Hey, ladies, you are absolutely in the right place if you are looking for mindset, inspiration and motivation to help you glow up and show up as the very best version of yourself. You are listening to the Ashlee Jaine show and I am your host and guide Ashlee Jaine sharing advice and actionable tips on basically everything you need to know to become the very best version of yourself. In today's episode, we are going to be discussing work and life balance. This is something that has been highly requested. I have been a business owner or self-employed for. I don't even know how long four years ever since my son was born. So he's almost 10. So you do the math. But there are so many things that I want to share with you in this podcast episode, and I just think that it's going to be so helpful for you to listen. And for you to really take away what I'm sharing with you. Because let me just start by saying that there is no such thing as balance when it comes to life and work. Whether your work is some sort of corporate office or whether your work is running your own business, whether your life is managing your social calendar with your friends or taking care of your little ones, there literally is no such thing as balance. And I really want you to soak that in because that is the theme around this entire podcast episode and is really going to relieve a lot of stress for you when it comes to figuring out how to navigate your friends and your family and your work calendar as well.

Because in all honesty, the truth is that there are always going to be times in your life where your time and your attention and your energy are going to be split between work, between family, between friends and extracurricular obligations. And that's never going to end. That is never going to change. And so the sooner that we can embrace the mentality of, there is no such thing as balance and really focus on how we can make it work from there. The better off we will be because of it, because I spent years looking for balance and striving for that. Some I don't even know what it was that I was looking for. I was just hoping that I would find some sort of common ground or some sort of like flow, if you will, where I felt like I gave my time, my attention, my energy, my love, my affection, all of the things equally in all departments across the board. But that never happened. And when I realized that that was never going to happen, I figured out a way to make my work life and my family life or my home life. I wouldn't say balanced, but it was fluid and it flowed and it worked.

So that's what we're striving for here. We're not striving for balance, we're not striving for some sort of invisible scale that is teeter tottering, one side to the other. And you're just trying to make it be a flat line all the way across. That doesn't exist. And I'm sorry if you were really hanging your hat on that I hate to burst your bubble, but that expectation of balancing your work and your home life, that is bullshit. So with that said, we are going to focus on what you can do and kind of how you can embrace the imbalance, if you will, of your work and your life and your home life. Anyways, that's what we're talking about in this episode here today, ladies. And if you are new and this is our first episode together, I would love it if you would hit that subscribe button and you can feel free to leave a review at any time. If any of this really resonates with you or helps you in any sort of way, that just helps me get the word out to other ladies, just like you to stay inspired and motivated and help them on becoming the very best version of themselves. All right, so here is what we are going to be talking about. Since we're not talking about balance, we are going to be focusing on embracing the imbalance and the number one thing that you can do in your life across the board, every single department of life, whether it's friends, whether it's family, whether it is volunteer, work, extracurriculars or work itself, is figuring out and finding and searching for the things.

That flow with the lifestyle that you want with the lifestyle that you have. There has to be fluidity in all of these things for you to feel at peace and for you to have some sort of harmony over everything that you have going on in life. Because let's face it, we all have a million balls in the air that we are juggling each and every single day, and we need to figure out how to not balance it. But how do we make it fluid? How do we make it work? And a lot of people, really, they fall back on the crutch of saying, Oh, I don't have time or I can't make time or I'm not in control of my time, and we need to really move away from that thought process because in reality, yes, you are 100 percent in control of your time. You are choosing what your career is, how many hours you're putting in at the office. You are choosing, you know, your children and you are choosing your husband and you are choosing your friends and you were saying yes to your volunteer work.

