To Nail your Work/Life Balance, Make this One Mindset Shift

“Real writers make time to write EVERY DAY, no excuses.”

Have you heard people say this?
But what about when the baby was up all night, you’ve only slept for 45 minutes, and all of it was on the floor next to the crib? What about when the deadline for a work project is looming and you can’t even find time to eat? What about when your best friend gets unexpectedly dumped, and needs someone to bring her tissues and ice cream and watch “Ted Lasso” on the couch?

We are writers, but we are also people. The idea that being humans with families, friends, or needs of our own means that we don’t get to be “real writers” is preposterous.

When you subscribe to this line of reasoning, you’re not achieving work/life balance; you’re trying to balance work, life, AND guilt. That’s a three-handed job! No wonder you feel like you just can’t make the scales even out.

Here’s the mindset shift I encourage writers to embrace to flush their guilt and finally balance their work and life in a way that works:

Have you seen that movie, Stranger than Fiction? Dame Emma Thompson (goddess) is famous author Karen Eiffel, who is struggling to defeat an epic case of writers’ block by any means necessary. She is a slave to the work, visibly deteriorating, and can barely go on living under the weight of the unwritten story. Ever feel like this?

Queen Latifah (goddess x2) plays Penny, Karen’s assistant, brought on (against her will) to help her finish her book. She doesn’t do this as an enforcer, making Karen write 5,000 words a day, or by reminding her of the deadlines inching ever closer. Penny helps Karen finish the book by nurturing, protecting, and feeding Karen, and serving as a voice of reason as Karen struggles in increasingly destructive ways to get the damn book finished.

Here’s the shift.
You’re not Karen. You’re Penny.

If you want to achieve your ideal work/life balance and get rid of the guilt you feel when you prioritize other things, then you need this mental shift! Make a note on your mirror, write it on top of your day planner, just keep reminding yourself every day that you are a Penny! Your job is not to destroy yourself under the pressure to be a creative genius; your job is to assist Karen—take care of the stressed, struggling writer inside you who needs you to tell her she can do it.

You know that brilliant stories don’t require human sacrifices. You know that New York Times Bestsellers don’t grow from scorched ground. You know that the writer is the source of the work, and that no work is worth more than the person it came from.

Finding your ideal work/life balance is about living to write another day.

What will you do today to take care of and encourage your inner writer?

Click to watch a few minutes of Karen & Penny from the movie, Stranger than Fiction.