Do You Need More Balance in Your Life?
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In today’s culture and age, the concept of finding balance in life is very popular. We are constantly bombarded with messages asking us to find balance between our personal and professional lives-- our relationships, health, and well-being.
However, the concept of balance prompts critical questions: Is it truly attainable or merely a mythical construct? Why do we persist in striving for it, if it’s impossible?
In this episode of the Embrace Your Real podcast, we’re going to discuss when and why you might want balance as well as when and why you might not.
Links mentioned in the episode:
Episode 117 - 9 Ways To Reduce Your Stress
Merch Store - https://www.bonfire.com/store/official-merch-julie-ledbetter/
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Transcript:
Hey. Hey, beautiful human. Can I steal 5 minutes of your time? I have something super important to share with you, but I promise I'll be really quick. You're listening to my weekly bonus episode of Embrace Your Real with me, Julie Ledbetter. I'm about to give you a quick tip for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned. If you're ready to embrace a real. Let's get it. Let's go.
Hello. Welcome back to another bonus episode.
The idea of balance is a hot topic. Like we're constantly bombarded of people telling us to maintain work life balance, find balance in our relationships and our health and well-being. But do we actually need balance? Like is it actually possible? And if it isn't, why do we continue to try to obtain this impossible goal?
While balance might seem like a super desirable, it's important to recognize that it's not always necessary or even possible. In fact, striving for balance can sometimes be a hindrance for our overall happiness and success towards the goals that we're pursuing. In this episode that's what I want to explore and kind of explore, like when and why we should want to be balanced and when and why we balance shouldn't be the number one thing that we're prioritizing.
But before we dive in, I want to share this review comes from Fit Girl 0417. She gave a five star review and said,
Best podcast, love this podcast. I was introduced to Julie by a friend during a rough season of life. I was on a path of eating, overtraining and daily negative body image talk. This podcast is a daily step to healing for me on my walks. So thankful for Julie even bought myself an embrace your real sweatshirt to wear on my daily walks.
I love that so much. Thank you so much. Fit Girl 0417 for the review. Taking time out of your day to send in the review. It really does help us out. And also I love that you bought some merch. I tend to forget that we have merch so I will link that in the show notes below so that you can easily go check that out. But I do have like sweatshirts, crewneck, some tank tops and they just have empowering messages on them. I believe that when we wrap ourselves with empowering words, it can change the way that we look at ourselves and change the way that we think throughout the day. So you can check that out, link it in the show notes below.
First, I think it's important that we define what society means by balance. Like balance implies that we need to divide our time and energy among various areas of our life, such as relationships, health, fitness, hobbies. And oftentimes we're not able to split our time equally amongst these different facets of our life. We get upset with ourselves. We feel guilty. We even feel like we suck at life. And living with these feelings constantly are not feelings that you should live with. And so that's why I kind of want to explore the idea of balance and not always being the best for you and how to know when you need to kind of give up this idea of balance.
So when you set a goal, whether it's a career goal, a personal goal, health and fitness goal, it's really easy to feel like you need to achieve balance in all areas of life while working towards those super important goals. We hear about the importance of work life balance or the need for downtime and rest and recovery, The value of nurturing relationships and all those things are really important. But then we feel like we have to have like maintain this 100% balanced approach to everything and it can feel so overwhelming.
The truth is, when we're working towards a specific goal, balance might not always be possible or necessary. In fact, sometimes the pursuit of balance can actually be a hindrance in achieving the goals that you have. So like when you're fully invested in something that you're super passionate about, it's natural for other areas of our lives to take a back seat for a period of time.
So, for example, if you're training for a marathon, it's likely that you're going to need to devote a significant amount of time and energy to your fitness routine. You might need to prioritize your workouts over social events, take time away from other hobbies to train or sacrifice time with friends to fit in your training sessions.
In this particular case, having balance would probably be unrealistic and might even be counterproductive to your goal. Similarly, if you're starting a new business or working towards a promotion at work or just a big project is coming up, it's natural for you to have to put put in extra hours or effort to get ahead. You might need to work long hours to put your personal life on hold for a while, right?
Having balance in your life might actually mean that this new company doesn't succeed or that you don't get the promotion. It it might literally be impossible for you to achieve these goals with balance. So here's the thing Balance is not always possible when working towards achieving goals. We need to stop feeling guilty for not having balance and accept the fact that we need to do what we need to do in order to get to where we want to be. Now, there is a caveat to that, and I want to talk about that later in the podcast. Just talking about overall prioritizing important things because I think prioritizing things is a key role in this, especially when you're trying to, you know, figure out what your balance should be in this season of life. I don't think that you should completely neglect all the things in your life, but I will talk about that in a little bit, kind of going back to the overall balance, like it's okay for life to not always be perfectly balanced no matter what the outside society or people in your ear are telling you. But this is really only true if two things. Number one, you feel fulfilled, like you feel happy, genuinely content. And or number two, you're prioritizing something that you're super passionate about.
