Balance Is Overrated

Balance Is Overrated

by | Mar 25, 2018 | Business, Motherhood, Social Media, Speaking, Women, Work Life Blend

This blog was inspired by a presentation I was invited to give to the Motivating Mum’s community on International Women’s Day, 2017.

I wanted to talk to you about balance
…because I think it’s balderdash

And while maybe, yes, saying it’s a conspiracy to keep us down might be overdoing it a bit, I believe this concept of perfect wife, perfect mother, perfect businesswoman with all these balls in the air, perfectly applied lipstick, good hair, kicking goals and taking names – that concept that we have to have everything balanced – I think that’s hurting us.

I’m a business owner, and a mother, and a writer, and a creative, and a wife, and a lover and a tap dancer and an in-the-shower-singer and a volunteer and a social media addict and a homework supervisor and a decent friend and I manage – sometimes badly – a physical illness.

Am I balanced? Heck no!

Did I think I SHOULD be! Yes!

This is certainly a first world problem, but we’re consistently being bombarded with these messages that we have to be perfect.

Balance implies that.

Be over here, now in equal parts do this over here for this person, now in equal parts grow your business, now in equal shares be a terrific, conscious and hands-on parent, oh and don’t forget in equal amounts to be a smashing wife.

Bah. Balance is overrated.

And trying to BE balanced is so, so tiring

Some days I write for 8 hours straight.

I can’t wait to get the kids on the bus, and get out of the shower, and I sit down and don’t talk to anyone or interact with the world and I just write. It’s incredible to me that every day I get to write and someone pays me money. Who knew that could happen?

Some days I lay in a teepee on my plastic back lawn, because the real stuff kept dying and my husband is gorgeous but he hates gardening…

and I draw dinosaurs. For hours.

Some days I nap.

Some days I spend far too long hunting for the perfect tutor for my teenager because education the price of an organ isn’t now enough to get him through and he’s ready to give up on himself. Some days I should be writing and end up helping my friend put her photography website together. Some days I write but it’s not as good as it should be and I consider going back to a ‘real’ job in communications or even Coles.

Some days I drink enough water.
Some days I drink tea for lunch.

I’m not balanced.

And I don’t think we should be.

I think we should aim for something different: a blend

And the blend is as individual as you like your coffee. As individual as your children. You might be all or nothing most days. And that’s OK. Stop trying to be so god damned perfect.

I have a ‘successful’ (there’s another term that might need to be scrapped) copywriting business that’s elevated and amplified my career from underappreciated communications employee to Queen of the Crisp Copy Empire.

And it looks like that on social media.

My Instagram is filtered to the nines, I post regularly about the extremely fortunate situations I find myself in – I was a recipient of multiple awards last year, for example – but my business and personal life aren’t balanced.

Who on earth builds a self-sustaining and rapidly growing business while not working too hard? I work too hard. But I work hard now so it’ll pay off next year, or the year after. And although I work too hard, I also make sure that the reason I work so hard – my family – is a big dollop of goodness in my blend.

Because if I can’t shut down the laptop and go to make Easter hats for the parade, what’s the darn point?

My version of a successful blend is: a messy constantly shifting meld of creativity, smart work, and ability to be flexible. There’s nothing balanced about my life, and yet it’s the happiest I’ve ever been.

I work with words every day so I understand how important language is. Maybe the term ‘balanced’ means something different for you and you feel calm, in control, and peaceful about it. Goodo! But if it makes you feel pressured, ditch it.

Try the blend

It’s sometimes chaotic, it often requires a 360 spin, you might need to check your emails while on the loo and simultaneously explaining the difference between a dictatorship and a democracy having a Hot Wheels car rolled under the door and really you’re writing the first headline of a clients Sales page in your head, but you’ll stop expecting perfection of yourself.

And that’s where the real good stuff happens.

Room to move, to breathe, to create new things, to have different ideas, to change your mind!

Room to admit you don’t know everything, to ask for help, to collaborate, to create a sisterhood of women who are real and true and raw and honest.

International Women’s Day is meant to be a celebration of women. I say, let’s celebrate by cutting ourselves some darn slack. We have a position of privilege, especially here in Australia. If we spent a little less time trying to be perfect we might have a bit spare to help each other out.

Happy International Women’s Day, gorgeous women of the world. May your blend be delicious. Like Mocha.

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About Jay

Jay Crisp Crow

Yep, really my name

If you’re here for the intuitive mix of done-for-you, make-you-cry copy or you want to learn all my secrets so you can DIY like a pro; sister, you’re in the right place. I’m a copywriter, editor, and copy consultant and coach for businesswomen ready to move away from the boring as bat poop churning out of content. Words that sound the same as everyone else’s. Bah humbug! I am terrible at writing my own blogs but smashing at writing for clients. I live in the Hills of Perth, WA, and work with women around the world through the technologically spiffy powers of t’internet. Yay for that!
Socially Crisp
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How Not To Use Your Facebook Friends for Networking

How Not To Use Your Facebook Friends for Networking

by | Dec 18, 2015 | Marketing, Social Media

I was surprised when I started my business how many people just LOVED me at networking events.

