Drop The Balancing Act: Work-Life Synergy Will Change Your Life

As magical and amazing as it can be, motherhood is an experience that truly transforms you, gives you new perspectives and pushes you to evolve as a person. Rewarding as motherhood can be, it can also be quite stressful, especially when you have to ‘balance’ parenting and your professional life to meet the daunting expectations that society places upon women.

We see many narratives about how “successful” women can find the right “work-life balance” to be the perfect mom and the perfect professional, all while looking beautiful and having an active social life. 

I find that this concept of “balance” is flawed because it implies that being a parent and being a professional are two opposing things that one must try to reconcile and find equal amounts of time for. When things don’t go according to plan, you end up in a reactive position, scrambling to fix it so that you can restore the balance. This is what causes stress. 

I believe in an approach called work-life synergy, instead of balance. With work-life synergy, it’s all about embracing a more fluid approach to managing the different things you must do each day. This is a more holistic approach to managing the various roles you play in your life that puts you in control of the events in your life, reducing stress by giving you the choice to move things around as needed. 

Here’s how you can embrace work-life synergy:

1.     Prioritise:

Take control of the to-dos on your plate by identifying short and long-term goals and priorities. What are the things that must absolutely get done today, this week, this month? Picture long-term goals for the year – a promotion or a big project that you want to achieve, a family holiday that you must take, etc. There will be days where work needs to take precedence over everything else, and there will be times when you need to move everything else and focus on what your kids need. When you do this for a while, you’ll see a bigger picture of how you’ve been able to make time for both your work and parenting roles. 

2.     Please, no guilt: 

Once you establish your priorities, boldly enforce them, and say no to the things that don’t make it to your list of priorities for the day. As mothers who work, we tend to carry around a lot of guilt – we feel guilty that we’re not spending enough time with our kids or that we’re not doing enough at work. It took me a long time to get over this guilt and to embrace the fact that as much as I love being a mother, my job is also a part of who I am, and I don’t need to make apologies for either. This will help you internalise the fact that your success is defined by whether you’ve met the goals you’ve set for yourself and not by what society thinks you should be doing.

3.     Be Present:

There’s a lot of hype about multi-tasking these days, especially for women. Most often, multitasking adds to stress and reduces productivity. Instead, do many things in your day but do them one at a time. You’ll feel happier and more in control of the things happening around you if you go through the tasks in order of priority but be present in each moment - when you’re with your kids, don’t think about work and when you’re at work, give it your full focus (except for emergencies, of course). 

4.     Personal care:

Mothers are celebrated and pampered on Mother’s Day, and that’s great. It’s also important to nurture all the other aspects of yourself as well. While figuring out your priorities, keep a little time for your personal care needs – schedule in some ‘me-time’, where you can do things you enjoy and recharge yourself. When you’re at your best, you’ll be able to give your best to others in your life. 

While these tips may work for most people, there’s no one-size-fits-all formula to achieve work-life synergy. At the end of the day, it’s about defining what you want to accomplish at home and work and prioritising to make sure you find your bliss. Be it motherhood, your career, or any other aspect of your life, remember that it's never an 'either/or' situation – you are a mother, a professional and an amazing person, embrace synergy and let your different sides enrich each other! 

Happy Mother’s Day!