daughter sees me walking in with a tray of cupcakes,
she gets so excited. So by saying yes, I'm actually accomplishing one of my goals and
priorities which is being there for my family, my children obviously being the most important
part of that. And sucking it up sometimes means that you go to a dinner party that you
don't want to go to but it might make your partner or your spouse happy and it fills
that priority. Or sometimes I don't feel like answering emails but I have to do that to
sustain my business. So I use that in all different ways. But sometimes just sucking
it up is what we have to do when we are the moms and the ones running the show.
The third thing that I do is I schedule everything. Anything that needs to get done, I designate
a time or a day that it needs to happen. I'm not always great with this and there are certainly
days during the week that I just don't schedule anything and kind of fly by the seat of my
pants. What I've learned is that when I do schedule things and sometimes I will schedule
things down to 15-minute increments, I get a lot more done. And I will feel at the end
of that day like I may have struck a bit of a balance a little bit better.
The fourth thing that I do is I schedule special dates way out with friends, girlfriends, couples
that we have dinner with, and our kids so I know that we are dividing our time in a
healthy way so they feel good and everybody who I care about knows that I care about them
because really, that extra time that you're giving people, I think as we get older, we
start to really understand how important that is.
My husband and I have a date night once a week. Sometimes we're going out to dinner.
Sometimes we're out with another couple. Sometimes we're just getting a bottle of wine and pizza
watching a movie. But we make sure that we have that type of connection at least once
a week especially with how much we travel.
With our kids, we do things called Mommy and Maddie Day for my oldest daughter or Mommy
and Ava Day for my baby. And we will spend the day doing something that they pick out
and it's all about them and it's a great way for me to have that one-on-one conversation
with them, hear the crazy funny things that they say and just reconnect with them at a
different level.
We also make sure that we maintain some sort of balance during the day. Meaning, we will
-- we do the pickups at school and all of that stuff because those are those little
moments. And even though it's so much easier to go to the market on my own especially if
I've been traveling, I will take one of my kids with me because the time in the car,
listening to them singing songs, having them talk or letting them push around the cart
is a lot of fun. And those are the moments that really make the biggest impact I think
in our day-to-day happiness.
And then the fifth thing that I do that has been probably the most pivotal in keeping
me sort of sane is I change up our routine all the time because our lives are so frenetic
and they're constantly changing, what I noticed happens is our lives are changing but we're
making those lives fit into a routine that maybe we had a year ago or six months ago
or three months ago. And it doesn't always work. So I always analyze, are things working
out? Is this the right thing to do? How can we fit this activity into this day and so
on and so forth?
So we are always changing up our routine, who's responsibility it is to do certain things,
maybe the days of the week that we look at our money, the days that I go and workout,
the days that I have open for travel for work, and I do try to keep that pretty concrete
until I have to change it again and then that new routine becomes what we keep and stick
to as a family until we have to change it.
I would love to know, what do you do to find and seek out balance? Do you think your lives
are balanced? Do you feel balanced all the time? Just certain times from a distance,
is it balance but your day-to-day is crazy? I say all the time, "I'm not really looking
for balance. I am just trying to avoid chaos."
So we would love to know what you think. We'd love to hear your questions. Put them on the
comments below or post them on our Facebook page. Thanks so much and we will see you next
week.