Work life balance for female entrepreneurs can be tough. That’s why I am sharing eight strategies to help you out.

Now if you have not already read my post from last week on Work/Life Balance I highly recommend it because in that post I talked about the difference between balance and harmony.

The distinctions that I made are going to make a really big difference as you get into these strategies.

These strategies are very practical but that video included some mindset shifts that are really necessary around this topic. If you have not already read it, I highly recommend that you do so.

Also, for the sake of me not having to say balance every time, let’s just agree that every time I do say work/life balance I actually mean harmony.

Deal?

Watch here or read below!

Now as a coach I am one part practical and one part mindset so I do want to just drop a little bit more mindset and perspective on you before we get into the practical pieces.

Through the work that I do, I really found that we’re pretty good about showing up for other people but work/life balance is about showing up for ourselves, the commitments that we’ve made to ourselves about the kind of life that we want to live or the kind of person that we want to be.

It’s so important to understand that the real price you pay for not honoring your values is how those experiences turn into subtle core beliefs about who you are, what you’re capable of, even whether or not you can be trusted.

Each time you commit and then renege on your own values, your desires, your needs, you’re sending yourself a message, “I’m a person who doesn’t follow through. I’m a person who neglects herself or her family. I’m a person who … “, in the blank.

Over time, experiences like that whether they’re big or small, they change our fundamental view of ourselves and, thus, they change our choices and ultimately our success in life, not just in business.

Our choices eventually become our character and our character determines the success or the outcome in our life.

If balance is an important value to you, it’s time to start putting in the hard work and the effort into establishing the habits that will allow you to live in alignment with those values.

Let’s just jump into some strategies that are going to help you to do that.

Most work/life balance issues come from a lack of three things:

• clarity
• communication
• boundaries

As I go through these eight strategies, you’re going to see that each of these strategies addresses one or more of those three areas.

STRATEGY #1: WORK ON CLARITY FIRST

You need to have clarity of your goals and clarity around your bottlenecks.

Now when I’m talking about clarity around your goals this is important because you need to know what aligns and what doesn’t.

If you don’t know what aligns and what doesn’t, you’re going to wind up saying yes to the wrong things, and then wasting time and energy and overworking because you can’t have boundaries without clarity.

You need to have clarity around what your actual bottlenecks are because you can’t solve a problem that you can’t see.

STRATEGY #2: DECIDE WHEN YOU WILL NOT WORK AND THEN STICK TO IT

It’s okay to choose days or hours when you are not available, you just need to make sure that you communicate this to your clients or your customers.

You can post it up on signs, you can let people know about it. When I’m starting to work with somebody I always let them know, “Here’s where you can reach me and here’s where you’re not going to reach me.”

Remember that we teach others how to treat us so if you feel confident and comfortable saying, “Here are my hours, here’s when I’m available, and here’s when I do not work,” guess what?

They’re going to feel comfortable with it too.

It’s also important to create a winning environment.

For instance, you know you’re going to get a lot of notifications on your phone so maybe you need to let yourself turn it off or not sleep next to it. Look for the different things in your environment that might make it hard for you to honor those time boundaries and solve those problems in whatever way you need to.

STRATEGY #3: DECIDE WHAT YOU WON’T DO IN YOUR BUSINESS OR IN YOUR HOME

Maybe there are particular customers or clients that you will not work with or particular projects that you won’t take on.

I know that this can be a little scary, especially in different stages of your business when you’re just getting established. Maybe you’re going through some financial hardships and you feel like you need to take everything on, this is such a bad idea.

I could talk for hours and hours on why this is a bad idea. I really want you to work on allowing yourself to say no to the things that are not the right fit for you, especially if they’re going to take you outside of those boundaries that you’re establishing in that whole work/life balance topic.

STRATEGY #4: OUTSOURCE

Hire that bleep out, barter if you have to, or if none of that works, let it go.

There are so many things in your business that you don’t actually have to do or that somebody else can do for you.

Someone else can manage your social media or answer emails just as well as you can.

I know you think you’re indispensable but I promise you– you’re not as indispensable as you think.

There are certain things that you have to do, that you have to show up for in your business, and there are certain you don’t. It’s okay to not have a Twitter account, it’s okay to not answer emails at all hours of the day, it’s okay to let someone else answer them for you.

Outsource, outsource, outsource, you can only get so far in your business or your life if you’re trying to do it all.

Here’s what I recommend.

