Here is Why You Should Not Seek Work-Life Balance and What You Should Do Instead

You often hear people talk about how to achieve work-life balance.
In fact, people pay to attend seminars, workshops and courses on how to achieve this seemingly elusive work-life balance.

What exactly is work-life balance?
I see it as an attempt to give an equal measure of weight to both your life and your work.

I have a slight problem with that definition though.
What is my work, if not a part of my life?

Talking about work-life balance sounds like my work is a separate entity from me.

I have spent years coaching, training and mentoring women, especially mothers on living an abundant life and living their lives to the full. And I have never used the term work-life balance in any of my teachings! Why? I do not believe in the reasoning behind it.

What do I believe?

I believe that I have been created by God to live my life on His terms and so, everything I do should mirror this fact – living every aspect of my life in such a way that my life brings honour, glory and joy to my Creator.

What do I believe?

I believe also that God made available the wisdom to embrace and utilize the right structure, strategies and systems that everyone needs to live that abundant that God has called us to.

So, the question is this:
How do I ensure that I do not fail in any of the things that I have been given the opportunity to oversee and administer?
How can I live life in abundance without feeling overwhelmed, burnt out and frustrated, and without losing sight of faith and family too?

1. Recognize that I am on earth for God’s purpose and His purpose alone: An understanding of this important fact helps me to seek counsel from the One who created me and to ask why He has created me. This is important because knowing my assignment will ensure that I never do more than I have been called and assigned to. If I do what God has asked me to do and no more, I can be assured that I have enough time to do exactly that without burn out. So, whether it is family (husband and children or biological family), career, business, ministry…everything is all a part of God’s assignment for my life and I have been empowered for that.

2. Identify the right systems I need to carry out the assignments I have been given: The fact that God has given me the grace to carry out my assignment does not mean that I know all I need to know about executing the right way. If I will be able to live my life in a way that I have all my bases covered, then I must develop the right kind of systems to save me time and effort, and also find smarter ways to do things.
Whatever knowledge I require in mentoring, training, researching should be sought after.
Meal planning, being productive with my daily routine, hiring a maid, outsourcing some chores and activities… whatever I need to do, I should seek knowledge for, and embrace.

3. Based on the roles that I occupy, I should identify what my priorities are and set goals, targets and plans based on those. I see a lot of people who use to-do lists daily and often feel frustrated when they find that in spite of their to-do lists, their lives are still totally out of sync and they have no idea why. Well, I can tell them for free! A lot of people set daily targets with no basis. The first step to setting any goals is to ask yourself what your priorities in life are, based on your purpose in life.
Then you can set daily targets for yourself in the order of priorities. For example, if your life’s priorities are GOD-FAMILY-WORK-SERVICE TO HUMANITY…
Each day, you should ensure that you have put in place goals to move you closer to the picture you see in those areas of your life.

4. Know my life season and be satisfied with it: Every woman should understand what season she has been called to and learn to be comfortable in that. We must know the period where a heavy demand may be placed on our time, energy and resources and the times when it won’t be so and plan accordingly.
In the periods of heavy assignments and schedules, we should plan and prioritize what matters to us the most in those periods of time. Plan family time around you, make use of your down time or lag time to put in a phone call to your spouse, send a text, do whatever you can do to touch base with those who matter to you

5. Surround yourself with those who will be a great support system for you: Whether It is your mother, nanny, caterer, driver… there will be people that can help you in your seasons of life.
The only roles no one can occupy for you are the ones you should not outsource – wife, mother, daughter of God roles cannot be outsourced! Everything else can. So if it is the washing, cooking, cleaning… anything can be outsourced.To focus on the core of who you are what God has called you to do, you need to get support however you can – free or paid.

6. Make the Holy Spirit your best friend: He’s indeed our teacher, helper, wisdom personified.
The Holy Spirit will always guide you and give you the required wisdom at all times to know what to do, what not to do and what to focus on per season and time of your life.
This is the best piece of advice I can give you – rely totally on the suoernatural strength and wisdom of God for Your own life and watch God do so much for you than you could ever accomplish in your own strength.
You are graced for your assignment and you can be ALL that God has called you to be.

Remember that ultimately, we will give an account of our lives to our Maker and that is why we should strive to live our lives on His terms, embrace our Super power and live the life of abundance we have been called to!

I tell you that you can indeed have it all, as long as you know what the all of God for your own life is.

Love,