I mean, I’d go to these things, meet someone for less than ten minutes, swap cards and voila!

They wanted to be my friend on Facebook.

I must be likeable, right?

It took me a while to figure out that I was just one in a massive collection of ‘friends’ who these kinds of networkers use as a selling tool. I’d been collected, stored on a list and not even wished a Happy Birthday, for goodness sake.

I started to realise when someone I thought I might like failed to speak to me for the months after she friend requested me, then tried to use the comments on some photo of my kid to sell tickets to her upcoming event.

Holllld UP! If you’re not here for the cute photos of my red-head tornado toddler, and you don’t really care about how my business is going or what I’m having for dinner, what exactly is it you’re doing on my list?

I don’t know where these folk went to networking school. Perhaps someone taught them that this is how you do it.

I don’t think it is.

Facebook is an awesome tool.

Like, really, I am 100% a Facebook Freak of a Fan. I turned my Facebook addiction into the second arm of my business, that’s how much I love it. (And, I have to admit, I am not on it any more than I was before my business… scary).

However, just because it works in a way that you can tag 35 people in your post about your new product and it appears on their feed, finding its way into all their friends feeds too, doesn’t mean you should.

If you know someone is totally going to be into your thing and being tagged in it’s going to be thrilling for them, knock yourself out. Equally, if you happen to meet someone at an event, or, perhaps, like I did, online and you liked their blog and got chatting to them on a forum and the way they parent aligned with yours so you friend requested them (OK, NOW it sounds totally naff), that alright too, I think. I hope…

Facebook, and indeed all social media, is the platform to begin a conversation. Start a new relationship. If you’re a “user”, as we called folk like this back in High School, then I don’t really want a relationship with you thanks. I already have children.

Facebook, and indeed all social media, is the platform to begin a conversation. Click To Tweet

At a recent Personal Branding workshop run by the knowledgeable and ethical Queen of Manners, Sharron Attwood, I asked her the correct way to handle this kind of conundrum. I trusted she would help me manage the situation elegantly, being the epitome of ‘doing things properly’. I wasn’t sure which fork to use first, and if I should leave these ‘serial networkers’ on my restricted list (where they all got shuffled) or delete them altogether. I was tending to move away from the delete option, given I’d ‘cleaned up’ my list while pregnant and fragile and frightfully offended a mum at footy. (She hailed from the same spot as my husband’s ex-wife, I just wasn’t risking it. She’s still not talking to me to this day).

Here’s the advice Sharron gave me:

Check the person before accepting.

Have they friend requested 1500 people at the same time as you? Are they suddenly friends with about 40 mutual friends? If so, they’re probably ‘friend’ hunting; popping from one list to another to get access to people’s lists. If you’re not sure, just leave them there for a while and see what you think.

Have a ‘Facebook Follow’ button.

Giving new networking friends this option means that they can keep up with the posts you make public without necessarily needing to be on your friends list.

If you’re like me and you use your personal Facebook profile to have silly conversations with your girlfriends, find out world news, post photos of your kids being adorable (filtered, of course, through Instagram and with no mention of the grief they’ve caused all week), or photos of cake, these new professional friends probably won’t find much of any interest in your account. Giving them the option to follow the public version of you might just be a better idea – it was for me.

Here’s another idea that I utilised with those people I did really want to connect with but not through my personal page:

Be honest.

I sent a few simple messages saying that my personal page was just for friends and family but I’d like to follow their business page if they wanted to message it through and here was mine. No one got offended, no one refused to serve me coffee at the kids’ football, and the outcome remained the same – business people connecting through a channel made for it.

Now, there really are totally open and lovely folk out there with 2000 Facebook friends. They do business with them, they connect and chat, and they artfully meld a business and personal page together with just the right amount of blend. I’m not picking on anyone with a hefty Facebook friends list, by any means.

Whether you have 90 friends or 2500 friends, the guiding principles remain the same:

Have good manners. Deal with people the best way you can (not by deleting them at 4am in a hormone induced, fright fuelled panic.) Don’t use their page to promote your stuff, unless they’re AOK with it. Say Happy Birthday. If you get it wrong, apologise. We can’t all be Sharron, that’s why she runs workshops. We might get it wrong sometimes.

Remember, this is a relationship. Be your best.

“Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.” – Emily Post, Author

Jay-crisp-crow-crisp-copy-signature
About Jay

Jay Crisp Crow

Yep, really my name

If you’re here for the intuitive mix of done-for-you, make-you-cry copy or you want to learn all my secrets so you can DIY like a pro; sister, you’re in the right place. I’m a copywriter, editor, and copy consultant and coach for businesswomen ready to move away from the boring as bat poop churning out of content. Words that sound the same as everyone else’s. Bah humbug! I am terrible at writing my own blogs but smashing at writing for clients. I live in the Hills of Perth, WA, and work with women around the world through the technologically spiffy powers of t’internet. Yay for that!
Socially Crisp
Resources I Love