I want you to start making a list throughout your day of things I have to do and things I could legitimately teach someone else to do for me.

I always find that women realize that they actually do have the funds to hire some things out because it’s going to free up so much time for them to go and do the things in their business that are going to allow them to make more money.

Don’t be afraid to do this, I know it’s a little bit scary, but put your big girl panties on. You’ve got this.

STRATEGY #5: SCHEDULE THE IMPORTANT THINGS FIRST.

Every Sunday night or Monday morning or Friday evening or whatever works for you, I want you to look at the week ahead and plan out, scheduling the most important things first.

This is your health, your family, and anything else that is really, really important to you that gets put on the back burner.

Now, I have another post on what is time blocking, as well as a post on time blocking strategies, I highly recommend that you check those out to learn more about this.

At the minimum, you need to have some time every single week where you’re looking ahead and scheduling the most important things that are the easiest to neglect.

STRATEGY #6: IT IS ALL ABOUT COMMUNICATION

Communication with your family, communication with your team, communication with your employees.

We do this communicating for a few reasons, the first ones being accountability and support.

We need people who are going to hold us accountable, who are going to make sure that we’re staying in line with our goals, especially if it’s something we’re struggling with we shouldn’t be struggling alone.

We need people who are going to just encourage us, and uplift us, and model to us the way that things can be.

We need to make sure that we’re communicating that with the people in our lives so that they’re helping us to stay on track.

We also need to be doing this communicating so that we can troubleshoot and problem solve together.

Your family, your team, your employees, they all have needs as well and so you need to be able to work together to find a solution that’s going to work for everybody.

For instance, if you’re working a ton and you need to bring your team or your employees in on that and make sure that they are picking up the slack in some areas or maybe they have some ideas on, “I need to hire somebody new or I need to change the way we’re doing this thing,” they need to be involved in that type of decision making.

You can’t make decisions from a bubble, we always get to communicate with the people in our lives to make sure that things are working for everybody involved.

Definitely make sure that you have healthy expectations with this because work/life balance is really still a personal thing.

We get to work on this and, yes, that will involve other people but we can’t be relying on those people to fix the problems for us.

Somewhere along the lines of healthy expectations, it’s very important to go into these conversations without defensiveness and without demands.

This can be tricky, I know that.

However, I know that you can also do this.

I want to give you a little key phrase that you can test out in these conversations to create a little bit more openness and communication instead of demands or expectations.

Just with an open heart and an open mind, I want you to just try asking them, “I am really struggling in this area, do you see a way that I can improve?”

Then really listen, close your mouth and listen to what they have to say. It may sting a little, that’s okay, we don’t grow unless we get uncomfortable.

Put yourself in these uncomfortable conversations because bringing in support around this topic, oh my goodness, makes all the difference in the world.

STRATEGY #7: GET EXTRA ACCOUNTABILITY

This can be in a form of a coach, it can be in a form of a good friend, it can be in a form of a great group.

In fact, I have an awesome Facebook group for you full of like-minded boss ladies. If you need some accountability on these things.

I definitely want to see you over there. We will all be there to support you and encourage you on this one.

STRATEGY #8: WORK IN REMINDERS FOR YOURSELF

It is really important to train your brain how to think about these things.

When I am talking about reminders, I love to use affirmations.

These are things that you can put on your bathroom mirror or next to your bed or right on your computer screen so that you see it when you sit down.

Here are some of my favorite affirmations around this topic:

• I have more than enough time for things that matter for me.
• I am capable of using my time wisely.
• How do I always make good decisions about my time?
• Why is it so easy to honor my values?
• Self-care is the wisest, most strategic move.
• I’m living in harmony with my priorities.

I also want you to make sure that you’re using essential oils to really help you anchor in these new thoughts and beliefs.

If you’re new to the idea of essential oils and emotions, be sure to check out this post.

DON’T FORGET ABOUT SELF-CARE

All right, now that we have gone through these eight strategies for work/life balance, specific to female entrepreneurs but really for anybody, I also want to talk about the importance of self-care.

I know that you hear about it all the time but I also know that the majority of women could use a little bit more.

I created a guide called Self-Care in Seconds, it will teach you how to implement self-care in seconds, literally in as little as 30 seconds.

Click the image below to get your access free.

WHAT ABOUT YOU, BOSS LADY?

What strategies do you have as a female entrepreneur? Share them in the comments below along with any questions that you have.

Scroll down to leave your comments!