We asked some of our favourite Wellness clients the following 3 questions:
How important is work/life balance to you?
What does work/life balance look like to you?
If you could give one tip to someone struggling to find their own work/life balance, what would it be?
Emma and Carla have been running their online business, The Merrymaker Sisters for close to 10 years. From recipes and cookbooks to now teaching Yoga and Pilates online. They’re dedicated to helping thousands of people create a loving relationship with exercise through their MerryBody App. The key difference is that MerryBody combines Yoga and Pilates with the mindset work of self-belief, body confidence, and self-acceptance. It’s a tool that helps you workout in a way that makes you feel good about yourself.
How important is work/life balance to you?
Work-life balance is very important to us, but when we first started our business it didn’t exist. We’d work all day and into the night, we’d even work on weekends. Here we were talking about health and wellness but not really living it. Fast forward a few years (yes, it took years!) we welcomed back full weekends and designated working hours. Not only did this create more balance it also made us more productive.
For us work-life balance is about resting when we need to rest and working when we are inspired to work. We’re grateful to have created a business that has very flexible hours. As mentioned above, in the beginning, we worked too much, then there was probably a time when we didn’t work enough and now we’re in a really sweet spot. We have a great weekly work routine with a lot of space for creativity and ‘balance’.
We ensure to move every day. Whether it be a beach walk, Yoga or Pilates. Yoga and Pilates is part of our work and we knew early on we needed to ensure that we didn’t overdo our personal practice or teaching hours. This is why we only teach once a week each in real life and everything else is online with recorded classes within our MerryBody App.
We also ensure our workdays aren’t always us chained to a desk. Sometimes stepping away from the desk, or the usual day to day work, is where our best ideas come to fruition.
We think the first step is to be realistic with your time and what you want to achieve. We all might have 24 hours in a day but each of our lives looks very different. There are so many variables, if you have kids, if you’re caring for elderly parents, how much income you have, the stage of your biz/career etc.
When you look at your calendar is there any space for balance? If not, ok, that’s fine, but we’d suggest only committing to this for a short burst of time. If you realise you want to add more balance then block it out. You don’t need to organise anything, simply block it out in your calendar and label it as ‘space’ or ‘balance’ and that’s your reminder to stop working and do something else.
If you have no spare time at all, we’d suggest to look at your systems and processes. We’re sure you’re spending far too long on something. Can you speed it up? Maybe with software or a virtual assistant? Adding systems and hiring an amazing team was the best thing we ever did for our work/life balance.
Floating Lotus is a Gold Coast Yoga and Pilates Studio on the north end of the Gold Coast, nestled in Helensvale, just off Hope Island Road.
How important is work/life balance to you?
So important. As a husband and wife team managing a small business, work very easily takes over our homelife when we are not purposeful about maintaining a balance. Even though we love what we do, it is still so important for mental health and our relationship to be able to step away from the business and enjoy other aspects of our lives together as frequently as possible.
Setting boundaries around work. These days there are so many channels for clients to get in touch with you, phone, emails, facebook, google, instagram… It is amazing to have so many touchpoints but makes it very difficult to switch off. I used to get back to clients ASAP, no matter the time of day. This felt like I was always working, even though the volume of work wasn’t huge, and I began to resent it. Setting clear work hours and not checking inboxes/ messages outside of these hours was a really important shift to a healthier work/ life balance. As we both work from home most of the time we have also created work-free spaces in the house. No work talk allowed! I think with any boundaries set there needs to be an element of flexibility, but make sure that flexibility doesn’t always lean on the side of more work, less play.
Lists! When you have a lot of work tasks, it is easy to have them constantly in your head even when you are not actively working. Writing a to-do list is a really simple way of having the tasks clearly in front of you so they don’t take up head space. If it is not on your list for today, it doesn’t need to be looked at. I find having a list often makes the tasks seem more manageable and you get the added satisfaction of being able to cross them off once complete.
Fallen leaf Teas, based in Coolangatta, blends handcrafted recipes handed down through the ancient roots of herbalism, stocking Specialty Teas for any medicinal and recreational tea needs.
