Why work-life balance is a lie..

Summary

• I've come to believe that the concept of work-life balance is misleading and doesn't truly exist; work and life are not separate spheres.
• It's crucial to recognize that intense periods of work are sometimes necessary to advance in your career and to help your company grow.
• Setting boundaries is your own responsibility, and you cannot expect others to uphold your boundaries unless you clearly communicate them.
• People often mistakenly replace values with rigid rules when trying to manage their work-life integration, which is less effective than leading with core values.
• Trying to meet others' expectations, especially those who may not understand your motivations, can lead to frustration and unhappiness.
• It's okay to work long hours if that's what energizes you and makes you happy; don't impose arbitrary limits based on societal norms.
• Instead of seeking an unrealistic work-life balance, accept that life is interconnected and embrace imperfection and imbalance.
• Ask yourself what your life would look like if you let go of preconceived notions of what it should be. This mindset shift can lead to greater happiness and fulfillment.
• Understand that conflict and compromise are natural, and it's impossible to be perfect in all areas of life.
• If you're trying to find work-life balance, consider rethinking the concept and find peace in the inevitable imbalance and imperfections of life.

Video

How To Take Action

I would suggest starting with a shift in mindset. Instead of aiming for work-life balance, embrace the idea of work-life integration. Accept that work is a part of life and can’t be separated. Life is messy and it’s okay to have busy periods.

To manage your time and energy well, set clear boundaries for yourself. For example, decide when you’re willing to work and when you’re not. Communicate these boundaries to others so they can respect them. But remember, it’s okay to have exceptions during important projects or busy times – flexibility is key.

Focus on your values instead of hard-set rules. Ask yourself what is really important to you. Maybe it's growth in your career or spending quality time with family. Use these values to guide your decisions about how you spend your time.

If working hard makes you happy and energized, don't feel pressured to cut back just because others have different expectations. You do you! But make sure the work you're doing fulfills you, not just keeps you busy.

Also, let go of the 'shoulds'. Stop trying to live up to the perfect image of how your life is supposed to look. It's fine to miss a family event for a work commitment sometimes, or vice versa. Life involves trade-offs and compromises.

In short, be okay with imperfection and imbalance. They're a natural part of life. When you stop fighting this, you might find you're happier and more satisfied with how you live and work.

Quotes by Leila Hormozi

"I believe the idea of work-life balance is absolutely misleading"

– Leila Hormozi

"It's your job always to set boundaries and to hold them, it's not other people's jobs to know what those are unless you voice them"

– Leila Hormozi

"Rules are for people who do not have values"

– Leila Hormozi

"I’m energized by work, right, like if when I work I literally create more energy within myself, then why should I do less of that?"

– Leila Hormozi

"What would my life look like if I let go of these ideals in my mind"