For example, if you have no balance in your life because you're working a job that you hate and it causes you to have zero time to prioritize what you're passionate about, then yes, it's time that you make changes so that you can have more work life balance. But on the flip side, if you're working towards a fitness goal and taking it super seriously, but you're really passionate about your goal and you've never felt happier with yourself and your body feel confident in your life, you have energy, then do you really need to have more balance despite what other people say? If you don't have balance in your life but you're happy, you're genuinely content, you're prioritizing your passions, then why do you need to change anything? Right. In my opinion, the key to to a successful life is really working towards the passions, the gifts, the talents, the things that you feel called to do, rather than trying to stress yourself out, maintaining all life balance in all these areas of life. If you're passionate about what you're doing, you'll naturally prioritize it over other activities. And that's okay as long as you're making progress towards your goal and feeling happy and fulfilled, you're on the right track.
Now, this is kind of what I was talking about earlier. There's kind of a caveat to this. Of course, this doesn't mean that you need to completely neglect other areas of your life. So one example here is like when I'm working towards a specific goal in my business, it's my human nature to want to be like, I'm just going to put all my like all my effort in here and it's my human nature to like just, you know, wake up and just start working or wake up and and completely neglect my time with God in my my reading in the Bible and my journaling and my prayer. But what I have found speak from experience is that nothing else matters if I don't prioritize that first, like the number one most important thing in my life is God is my relationship with him and making sure that I'm living the life that He is called me to live. And I think our human nature can sometimes get sidetracked with just this Goal, goal, goal, goal, goal oriented like mindset, you know?
And so if you're Christian like me, I want to encourage you to not completely neglect the most important things in your life. Because oftentimes what I have found is when I spend that time in the word, when I don't neglect that, and I'm actually prioritizing that as the most important thing in my life. And then other things follow. Everything works out. I am I'm given the energy, I'm given the wisdom, I'm given the discernment, and I'm able to chase after that goal with clarity. And I just genuinely feel like things work out. Maybe not always the way that I envision them. In fact, nine times out of ten, the things that I've achieved, like they have happened in ways that I could have never planned myself. And so it's important that you prioritize things that are important. And then also when you're chasing a goal, like just for me, my relationship with my husband is so important, so I need to make sure I'm not neglecting those things in the pursuit of what I'm pursuing, if that makes sense.
But ultimately it's important to just remember that balance will look different from person to person. It will look different from season to season and to not judge that, to not judge one previous season to this season or one person to you and just know that it's going to constantly be changing. And so long as you feel content, you feel like you're prioritizing things that you're really passionate about, you feel called to, it's okay. Not everything has to be this perfect balance. There's going to be seasons of my life where I'm spending a lot more time with friends, and then there's going to be seasons of my life that I'm not spending as much time. I'm not completely, you know, dismissing them from my life, but I'm just focusing on something else in in my life.
So mommas who have new babies at home and you feel like you are just completely disconnected from the world, it's okay. This season will pass and just know that this is a season where God has called you to be and be all there, Be present as much as you can and try to learn what you can from this season, but ultimately know that it's not going to be like this forever and there will be another opportunity for you to chase other things and other dreams and passions that you have.
So I hope that this was encouraging. I hope that this gave you just kind of some real talk on balance and just knowing that it's okay that to not have a perfect balance. In fact, I feel like it's almost unattainable to have that perfect balance in all aspects of our life. But with that being said, I think it is important that you prioritize things that are super important in your life and you can definitely do that while working and chasing towards the goals and dreams or the season of life that you find yourself in.
So I hope that you found this helpful if you loved this episode. I know that you'll also love episode 117 - 9 Ways to Reduce Your Stress. I will link that in the show notes that you can easily go tune in to that after this. If you have a friend, a coworker or someone in your life that you feel like would really benefit from this specific episode, I just ask that you share it out with them. You can copy the link, you can send it to them in a text message. You can also screenshot this and post it up on your Instagram story. I always love connecting with you guys so much, but that's all that I have today. I love you. I mean it. And I'll talk to you on the next one.
All right, sister. That's all I got for you today. But I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you are not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so. Julie. A Ledbetter. Yes, It's within in the middle for that daily post workout. Real talk, healthy tips and tricks and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcasts to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world. And I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So go out there and embrace the real because you're worth it.