How do I balance my 9 to 5 with my career coaching business and everything else?

"Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life." - Dolly Parton

Let’s talk about work-life balance, shall we?

Work, business, sports, alone quality time, friends time, dating, adulting (by adulting I mean all the stuff that adults need to do like groceries, cooking, taking care of admin stuff etc).

How the hell are we supposed to do that and still look cute?

Well, with time I think I cracked the code.

I was studying part-time and working full-time for 3 years and now for over a year I’ve been juggling full-time work with part-time business.

First, it’s important to have a purpose in every area of our lives to keep up with the rhythm in the long term.

• Why do I work? To pay the bills, ok but what more? To learn something that I could leverage on my own later.
• What’s the goal of launching my business? Feel fulfilled, and independent, and helping others on my terms.
• Why do I work out? To look good and feel good.

Etc...

Being clear with my whys helps me wake up at 6:30 am and go to the gym when all I want to do is sleep in for 2 more hours. ?

It’s also important to identify when you no longer have specific or strong goals in mind.

For example, last year I forced myself to spend 2 hours per week learning piano. But after a few months, I realised that doing it to impress at the train station wasn’t enough of a motivation to keep it up.

So, I stopped playing the piano, for now. Maybe I’ll go back to it someday who knows.

This allowed me to put my focus on other areas that matter most to me today like preparing for a marathon.

Once you know why you want to do something, you need to plan the time you will need for this specific activity.

I launched my career coaching business on the side of my 9 to 5 in January 2023.

Last year I was spending around 5 hours per week on it, this year I am spending around 15-20 hours per week.

I planned this by freeing some of my evenings after work and blocking time during my weekend.

As a result, I don’t feel overwhelmed, and I can still manage the demand.

I am also grateful to have a full-time job at Revolut which allows me to work from home and have flexibility in my schedule, it helps!

And the third step to achieving work-life balance is about organisation.

I’m a Virgo so organising my schedule is like breathing for me, but I still got better with practice.

Having systems in place with a specific time in your calendar, for example: every day at the same time blocking 30 minutes for your job search.

With time, when you won’t feel motivated, your mind will be just so used to doing the activity that you won’t even question if you should do it or not.

Finally, setting blockers in my calendar and having a daily to-do list (even outside of work) help me to keep this balance and still get some time to enjoy my free time.

I’m sharing what works best for me, but we all have our systems in place.

Try and see what works best for you as long as you’re happy in your situation.

PS: the picture was taken on Pig Beach in the Bahamas; I had a wonderful time!

Thank you for reading me!

Damien?

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