137. Three Lies About Balance That Keep SLPs Burned Out

We’ve been sold a version of "work-life balance" that sounds great on paper, but  terrible in real life. 

If you’ve ever changed jobs, started a private practice, or rearranged your schedule hoping this would finally make things feel calm--only to find yourself just as stressed as before--this episode is for you. 

I went live in the Work-Life Balance for Speech Pathologists Facebook group and shared three big lies we’ve been told about balance and why they quietly keep high-achieving SLPs stuck, overwhelmed, and exhausted.

What You’ll Learn

• Why balance is not universal and why trying to copy someone else’s version will always backfire
• Why balance doesn’t come from your schedule or circumstances, even when everything “looks good” on paper
• Why balance isn’t a destination, but a skill you build (and rebuild) in different seasons
• Why private practice flexibility alone doesn’t prevent burnout
• How reclaiming balance starts internally, not with another schedule tweak

To find out how I can help you improve your work-life balance, click here.

Come join Work-Life Balance for Speech Pathologists on Facebook for more tips and tricks!

Learn more about Theresa Harp Coaching here.

Transcript

Hello, work-life balance for speech pathologists. Are we live? There we go. Now we are live. Hello. Hello, hello, hello. Happy Friday. I am finishing up my workday and coming in live. To talk about a topic, sort of a continuation of the topic that I was covering the other day about balance and it not being a destination yesterday, I think.

So if you didn't see that Facebook Live, um, this one. Speaks to a similar topic, but that one is worth checking out as well. So I've got some notes that I wanna share because this is a, I outlined this and this is such a, uh, triggering topic, I think for many women, for many people in the field, um, of speech [00:01:00] pathology for moms.

So. There might be some things in here that I say that might trigger something or challenge some of your beliefs, and that's okay. That's okay. So as always, take what is helpful and leave what is not okay. But today, as you can see from the screen, I am talking about three lies that you have been told about balance.

Okay. I have a lot of thoughts about this opinion or about this topic. I have a lot of opinions about this topic and so I could give you about 10 different things, but I really want you to think about how these three things might show up for you. Okay? Because here's the thing, we, society, culture, we talk about balance like it is a.[00:02:00] 

A destination like it is a place that we arrive. Like once we have the schedule, the right schedule, and the right job in the right setting, with the right hours and the right level of flexibility, everything will finally feel calm. Right? And for so many people in our field, that's actually the driving force behind why people go out and create.

Their own private practice, why they start working as a contractor so they're more in control over their schedule. Why they start seeing clients on the side and then who knows? It turns into your own private practice, which is where you are spending the majority of your time or maybe all of your time at work, right?

So we leave a situation, we leave a work situation in this quest to create balance. Because private practice and working [00:03:00] for ourselves feels like the answer. It feels like what's going to create balance. But here is what I see all the time, and I can speak from personal experience, incredibly driven, capable SLPs, start private practices, but still feel stressed, anxious.

Overwhelmed and constantly behind. So now this, this thing that you have created, that you've put your blood, sweat, and tears into creating has now landed you in the exact same place. Burnout. Dare I say that you were in before you left your job. Right. So today I wanna talk about the three biggest lies that we have been told about balance and why these [00:04:00] lies are holding you back, how they are quietly burning you out, especially if you're a private practice owner, especially if you're a mom, especially if you are somebody who is ambitious in their career, but also has.

Uh, vision and goals of how you wanna spend your time outside of work, you wanna have a fulfilling, balanced life. Okay, so let me walk you through each of these. I'm gonna go one by one, talk you through it, give you some examples, and then we'll go from there. Okay? So the first lie that I wanna offer about balance is that balance.

Is universal. That is not true. Balance does not mean equal. We have [00:05:00] been. Sold this story about how balance looks the same for everybody, and it means equal work hours, equal family time, equal rest, equal productivity, right? But balance is not about equal, and it's not the same for every person, right? If we're thinking about balance as trying to, I picture like two scales, right?

Or a scale, and you've got. You've got scale on each side, and you maybe, and you, if I'm airing this, uh, this is a Facebook Live. Obviously if you're watching it in the Facebook group, I'm also sharing this on the podcast, so you can't see me if you're listening to the podcast, but I'm sort of gesturing with my hands, right?

