The truth about work-life balance when you run your own business

Someone recently told me, “You’re working all the time.”

And they weren’t wrong.

I do work a lot. But it got me thinking about this idea of work-life balance and how, after years of hearing about it, I’m not sure I believe in it anymore.

“Work-life balance” was actually one of the values at my corporate job. It was something we heard about all the time and something I thought I was supposed to be striving for. But now, as a single mom and business owner, I’ve realized that balance isn’t really what I’m looking for.

I’m looking for choice.

And I think being a single mom shapes the way I think about work, too. But the truth is, I’ve always been the breadwinner. I’ve always been financially responsible for myself and my family, so work has never just been something I do. It’s how I’ve built security, independence, and the life I want for us.

Now, as a business owner, that responsibility is still mine. My business supports me, my son, and the life we’re building. There isn’t another income I rely on or share that responsibility with, and I think that naturally affects the way I think about how much I work and why I work as hard as I do.

The work isn’t something I’m trying to escape so I can get back to my life. It’s one of the things making that life possible.

I don't have to ask permission
One of the biggest gifts this business has given me isn’t necessarily more free time. It’s that I don’t have to ask permission for how I use my time.

I don’t have to ask permission to take a long lunch, take a trip, step away in the middle of the day, be there when my son needs me, or give myself a slower morning when I need one. I don’t have to submit a vacation request or explain why I need a random Tuesday afternoon off.

But I also don’t have to apologize when I decide that this is a season when I want to work really freaking hard.

And sometimes, I do.
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Some days, life gets more of me. Some days, work does. There are weeks when I’m traveling, spending time with my family, or giving myself more space, and there are weeks when I’m at my computer way more than anyone would probably recommend.

It isn’t balanced. But it’s mine.

Building something takes time
I think we sometimes talk about work-life balance without acknowledging the reality of building something from scratch. Starting a business takes time. Growing one takes time. Learning how to do things you’ve never done before takes time. And when you’re building something for yourself, there isn’t always someone else waiting in the wings to make it happen.

There are things in my business today that take me an hour that probably would have taken me an entire day a few years ago. That didn’t happen because I magically figured everything out. It happened because I put in the hours, made mistakes, learned, and kept going.

And sometimes, yes, that has meant working late. I still pull an all-nighter here and there if I really need to get something out, especially when it’s a project for my own business. Those are actually the hardest projects for me to commit to because client work has deadlines and accountability. My own projects are much easier to push to tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.

But if I don’t do the work for my own business, nobody is coming to do it for me.

I’m not telling you that you should pull an all-nighter. I’m also not telling you that you shouldn’t. If you need rest, REST. But if staying up late one night helps you finally get to the finish line of that project you’ve been promising yourself you’re going to do, I think that can be okay too.

Sometimes you need rest. Sometimes you need a sprint. I think we should be allowed to decide which one we need without feeling guilty about either.

The work funds the life, too
There’s another part of this conversation that I think gets overlooked: the work makes so much of the life possible.

My work puts a roof over our heads and food on the table. It pays for my son’s extracurricular activities. It funds the trips and the experiences. It gives me flexibility, allows me to help my family, and gives me choices I didn’t always have. So when someone looks at the hours I work and thinks, “You work too much,” they’re only seeing one side of the equation.

Yes, I work hard. But that work has also made my life feel lighter in a lot of ways and a whole lot more fun in others.

I don’t believe we should work ourselves into the ground for some future version of our lives that we may or may not get to enjoy. I want to enjoy my life now, too. That’s actually part of why I wanted this business in the first place.

I just don’t think enjoying my life and working really hard have to be mutually exclusive.

I'm working for rich old me, too
​And then there’s rich old me. 👵🏻

And when I say “rich,” I don’t just mean money.

I mean rich in choices. Rich in time. Rich in experiences. Rich in the freedom to decide what I want my life to look like without having every decision dictated by what I can or can’t afford to do.

I think about her more than you might expect. Every time I save, invest, grow my business, or make a decision that might not pay off immediately but could make my life easier later, I’m thinking about her. The work I’m doing now isn’t only funding the life I want today. I’m also working to give that older version of myself options.

Maybe she’ll still be designing because she absolutely loves it. Maybe she’ll keep mentoring other designers. Maybe she’ll be traveling all over the world. Maybe she’ll work three hours a week. Maybe she’ll decide she is DONE and spend her days doing word search puzzles somewhere fabulous.

I don’t know, but I want her to get to decide.

That’s what “rich old me” means to me. Of course I want her to be financially secure, but more than anything, I want her to be rich in choices.

​I’m not necessarily working toward a life where I never have to work again. I’m working toward a life where I get to decide if I want to.

Maybe balance isn't the goal
None of this is me telling anyone else how much they should work. If strict work-life boundaries make you happy, protect them. If you’re in a season where you need to slow down, slow down. And if you’re in a season where you’re excited about what you’re building and want to give it everything you have, I don’t think you need to feel guilty about that either.

There will be seasons when my business needs more from me and seasons when my life does. There will be times when I want to hustle and times when I absolutely do not. What I’ve stopped expecting is for those things to somehow stay perfectly balanced all the time.

​Maybe work-life balance isn’t about making sure work and life get exactly the same amount of time.

For me, maybe it’s about having the freedom to decide what gets more of me right now.

​It’s being able to work hard when something matters to me, rest when I need to, show up for the people I love, make money doing work I care about, and keep creating more choices for the woman I’m becoming.

So no, I’m not chasing balance.

I’m building a life where I get to choose.
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