You Can Have It All…Just Not At The Same Time
In November of 2019, I was on the verge of total burnout. My coaching business was thriving - a business that I’d specifically built so that I could be around for my children. But I was still trying to do all the things I had done in the years before I had my own business and it just wasn't possible. Yes - I was able to work AND be a mom but doing that meant I needed to ask for help. It had to look different.
I went to my husband and said, “If I keep going at this pace, I am going to get really, really sick.”
I was DESPERATELY trying to do it all and I. Was. Exhausted.
Asking for help and letting balls drop aren’t easy things to do when we live in a society that constantly tells women that we should be able to do it all and have it all AND make it look easy.
If you want to create a life on your own terms, it will require asking for help. It will require putting yourself first sometimes. It will require saying no to some things in order to say yes to others.
We need to stop perpetuating the lie that women can do it all and can have it all. It creates shame and silent competition among women rather than support and sisterhood.
Notice we don’t ever hear men talking about having or doing it all. That’s because society has a different expectation of men. Men have a different expectation of men. And you wanna know who’s gonna need to be the ones to change that expectation?
Ladies, we are.
That’s one responsibility that we can’t pass off. And it’s gonna start with US shifting the expectations.
Because here’s the thing. Women are quite literally killing themselves trying to have it all. And I don’t care what kind of powerhouse you are - you can’t share your gifts with the world if you’re sick or exhausted or dead.
Let’s lift each other up to normalize the challenges we face and let’s normalize asking our partners for help - whether they’re life partners or work partners - in shouldering the responsibility.
It took me almost 4 years from the time I started working to ask for help. I wish I’d given myself permission much sooner.
So just in case it’s hard for you to give yourself permission, I’m giving it to you now.
Here’s your permission to not have to be or do or have it all. Here’s your permission to ask for help, to drop a ball, to not have to do it all.
Love,
Michelle
PS- The truth is, I should have been asking for more help when I wasn’t working too. Stay at home moms, give yourselves permission not to have to do it all, too. You are the hardest working, strongest women I know.