– Leila Hormozi

Full Transcript

night and her phone rang and it was i want to say 5 45 and she looked absolutely pissed off and i was like what's going on why are you so pissed that your phone's ringing and she's like oh it's work but like they know that i don't work past 5 p.m she looked very angry and this incident uh reminded me of so many others that i've had which is it's people trying to achieve work-life balance and this is a question i get all the time which is layla how do i achieve work-life balance how do you balance work in life like how do you do it right and i get this from other entrepreneurs i get this from people that are young and just coming up in the workplace and i get this from clients and family friends right the first thing that i would open this with is that i believe the idea of work-life balance is absolutely misleading i do not believe it exists it makes no sense to me and the reason for that is if you say that it is work-life balance you are saying there are two separate things okay as if one work is not part of your life and as if your life is not part of your work so to demonstrate there are two separate things ask yourself these two questions right if tomorrow you got fired from your job would it not affect your life well obviously it would affect your life right the other question is you know think about this right if i gained 50 pounds would it affect my performance at work most likely it would for most people and so to to look at them as two things that we have to balance is just it's it's absolutely misconstrued and it leads us to try and solve these problems in ways that are not productive right what happens often i've seen happen a lot i'll give you one example was i had somebody who worked for us and she came into the company in a time where it was absolutely like we needed all hands on deck we're starting something new there's only four people on the team and we're all working like basically when we woke up to when we went to bed that's just how it is when you're starting a like a new line new product line a new part of the company right you're just like brian grind grind and like i mean i like it i think it's invigorating and you learn a ton you grow a ton and she liked it while she was doing it but the irony is that after that happened she said to me she goes leila i will never sacrifice the rest of my life ever again to work that much and in that moment i was like i lost you and the reason for that is because um it's going from one extreme to another right it's believing that there shouldn't be bursts and short times at work where you will be working a ton of the time in order to advance in order to help the company grow in order to grow yourself right it's believing that that's wrong there's something wrong with it i don't know why people believe that but anyways what happens often is people uh a lot of the times are in that space right and then they go to this place where they say i'm not gonna work until nine a.m and i'm done at 5 p.m and please do not slack me or email me because these are my working hours right as if somebody else is supposed to respect these invisible boundaries that they set for themselves right it's your job always to set boundaries and to hold them it's not other people's jobs to know what those are unless you voice them right but regardless to say it's going from one extreme to another it's going from extreme flexibility to extreme rigidity and that's what a lot of people do with work-life balance they just put in place rather than saying what do i value and not asking yourself what should it look like but what do i value they say i need rules rules are for people who do not have values okay just like when you're building a company if i'm trying to create the culture of the company if i'm trying to make sure it works well i'm trying to build operations i start with values because i cannot make 200 sops for this company it's not practical things are going to change in two three weeks i need people to operate with value-minded right they need to come from a place of value and so it's the same in terms of how you balance your own life balance right how you uh manage your own life right and so a lot of the times i think where this comes from is this this living in the land of should right like i shouldn't sacrifice other parts of my life to work this much i shouldn't uh you know not see every single baseball game from my kids because i'm working i shouldn't x y and z right so we keep shooting ourselves this is something my friend trevor talks about like are you yourself which i think is funny but i do believe that's actually the reason most people are unhappy and think that they need this work-life balance and i know that i've been in a situation before where i tell people i'm like yeah i work like you know 14 hours a day people are like that's insane like you must have terrible deficits in the rest of your life and you must be you know absolutely unhappily and and mentally unhealthy and i was like oh and i remember like for a brief period of time i want to say a year and a half ago i literally was like maybe they're right maybe i've got up that i haven't looked at and i started putting more boundaries at work and trying to work less and doing that whole thing and you know what's funny is i came to realize i was like if i'm energized by work right like if if when i work i literally create more energy within myself then why should i do less of that to go do what watch netflix go to a movie with somebody what else is going to be more fun than what i'm doing here nothing right i think that um oftentimes what we are doing is we are trying to meet an expectation that people who we do not even like hold for us right it's our family it's our friends it's the people that are you know imposing their own judgment on our lives and so that is why so many people say you know what's work-life balance and you know i think it's unfortunate that a lot of people don't have supportive spouses they don't have supportive friends they don't have supportive people in their lives to tell them it's okay to work 14 hours a day if you like it dude and are you gonna like it every day no but if you like doing it generally and most of the time you get energized keep going right what else are you gonna do with your time on this earth i think that the reason so many people are unhappy to this right are unhappy about um their work especially um and you see it often where somebody works a ton and they're actually really enjoying it and then they get this like weird resentment um and it's because they have this idea in their mind that things are not the way they should be that you should be able to just shut off after 6 pm that you should be able to not get emails after a certain time should should and so i think it's an argument with reality and that is why so many people struggle with it is that they believe things should look a certain way and that they should have this beautifully balanced life where they spend just the right amount of hours every day and every week with their family with their kids with their friends uh exercising this that that never happens once you accept reality which is that everything's connected there you cannot balance two things that are the same and that you accept that there is no balance right how would you feel right what if you were free to be imperfect and unbalanced and so i think that most people are asking the wrong questions it's how do i get work-life balance when the question is what would my life be look look like if i let go of these ideals in my mind what if i was allowed to be imperfect what if i was allowed to be unbalanced what would i do and instead i think we operate within these constraints that have been put on us from society and from friends and from family that's nagging in our ears telling us that we're weird right um and then we impose these ideas on ourselves and so i want to say i don't believe in work-life balance i believe that they're integrated there one is just a system that holistically has different parts to it that are all working together i believe that most of us um i know myself like the ideas that i used to hold right because the reason i can talk to you about this because i used to think this way are false and the only thing that's creating the unhappiness is your belief that it should be a different way and so if you can let go of that belief and just believe and know that you are supposed to be unbalanced and you are supposed to be imperfect in everything that you do in your work and in your life that you are always going to have parts of your life that contradict each other you know you're going to have a deadline for work that you've got to stay there until 6 p.m but your kid's soccer game starts at 5 p.m and you're like what i do and you have to compromise and not me either 100 and you're gonna think it shouldn't be this way i should always be on at five but that's not how life is there are no shoulds it's just what is and this happens to everybody and so i think that for anyone who's trying to find work like balance if you can just let go of the ideal if you can let go of this fake made-up fantasy that you can compartmentalize your life's backstone and that you can spend the right amount of hours on absolutely everything every day right let go of trying to control it all and just say i'm going to be in unbalanced and i'm going to be imperfect i think you'll be a much happier human for that reason i know i am and so i hope that was useful for you i hope if you're trying to achieve work-life balance you can make that switch in your mind right it's okay it's normal it's to be expected that you will be imperfect and unbalanced and i think that the only pain that you are feeling now if you feel pain is that of one doing work that does not energize you or two believing that it should be different than it is arguing with reality so with that i hope that you have a fantastic rest of your week or day and that was of use to you