Achieving Work Life Balance is a Challenge Even for Meghan, Duchess of Sussex
For Duchess Meghan, life is about balancing all of her competing interests with her family, her friends her community, and her work. Like many of us, achieving work-life balance is sometimes difficult, even for the Duchess who, unlike many of us, admittedly has a lot of resources at her disposal to help keep her on track.
Even with all her resources, there are times when Duchess Meghan feels a little bit overwhelmed. But here are some of the things she does to try to achieve work-life balance:
1. She prioritizes her family life first of all. Meghan realizes that at the end of the day, no one is going to ask her how many hours per week she worked during her life. It is about the health and happiness of her family. So she first sets her priorities by keeping this in mind. She loves her work and she is dedicated to trying to do her best to make a difference in the world. But her first priority is her husband and her children, and making sure they are happy and have what they need.
2. She has a vision board so she can stay organized and focused on the long game. Meghan likes to take things step by step like the next person but she also thinks about the long game and the future, and she tries to plan for the future to the extent that she can. That way, she can take things in chunks and not get overwhelmed with everything at the last minute. She basically creates a road map to GPS her way there knowing that along the way, there could be many twists and turns. By having a vision board, she can better anticipate those twists and turns and have a solution at the ready just in case things do not go according to plan. This reduces stress in real-time and helps her enjoy more work/life balance.
3. She has learned how to say "No" and she says no when she absolutely thinks that what is being asked of her is too much. For many people, even for Meghan Duchess of Sussex, saying "no" is not the easiest thing to do. But the inability to say no can lead to a lot of stress in life. Meghan knows that more than anyone because she is generous and kind-hearted by nature and she would give the shirt on her back if she felt it would make a person happy. But as she has gotten older, she has come to realize that sometimes, this is a problem. So while she still gives of herself and her time rather generously, she has also become a lot better at setting boundaries for herself and saying "no" when necessary to protect her own sense of balance and happiness. And peace.
4. She works from a to-do list written fresh every day. Meghan believes in making lists and she has everything planned out for her day on her daily lists. That is how she achieves and accomplishes as much as she does. Now that she is a wife and mother, this natural tendency to make lists has become even more important to keep her organized and stress-free. Of course, she puts everything on her list - things for her personal life and things to do for her work life.
5. She delegates as much as possible. Luckily for the Duchess, she is at a point in her life when she is financially in a better position than she has ever been and so she can afford to hire help to assist her with various things both at home and at work - with Archewell, and her podcast Archetypes and also with taking care of her home and family. She accepts that she is only one woman and she cannot do it all by herself and so she does not even try to do that. Do not misunderstand: she does the maximum she can. Especially with her children and husband. She enjoys being a domestic goddess and cooking and taking care of her family. But she lives in a vast mansion that requires a lot of upkeep, and there is a garden, and many other things so she definitely needs help. To achieve that work/life balance, she delegates many duties to her various assistants.
6. She focuses on hiring the right people to help with specific tasks and tries to retain their services as long as possible to avoid the stress of turnover and retraining. Getting her staff exactly perfect is not easy and there are, and always will be mistakes in hiring. But the Duchess tries her best to get it right the first time. Having the right staff is crucially important to keeping Meghan on track and keeping her home and work life stress-free and happy. So she is extremely vigilant about hiring. She tries to keep her staff for as long as she possibly can.
7. She schedules everything. Meghan tries to schedule everything down to the time she brushes her teeth. It may sound mechanical but when you are the mother of two young children, the wife of a high-profile man, and an Internet sensation who is always being taken to task, you need to have a very clear schedule to manage your time, emotions, and goals. So both she and her family's lives are heavily scheduled by mama Meghan.
8. She takes care of her health and that of her family. Health is something that Meghan understands is very, very important. Both mental health and physical health. Her husband Prince Harry is also of the same school of thought. His work with Better Up is a prime example of how both Meghan and Harry prioritize health and how important they think good mental and physical health is for work/life balance.
9. She carves out "me" time for herself. Meghan tries to find a little bit of "me time" as often as possible. Actually, she schedules it into her day because she knows that this will make her a better wife and mother if she still has a little bit of independence and if her identity is not completely packaged as "wife" and "mother". She is an individual. She is responsible primarily for herself. It is with herself that she was born and with herself that she will leave this Earth, and so she understands that her "self" needs to be nurtured too, so she is mindful to take care of that aspect. It could be as simple as taking a short drive to the local coffee shop or sitting outside in the garden under the tree contemplating, or taking a nice milk bath. Both Meghan and Harry give themselves permission to have these little "me" breaks.
10. She switches off the phone for periods of time. Meghan and Harry are in hot demand at the moment and their phones ring constantly. If it is not the phone ringing, it is text messages and other notifications on the phone that can just take up a significant chunk of the day if you let it. Meghan realizes that being a slave to her phone means that her life will not be in balance and this is especially true of her family life and her personal life. So she literally switches off for hours at a time.
image credit flickr creative commons
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