How when one side is heavier than the other, we feel imbalanced and we need, society tells us that we need both sides of the scale to be even in order to have a sense of work-life balance. Right, but that is not [00:06:00] true. That is not feasible. It's not realistic, it's not possible. But I also wanna offer that one person's vision for work-life balance can be something very different than another person's vision of work-life balance.

And even for you. Your current vision or definition of work-life balance will not be the same vision and definition of work-life balance six months from now, a year from now, five years from now, it changes. Right. So what feels balanced in one season might feel terrible in another. So balance is not about equal and it's not about doing what everybody else is doing and trying to adjust accordingly.

Right? You have to define what balance means for you. So this is what I do with my coaching clients, where [00:07:00] I'll coach SLPs, and one of the first places that we start is defining what does product productivity mean to you? What does productive mean to you? What does work-life balance look like right now for you?

What do you want it to look like? How do you want it to feel? What does it mean for you? Does it mean certain hours of the day? Does it mean certain amount of energy that you're giving towards things? Does it mean being, having a certain number of clients on your caseload and being able to spend a certain amount of time with your kids?

What does that mean? Right? So you get to define what balance means for you. And what I'll also add is. Uh, I was about to say next week. It might not be next week for those of you who are listening, but regardless, Monday, Monday, February 19th, I'm gonna be hosting a workshop that's going to talk about how to define balance for you, how to define it in a way that actually [00:08:00] fits your brain.

Especially you have a DHD, your lifestyle, right? Some people have kids, some people don't have kids. Some people have five kids. Some people have one kid. Some you might have a child on the way, right? And your business, right? Our businesses are private practices can look very, very different. And even if you're not in a private practice, if you don't own a private practice, your career, your setting.

You work in and the workload and the demands can look very different. So in the webinar on February 19th, we're gonna talk about how to define balance for you. Okay? And in order to do that, you have to acknowledge that balance is going to be different from person to person. Alright? The second lie that we have been told about balance, and this one might be hard to hear.

It might feel you. You might [00:09:00] wanna argue with me about this. Okay. So just putting that out there. But the second lie that we've been told about balance is that balance comes from your circumstances. It comes from outside, not inside. That is the lie that we have been told. We have been told, society tells us models for us.

Perpetuates this belief that balance will come when everything around us is in order, when our schedule is aligned, when we have the right number of cases on our caseload, when we are working with the right clients, when our schedule is starting and ending at the same time or at the right time for us, right Where.

The environment around us, whether it's our home environment or our work environment, is calm and breezy and well [00:10:00] managed, feels under control, right? We believe we've been taught that that's what determines balance. And if you have been thinking of balance that way, I'm willing to guess that you probably haven't ever felt.

That sense of balance, because that is not what balance is. That's not how balance is experienced. That's not how balance is created. And so if you are looking for the the world around you to create the balance for you, you're going to be disappointed every single time. But here's the good news. I wanna offer that our sense of balance, our sense of work-life balance, or balance in general actually comes from within.

It's internal. It's not external. It's where [00:11:00] your personal thoughts, your inner self-talk, your thoughts align with the life that you want to be living. It is knowing that even when. There is chaos around you. You can create a sense of balance from inside, and this is good news because it then removes the pressure to have to find the perfect job or create the perfect private practice that we run to then give us the balance that we want.

We actually get to create it from within. Here's how I know that this is true. Okay? If this is a hard one for you to wrap your head around. Head around. So I know that there have been times in my life where I have maybe been spending equal amount of time, roughly with my kids and my work, or I've been [00:12:00] spending the amount of time that I wanted to be spending in work.

And with my family. I know that there have been times where I have felt like my private practice was fitting with my lifestyle and. On paper, everything might have looked great, and yet at the end of the day I was still thinking. Oh my gosh, I'm so far behind. Shoot, I didn't send out those invoices today.

Oh my gosh. I didn't respond to that client who inquired about services. When am I gonna fit in this evaluation? Right? I have all these thoughts that are racing through my mind when I'm trying to, when. Play with the kids or get dinner on the table or shuffle and shuttle people around to where they needed to be.

That didn't feel very balanced, even though on paper it was like, oh, I've got this private practice. I'm the boss. I get to set my schedule that is balanced. Right? So even when the [00:13:00] circumstances looked like what we associate with balance. My thoughts, the way I was thinking, the way I was feeling when I was at work, when I was at home was not at all balanced.