How important is work/life balance to you?
Work-life balance is incredibly important to me as this is the key to a healthy lifestyle, it’s the key to waking up feeling good each day and having a fulfilling life .
Work / life balance in my world looks like : I am someone that works a lot ( I actually have 3 different jobs ) and am a mum.
My health and being fit is number 1 for me ! I have made it a priority as when I am feeling my best, I can give everything else my best! My energy is high and if you have any hard times, your health can back you up, you get through them with focus and strength, and you feel amazing.
A normal day for me is waking up to a coffee, exercising for at least half an hour, whether it’s a UTube workout, surfing, walking or swimming. I prepare healthy foods and drinks for the day, and then I’m happy to put my all into my work, and another must for me is a good sleep, i love sleep !
My tip would be to pinpoint what it is that is stopping you from having balance, new habits may need to be formed, we are all different, we have different constitutions, and different daily needs depending on age or lifestyle, choose small things to begin adding until they become a habit and then choose another! everything takes time, but have a vision where you want to be and go for it! You’re the only one that can make that change so what are you waiting for!
Glow For Life creates and facilitates workshops, retreats and online programs to educate people on the importance of holistic health so that people can GLOW in Mind, Body and Soul. They have an abundance of outstanding practitioners who all share a common life purpose of wanting to help people to find their light and Thrive in wellness.
Everything they do – Movement, mindset, breathing, nutrition and connection – comes back to finding that INNER GLOW.
How important is work/life balance to you?
Having experienced first hand what not having work life balance can do to your health and vitality which affects your performance, focus, energy levels and ability just to do life well – it is now my number one priority. I use to measure my success by how many hours I worked in the day and I wore “busy-ness” like a badge of honour – I had also defined my top two values as being “WORK” and “MONEY”. This led me to burnout when I worked in the corporate world in Sydney. This was a huge wake up call as I had to then quit my job and build my health back. I now realise that what’s the point of working hard and earning heaps of money if you don’t have your health. Also just because you are dong long hours doesn’t mean you are being efficient or more productive. It’s about working smarter, not harder. Having a work life balance is imperative for survival in this modern world.
I like to apply the Chinese medicine analogy of the yin and yang – taking the time to rejuvenate and recover and do things that bring you joy – as well as perform and get things done.
Work life balance for me was identifying all the non-negotiables which I call my Daily freedoms – all the things I need to do on a daily basis that fill up my cup and ensure I’m energised, focused and full of vitality. These are the things that I need to do daily to ensure that I am grounded and that I have the resilience and inner strength to survive this chaotic modern day life. These include:
One of the things that I would like to highlight which was a game changer for me was taking the time to find out what my purpose was – when we connect back to our purpose or discover what that is – that’s what gives us the strength to keep going when there are challenges or adversity and when the going gets tough.
There is often a lack of self and a feeling of disconnect and feeling of being lost when we aren’t living to a purpose – some people call this spirituality, but others call it a knowing. Leading a life of purpose often leads to a more positive mindset and higher sense of self-worth.
A strong life purpose — can be defined as “a self-organizing life aim that stimulates goals”
Researchers surveyed nearly 7,000 older adults on the relationship between mortality and finding your purpose. Participants who did not have a strong sense of meaning in their lives were more than twice as likely to die prematurely as those who had figured out their purpose in life. Researchers concluded that finding your purpose helps you live longer. It’s also essential for happiness and fulfillment.
Having a purpose is integral in being able to achieve that work life balance.
It would be to start being conscious with time – valuing time as a precious commodity. We all have only 168 hours in our week so if you start to bring awareness to where you are spending your time you will actually see that you can fit a lot of things in, it’s just about being creative and strategic. This will allow you to commit to the hours you need to at work but also allow you to fit in all the things that light you up.
When you want to save money or spend less – what do you do? You create a budget and you figure out where you are spending it. The same approach can be done with time. By using time as a currency we can choose where we invest it and spend it. By doing a time audit on yourself, you are able to visually see where your time goes and you can coordinate all the things you love to do so that you can create that work life balance and can ensure all your needs are being met.
