It’s been a while since I’ve written. No excuses from me. It’s just, life is… well, it’s life. There’s an ebb and flow that we are always working through. Some call it finding balance, others call it changing seasons, some say it’s just plain busy and others hunker down to just try to make their way through somehow. Me? I’ve decided that I’m going to embrace it. The ebb and the flow that is, even if it doesn’t look exactly how I pictured it. (Example: I pictured getting back to blogging 1-2x a week for a while now and it just hasn’t happened. Cue embracing.)

My friend Jessica shared an article with me a while back and it has really been resonating with me lately. The title is “Work, Sleep, Family, Fitness or Friends: Pick 3”. Entrepreneur Randi Zuckerberg originally tweeted this dilemma and the truth was spoken. It resonated with thousands and thousands. Why is it that someone else has to tell us we can’t have it all to realize we can’t always have our cake and eat it too?

The article talks to entrepreneurs about the phenomenon of work-life balance and questions if some business founders paint a rosier picture than actuality of how good they have it. Essentially, the article speaks to the fact that entrepreneurs must make sacrifices to be successful, but I believe this logic can really apply to everyone.

I can’t do everything really well. Right? {Wishful thinking.} As in, I can’t put in a full time (or more) workload on my freelance business and blog + sleep 8-9 hours each night + spend a loving amount of time with my family + work out an hour each day and meal prep to fit the bill + see my friends / have a social life on the regular. {Also, where is your home life and other responsibilities in this formula?} The equation just doesn’t add up. There aren’t enough hours in a day to be the best at it all, or really to just plain do it all for that matter. Sometimes I may think I can do it all and actually do make a foolish attempt to do so. Yep, I’m human and somewhere between Type A and Type B personalities leaning toward A with a tendency of perfectionism. So, the result of that combination? Short changing in one (or more) of the areas.

The truth is, there are only so many things we are able to juggle at one time. And I’ll admit, sometimes it is easier to juggle more than during other times. Maybe the magic is in adding and subtracting from our life throughout those ebbs and flows because I don’t think you will always pick the same three to complete your formula. When your kids are young and you are working on building your career, your three may just have to be family, work and sleep. Actually, the realization may be that you don’t really have any choice in your three from time to time. Does your work and family life just demand that you take the time for those two and try to get enough sleep? There’s your answer. Or maybe fitness and sleep are top priorities for your lifestyle so you choose to spend time your free time with family, less time with friends and adjust your work schedule to part time. Maybe your family has less demands as your kids grow older or you’ve hired help and you can focus on adding fitness + friends to the equation.

Don’t get me wrong, all of these exist at all times. It’s not like we give friends up entirely, or fitness up entirely, or give sleep up entirely {said the zombie}. But your focus areas? I kind of think there may only be room for three (or so). After leaving my job in January, I began working much less, sleeping much more and spending so much time with family + catching up with friends. After I exhausted our social calendar with gatherings, girlfriends and play dates for a while, I pulled back on the friends a little and refocused on fitness. Again, I didn’t give up fitness entirely while I was focusing on friends, but I just wasn’t as strict with my work out calendar. And when I focused on fitness more, I didn’t say no to every get together, I just chose differently because sleep and family were my other two priorities. And now, my three this week are even different from my three last week!

I’m embracing this season of what feels like an ebb rather than a flow right now. ? And I think the Pick 3 strategy speaks to me because I like to be good at what I do. Rather than spin my wheels, I’ll focus my time and energy on the three that call me the most and accept that the other areas won’t be perfect. After all, life is too short to fill it with perfectionist nonsense and no one expects us to be good at everything anyway.

Will you join me? Which are your three?

XO