And so yes, we are in control of our time. We need to really I keep I keep falling back on embrace that. But we need to really embrace that. You need to be in control of your time and you need to figure out what you want your date today to look like so that you can find those things and piece together those things that are fluid within that day. Now I'm just going to give you an example of like my day today because this is everything that I have going on, but please feel free to take it and apply it to whatever aspect of your life that you're trying to find this imbalance, if you will. So everything that I have going on in life consists of, I have my children and my husband, of course my dogs. All of those are top priority and I have my business, which is also top priority. And I also have my city council role where I have to really focus on spending time and energy there to accomplish the things that I want to accomplish. And in that aspect, I am also very active, so I do pilates. I'm starting to do it daily, which has really taken up a lot more time, obviously, but it's very important to me. So fitness is very important to me. That's another hat that I wear as well.

And then volunteering and doing things outside of that, I volunteer for my children's PTA at their schools and I help out, you know, within my community as much as I can. So I really do do a lot, and I really do try to fit it into my schedule by a prioritizing like I just shared and be figuring out what I can say yes to. That is fluid and that I can move about and place strategically as far as time goes within my schedule. So the very first thing that I would ask you to do if you are somebody who's really struggling with the stress of trying to balance your work in your life is figure out what your priorities are, what is at the top of your list. What are non-negotiables? Is it your family? I would certainly hope it's your family. Is it your family? Is it your friends and your social life? Is it your fitness? And you absolutely are not willing to give up two hours at the gym every day? Is it your nine to five because you're really trying to push for that raise or that promotion? What is it that's at the top of your list? Those are your non-negotiables and then really look into and start applying some sort of time blocking strategy. Ok, so I love time blocking. And honestly, I'll probably do an entire episode on how to do all of my productivity tips, really, because there are so many of them, and I could do an entire episode just on that.

But time blocking essentially just allows you to block out certain hours or an hour, however long for specific tasks. So if your fitness is important to you like it is to me, I would time block that time throughout my day. I would make sure that it gets done. Maybe its first thing in the morning, maybe I'm waking up at six o'clock and from six o'clock to seven o'clock I'm working out. My kids obviously are top priority. So at seven o'clock I wake them up. I helped them get ready for school and see them out the door and then move on to whatever it is that my next task is and whatever it is, that is my priority for that day. All of these things, it's almost like a puzzle. I really feel as I'm explaining this, it is really like. A puzzle. So then from there, after you time blocked and I would recommend doing this not just day to day, but also for your entire week, like get a rough draft for the week and then you can fine comb it through from the day to day throughout the week. So do that and really just figure out where you can plug and play with things. And also don't be the type of person to say yes to everything.

I used to be this type of person, and actually I did a podcast episode on this. It's called The Power of No. You can always go back and listen to any of my older episodes on whichever podcast app you are listening to this on right now. But it just talks about essentially how incredibly powerful it is to say no to things, because any time you say yes to something, you are without a doubt without even realizing it, saying no to other things that may come your way as well. So it's all about prioritization, and it's all about just figuring out where you can plug and play and what falls where. Ok, so on the topic of saying no and yes, and whatever it is, your answer may be to things I would really encourage you. I know how hard it is. A friend asks you if you want to go out for drinks, or maybe they want to go shopping, whatever it may be. I would really encourage you to really prioritize. There is that word again. We're just going to prioritize our life throughout this podcast episode. That should be the theme of the podcast episode, not work and life balance, but prioritize what you say yes to in the sense that if you say yes to something, think about what you are getting out of it. What impacts you are making what you are giving others out of it and really just be cognitive of that because you don't need to say yes to every invitation that you get.

You don't need to say yes to every time your church asks you to volunteer, you don't have to be the person who always says yes. Just for the sake of saying yes and not saying no, don't be afraid to say no. Saying no. It's a very powerful thing, as I've already covered. But when I say yes to things, I make sure that a it's bringing me joy. B, It is making some sort of positive impact on those around me. And see, it is fluid in the sense that I can dictate the time I can dictate the location. I can dictate everything about it to make it fit in with my schedule. Sometimes the last part is not always an option. Sometimes if you are being asked to volunteer for a specific situation or if you're being invited to some sort of social gathering at a certain place and time, obviously you have to be a little flexible and you have to bend a little bit in that regard. But if it's an ongoing commitment, just try to make sure that you do have that say in the matter of time and place and location and things like that. So just keep all of the stuff in mind.

