Balance and Business: Can we have both?

About 8:30 p.m. the phone rang; a colleague and friend was both confirming and changing the location of our next morning's business meeting.

"Can we change the location?", she asked, "Kandace needs a book from Borders, they open at 9:00 a.m. and I can pick that up before our meeting". " No problem", I replied.

Turns out her daughter, witness to the conversation, explained that she really needed the book in the morning, so she would indeed need to pick it up that evening. "Ah, there is no rest for the weary", my friend replied, as the ever busy medical law consultant (attorney/nurse) realized that her day, full of business tasks, children's pick-ups, drop-offs, and soccer games, was yet to be over.

Balance and Business: Can we have both?

As women are we destined to choose one or the other? Can we really do business and maintain our balance or is it just a fantastical illusion that we've infused in our minds for so long, thatsubconsciously it's become a reality?

Several months back a male colleague and friend made an extreme case against it: "I want to put to rest the mistaken virtues of a balanced life. The illusory life of everything completed, everyone is happy and you make the most of multi-tasking with countless "balls in the air". We want material success and security and yet put our focus and energy in places farthest from our goals. Proponents of the "you can have it all" school of thought rarely stop to count the cost for the desirable things in life. Every endeavor comes with a price on the front end and has a downside. The professional skills that necessitate climbing corporate ladders and founding great institutions, do not lend themselves to warm, caring, loving parenting skills."

Chilling to many; unfathomable to more. But the question remains. An excerpt from the American Medical Association's, The Women's Complete Health Book, points out that while men may face more immediate life- threatening occupational hazards, women are more prone to stress-induced illnesses. The reason the author contends is three-fold: (1) Women are socialized to be care takers (2) Women are less likely to be in positions of power and feel in control and (3) Men can often leave work and relax at home while women on the other hand often leave work to go to work, with traditional duties awaiting them, which might include childcare, dinner preparation, laundry and more.

In the book, Sipping Tea and Doing Business, a Holistic Journey to Business Success, co-author, Loretta Patrick provides an extreme example, relaying one experience of overdoing it to the point that she fell prey to pneumonia. It was then and only then that she felt compelled and even relieved to find that her body could be given a rest.

If balance is truly attainable in business (studies show that those that add recreational and social aspects to their life tend to be more productive in business) then how might women attain it and begin incorporating it into their daily lives?

Here are 9 strategies, particularly for women, that will help meet the challenge of maintaining some aspect of balance while doing business:

1. Discover Self
It is easy to become engrossed in your business, your career, your family and others, to the point of losing self. Women are advised to take some time once or twice a year to step back (away) from the things and people in their life and discover who they are outside of the roles they maintain.

2. Define Your Purpose
Understanding your unique purpose positions you for strength and growth. A woman that knows her purpose is unmoved by barriers and obstacles that might incur. A woman on the right path will feel more balanced because she knows each day what it is she is destined to do.

3. Manage Your Time
Learning to manage both your time and commitments gives you more time to work and have some fun. Take time out to plan your day and your activities. When you manage your time wisely, you gain additional hours, time that can be spent relaxing, preparing, and planning. Steve Covey reminds us of the importance of "organizing and executing around priorities" in his well read book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Learning the rules of "personal management" can also lead us to becoming not only effective, but more balanced individuals as well.

4. Focus
Because women are natural multi-taskers, they are often involved in many things at one time, which may include several business ventures, advisory board commitments, children's and husband's extracurricular activities, and more. Focus does not mean only managing one aspect of your life; for women it means focusing their attention in such a way that it makes ties into the other aspects of their life. In Faith Popcorn's book, Eveolution, the author shares the importance of helping women integrate their lives and helps to confirm and validate women as multi-dimensional individuals that lead multi-lives, often doing many things at a time. The trick for focusing is for women to discover self and find their true purpose and then begin bringing the various components of their livestogether, in a way that makes sense to them.

5. Organize
Being disorganized is a sure way to feel the pressures of stress and a lack of balance. In the book, Put Time Management to Work, author Peggy Duncan, describes being unorganized as "pain" which can cost as much as 240 hours a week (based on a 40-hour work week).

6. Say No
Over committing is an easy way to stay out of balance. Women, particularly have a difficult time saying no and must learn to do so graciously. Saying no doesn't have to mean rejection. It does, however reflect an individual's clear understanding of their own priorities and time availability. While saying no may seem like a difficult thing to do, a worse scenario is saying yes and falling short on your commitment.

7. Create Positive Support Systems
Positive support systems help to maintain balance. Women should find like-minded, supportive people that understand their vision and goals and are willing to support them in their undertakings.

8. Get Healthy (physically, mentally, and spiritually)
There is a reason the health and fitness industry is a billion dollar a year industry. Outside of societal over-obsession with weight and looks, there are less superficial benefits of the fitness industry ---maintaining a lifestyle that is physically, mentally, and spiritually healthy --- that provide life enhancing remedies that decrease stress, disease, and makes for more balanced individuals.

9. Delegate
Do-it-yourselfers and confirmed perfectionists often area challenged in the area of delegation. Women particularly, are guilty of feeling the need to do it all, to ensure it's done right and completely. Delegation however, is one simple skill that if learned can free up time, relieve stress and add balance to a woman's life. Learning to turn over tasks to other equally skilled individuals is a true remedy for both maintaining a business and some balance.

For more resources for business, go to sippingteaonline.com/business-resources.htm