Over the years I’ve been asked how I balance business, kids and life. Most of the time in my head I say, “balance, what balance?” But out loud I give some pieces of good advice when in reality there is no balance to the life I have chosen. Even after we sold our company I still live in a state of constant chaos with varying degrees of out of controlled pandemonium.
What is balance to me is bedlam to another. There are tipping points at times that steal my laughter and at those times I fight back to reach my personal equilibrium. As the saying goes, when mama isn’t laughing than no one is having fun. I find a lot of things funny and when those things aren’t funny then there is too much on my plate. I learned a few things along the way that have allowed me to embrace my own sense of balance.
For a long time I tried to make my life fit into the world’s mold. But it doesn’t fit. I operate well inside a world that many wouldn’t enjoy. I know that is the case with most entrepreneurs. It is okay to be different. I have friends that shake their heads and say, “I don’t know how you do it” but I don’t know how I wouldn’t do it. If I didn’t have the things that challenge me on my plate today I would have gathered up other challenges. It is just my nature. I find it healthiest to accept my nature and allow myself to be everything God made me to be even if I’ll never fit into any mold.
It was a freeing experience for me to understand that my dreams and aspirations didn’t have to fit into another person’s vision of success. I used to see other mom’s with all their natural nurturing skills caring for their children and wish that I could be more like that. Instead my kids get a check for blood, broken bones, disfiguring injuries, give them a kiss, a hug and a pat on the back with directions to shake it off. When I finally saw the value of my techniques I convinced myself that they are not wrong, just different. The same is true with our family’s focus on business. It isn’t wrong, and it isn’t right, but it is the right path for our family, even if it is different.
It is crucial to absolutely allow yourself to blossom right where you are and stop waiting for all everything in life to be perfect. I am never going to be that wife and mom who looks totally put together every time she steps out into public. I might live in the South, but evidently what drives women here to always look perfect is not contagious, because I haven’t caught it.
Over the past six weeks I worked at a frantic pace to write, edit, format, publish in paperback, format for Kindle and publish in Kindle my new book, How to Publish: The Author-preneur’s Guide to Self-Publishing. It was a multi-tasking juggle of grand proportions. As I wait for the Kindle version to finish review I am accessing the disaster zone of my neglected house. And have determined that it was worth it. I’m not afraid of a few overgrown dust bunnies.
How about you? Do you think I am off my rocker? Or have you come to accept the value of crisis, the potential from struggle and the reality of your own world as good and healthy?
Great article, Kayla! I’m a born and bred southern gal without the delusion of “perfection” that in reality is just not obtainable because everyone’s version of perfection is different. For me, perfection is being who I am and doing what I’m meant to do. I’ve come to accept the me that God created as being fearfully and wonderfully made….to fit my world and my time in it.
Indeed!
Ha – I think it is interesting in how we “fit” ourselves in the mold we’ve come to believe is true. I’ve been a “southern” belle trying to fit into a Nebraska mold for 23 years now. I’m still a southern girl, heart and mind. I think fitting into a “daughter of God” mold is our best bet – or letting him mold us into what He’s planned for us to be all alone. Stormie Omartian has a prayer that I like to use a lot – “fill me with the power of your Holy Spirit and transform me into the person you’ve called me to be.” I pray that every morning for my children, granchildren, sibilings and their families and others on my prayer list.
Oh I love that prayer! Thanks for sharing.
No, you are not off your rocker! I have come to accept “the value of struggle.” I love learning. With each struggle something fresh and new arrives. As far as not being “perfect,” you’re perfect in God’s eyes. Fitting into a stigma of what a Southern Gal should look like, or what a Brandon, Florida gal should look like, well…we fit into what a daughter of God should fit into, who we are for our family, for God, and for ourselves. What else matters? This is an awesome post, Kayla. I read it yesterday when your Facebook update popped in, and then I read it again, out loud, after my husband arrived home. He told me to tell you, “She made my evening. Such a smart woman!”
Awesome and Amen to fitting into what a daughter of God should look like!