And remember, you don't have to say yes to everything. Prioritization is key. Your happiness and your top priorities fall way before anything that you're saying yes to that you haven't already committed yourself to. So speaking of flexibility, you really need to embrace some sort of flex time. So don't book yourself so full that you don't have any opportunity to say yes to anything new or you don't have an opportunity to just relax and hang out and spend time with your family. For example, if you are like me, don't fill your week with work, fitness, gymnastics for the kids, baseball practice and all of these things don't fill up every single hour of your schedule when your time blocking. You really want to leave that flex time or that space for you to, I don't know, maybe just be creative and focus on, you know, big picture things in your life. Or maybe you just want to completely tune out and sit down and watch a movie with your family, whatever it may be. Maybe there's a great invitation that comes your way and you get to catch up with a friend who you haven't seen in forever. Whatever it is, make sure you have that flex time in your schedule and in your calendar because life happens and you may be feeling extremely burnt out that week, and that gives you something to look forward to.

You know that you have that flex time to sit down and do absolutely nothing. Or maybe you're feeling extremely inspired and you know that you have that time to sit down and plan out your next project or, you know, just do a vision board, whatever it may be. So give yourself some flex time. All right, I just want to recap some of these tips that I've shared with you now that we have embraced the fact that work and life balance is bullshit and we are embracing the imbalance of work and life. I just want to cover again what you can do to help be more fluid, more flexible and really just have a life flow that is the goal. Life flow and I love flow like that is one of my key words that I always use and that I always fall to. Because if there is like a flow in my life, I feel so good it doesn't have to be balanced. It doesn't mean that I'm dedicating X amount of hours in the same x amount of hours in every single department of my life. But it flows and that is what works for me. So I'm hoping that these tips that I'm sharing work for you as well. Ok, so prioritize course time block. And when you say yes, make sure that you're saying yes to things that are important to you, that are impactful, that bring you joy.

Embrace the know if you need to. The power of note is very powerful and give yourself some flex time. Give yourself some flex time. To say yes to new things, to catch up on old things, to decompress, to do whatever you need to do in your downtime. All right. So hopefully these tips that I have shared with you, ladies really help you. And I know that there's other podcasts, and I know that there's other things out there that kind of build hope for the work and life balance. And believe me, I have searched for it for years. Like I said, I've been a business owner for almost 10 years, so I've been there have been times when I felt like I was pulled in a million different directions at once and I have all of the balls that I'm juggling in the air and there are about to all come crashing down on me. And I've definitely had those times where I've had extreme mom guilt because I feel like I'm putting too much time or energy or whatever it may be into my business and not giving enough to my family. So I've kind of been on the extreme and I know exactly if you can relate to that. I know exactly how you feel, and I'm hoping that with these tips, you feel some sort of peace and you can relieve yourself of any of the stress or the tension or the anxiety around being pulled into a million different directions.

At the end of the day, life is always happening. It's always going to happen. There's always going to be things that we want to do or that we are doing. And it's not up to us to figure out, you know, some sort of mathematical equation as to how many hours to dedicate to certain tasks throughout the day or make sure that, you know, 12 hours is dedicated to family and 12 hours is dedicated to work or business. It is up to us to figure out how to make it flow, how to make it work in our day to day lives. And that is the secret sauce for having that piece and having that harmony around work and life and really embracing that imbalance, if you will. All right, ladies, I will leave you with that. And I just want to thank you so much for being here. Thank you for hanging out with me. Whether you're driving to work, driving to drop the kiddos off at school or practice, or maybe you're even in the shower listening to me and getting your mindset and your inspiration, whatever it may be, I want to thank you so much for being here. You are one step closer to becoming the very best version of yourself. I love you so much, and I will see you on my next episode.