And what good is it, right? If you create a private practice that you, that you want to fit in with your life? You want to be in charge of how it's run and the clients that you're seeing and when you're seeing them, what good is all of that? If you still feel like you're on a hamster wheel or you're behind, or maybe you think that your private practice should be further along and it's not right, maybe you think that you should have more clients than you do and you don't Maybe.

You're not hitting the income that you want or generating the revenue that you want, and so you feel. Stressed, you feel overwhelmed. You feel like, oh my gosh, I'm never gonna get this [00:14:00] done, right? Or how about for those of you who have worked for yourself, maybe you have a private practice, or you see your own clients, you work for yourself.

What you realize very quickly is there is no punch in, punch out, right? It's not like you're on the clock and off the clock. You could be working in and on your business, in and on your private practice at any time. So that, while that might sound exciting at first, it can become really hard to turn it off.

It can become really hard not to perseverate on thoughts about what's not going well, what you should have done differently, and how far behind you are. Right. That does not feel balanced. So balance is not determined by flexibility. It's not determined by working for yourself and setting your own schedule.

It's not determined by having fewer clients or shorter work days. If your thinking [00:15:00] is staying in overwhelm, then balance will not happen. This is why so many private practice owners feel so guilty. For being stressed, right? Because on paper it's like I shouldn't be stressed. I work for myself. I have what other people want, right?

I know lots of moms, lots of women would kill to make their own schedule. They would love to be in my position to be able to, to pick up the kids from school or go to the class parties. And here I am feeling stressed about it. And now I feel guilty on top of it. Right. That internal pressure does not just disappear when your schedule changes.

That comes from within. That's the type of thing that I do with coaching clients. That's what we work on in coaching, is how to have balance, not just around you, not even necessarily around you, but from within. Okay, and then last but not least, the third lie that we have been sold about balance is that it is a destination.[00:16:00] 

It is a finish line. Like we get there and, okay, got it. Check the box. I have balance now, and now that I figured this out, I will always feel balanced and this is wonderful now that everything is as it, it should be, balance is is here and it's here to stay. No balance is a skill. It is a skillset, and that's good news because you can build your skillset in that area.

Balance is a moving target. It ebbs and it flows. Our capacity changes throughout life and different seasons of life. Our priorities shift. Motherhood shifts. If you are a mom and you have kids, you know this, there's different seasons of life as a mom and stages from when your kids are little to when they grow older.

That all shifts. The demands shift, your capacity shifts, your interest shift, your values shift. All of that [00:17:00] is, is in constant motion. It's not something that you achieve, it's something that you choose. It's something that you practice. It is a decision that you make over and over, not every single time with a hundred percent accuracy and consistency.

No. But it's knowing that you are in the driver's seat of creating that balance, that you have the ability to create that balance. You know how to do it. You know how to adjust your expectations. You know how to align your time with what matters most to you. You know that you can dial it up and dial it down, but you are the one that's in charge of that.

You are the one that can create it. Other people, other circumstances can't create it for you. You are in charge and when things feel out of balance, you know exact, you know exactly what's happening. You recognize it quickly and [00:18:00] you course correct, you adjust. You can do it relatively easily without the guilt, without the confusion, without the overwhelm, just with confidence and security, and that is such.

It's such a freeing concept. Once you know and are on board with the belief that balance is a moving target, that balance comes from within, and that balance is deeply personal, not universal. It opens up so much more possibilities for so many more possibilities for you to create your version of work-life balance at any time.

Okay. So those are the three myths, three of the biggest myths that we have been sold about balance. Now here's what you can do if any of this is resonating with you. If any of this sounds like. Hmm. Okay. Haven't [00:19:00] thought about it that way before, or, oh, okay. Well, yeah, that's great, Theresa, but like what next?

How do I actually do that? Join me on Monday the 19th of February. We're going to be talking about this topic. I'm gonna be walking you through what this can look like for you, how to create that balance for yourself. This training on the 19th is absolutely for you. How to run your private practice without burning out.

The process. Okay. I will click a link or I'll add a link in the comments or if you're listening on the podcast in the show notes so you can sign up to get all of the details about time and location. It's gonna be on Zoom by the way, and that way you'll get all of the updates in your email and if you can't be there live, you'll be able to able to watch the replay.

Okay. Alright. I hope that this was helpful and I hope to see you on the [00:20:00] 19th to talk all about. Balance. I'll see you then.