Based in Burleigh Heads, Pet Wellness Centre’s vision is to bring together all of the professional services that you might need to ensure the best possible health outcome for your pet, in accordance with your values as a pet owner. They bring together professionals in veterinary medicine, nutrition, behaviour, physical therapies and alternative or holistic therapies and have them work together with you to achieve the best health outcome for your pet.
How important is work/life balance to you?
Work life balance is vitally important for me to be the very best version of myself for my clients, my Team and my family every day. I’m lucky enough to do work that I love but as a small business owner the temptation is always there to just be working on your business 24/7. I make sure I have plenty of time focused on activities completely unrelated to Pet Wellness Centre so that when I do focus on the business, it gets the best of me.
For me work/life balance starts before dawn. I get up super early and always prioritise time for me first thing in the morning. Most often it involves fairly intense physical activity like a session at the gym or a run/walk along the Burleigh esplanade with a few sets of exercises thrown in on the headland. I love to see the sunrise in the morning from the beach and to spend a half hour with my husband, getting a coffee from our local and just sitting for a quiet catch up. It doesn’t matter how hectic the rest of my day becomes, by prioritising that time for me in the morning it’s locked in and can’t be taken away by unexpected events during the day.
Evenings are for walking the dogs or yoga and family dinner time is also a priority. On the weekends I love to cook! There isn’t always time during the week but weekends are for lovingly prepared meals with fresh ingredients ideally following a day of activity like a hike in the gorgeous Gold Coast Hinterland or some fun in the water at the beach or creek or just an hour or two reading in the hammock on the front deck when a bit less activity is required.
The other non-negotiable for me is to have some kind of adventure on the horizon. My husband and I love to travel and love adventure so ideally once every 12 months or so we love to do something a bit beyond the norm. Past adventures have included trekking across the arctic circle in snow shoes, paddling around the Torres Strait Islands in an Outrigger canoe and hiking Yellowstone National Park. This year we’re off to climb Mt Stanley in Africa 😊 I find that having the adventure planned keeps me motivated to stay fit and also to ensure my Team are well trained and completely capable of running my business in my absence.
I would just remind them that prioritising yourself and your own wellbeing is the single most important thing you can do to support others. You just can’t be who and what you need to be for your business and your Team if you don’t take care of yourself. We should all be normalising prioritising wellness with our Teams. We want them to be the best version of themselves too, so we need to lead the way. I’d also encourage them to think about how they spend their time. Is that last few hours of the night in front of the tv or the laptop really productive? Maybe trial going to bed earlier and getting up earlier instead. You might just love it.
Or just get a puppy. That will sort you out 😝
We’re a boutique Accounting and Business Advisory firm based in the heart of Coolangatta on the Gold Coast.
How important is work/life balance to you?
Running a business having work/life balance is really important to me. It can be really easy to keep in the ‘work’ headspace but over the years I’ve realised that if I don’t have some separation, I’ll end up burning out – which doesn’t serve anyone, including my clients. So having time to refresh and recharge is important because it means I can work at my best.
For me, it’s being able to leave work at ‘the office’. It’s being able to switch off from the day when I get home and having a least one full day over the weekend that I don’t do any business related work. It’s recognising that there are times of the year where work will need to creep into my typical recreation time, that this is temporary and normal and that at these times I need to adjust my mindset and be sure to revert back to a larger recreational window when possible again. Optimal work/life balance for me is keeping work within the office walls, I avoid working from home where possible, but if I must I have a dedicated area to work from. It’s also about being fully present in each space. When at work, I minimise personal tasks and distractions and when at home I minimise work tasks and distractions (including turning off work email notifications after hours).
Find some time for ‘you’ every day. It could be anything, a regular exercise regime, simply sitting in nature, listening to music (even if you do this alone in your car) or spending 15 minutes enjoying a cup of tea or coffee on your own. I’m a big one for some quiet time to just contemplate what’s going on in life with minimal distraction; I think it helps refocus priorities and keeps you in the ‘now’.
Don’t miss our latest article on the Lemonade Beach blog.
