5 Work-Life Tips for Women Who Plan to Have It All 

It’s been said that women can’t have it all – at least not all at once. Still, you search for ways to combat the constant struggle between building/maintaining a successful career and pursuing personal goals – specifically, taking care of yourself and your family. How then can you best structure your life, maximize the use of your time, and increase productivity so that you really enjoy all facets of your daily existence?

The answer: with the right planning and the right people, you can lead the life you’ve always wanted.  (After all, it shouldn’t always be a nervous choice between letting a promotion or a vacation pass you by!) Life certainly has its difficult dilemmas, but that doesn’t mean you have to continually encounter them in the professional/personal realm, and be disappointed about settling for less than what you set out to achieve.

Five tips for women who plan to have it all:

1. Map Out Your Life in Stages
While you may despise the “Where do you see yourself in five years?” question, it can be useful to determine what you want to fill your years doing.  For instance, if you intend to go back to school for your doctorate or M.B.A, you’ll have to dedicate years of your life to pursuing that goal. Or maybe you’ve always wanted to run for political office; you should realize that deciding when to run can have a huge impact on your relationships, work life, and personal health.

How about retiring early or starting your own small business? Plan for that, too. What about raising a family? While the Pew Research Center data shows that American women have mixed feelings on when is best for female leaders to start a family, ultimately, there are no rules to this game of life. So creating a rough sketch of which goals that you personally want to achieve — and when — can make it easier to pursue them at a time when it’s most plausible for you.

2. Build a Professional Network to Carry You Through the Challenging Times
Find the right organizations and people to build yourself a professional support network to support you during transitional times. By surrounding yourself with colleagues and business partners who come to know and understand your value as a leader, you can afford to rein in your professional life during times when your attention is diverted elsewhere.  Without the worry of losing all you have worked hard for in your career, you can enjoy time away from your job to have children, take a vacation, care for an aging parent, or whatever else personal demands you might have.

Thus, with the right professional network, you can ensure your career does not end if you’re required to withdraw from the working world for a period of time. When you are ready to shift your focus back to your career, you may be more willing to “lean in” to a more demanding role, knowing that you have this support system in place.  Research from Harvard Business School shows that compared to men, women are more likely to perceive negative outcomes associated with high-power positions and may not seek promotions or professional advancement, despite the availability of these opportunities, due to concerns on balancing their personal lives with professional demands. Women should not fear “leaning in” or “leaning out” of their careers — and with a robust professional support network, they don’t have to.

3. Find a Spouse Who is a True Life Partner
No matter what kind of work you take on, it is important to have a spouse who will be your partner through thick and thin. A life partner is in it for the long haul with you, so you need to know that this person will support you and respect your decisions.

According to research at The George Washington University, spousal support is crucial to leading a successful career and personal life. Together, you two are the team that will lead you both through the challenging times, and cheer each other on in pursuit of your individual goals. With a true life partner by your side, you will have an easier time saying “yes” to opportunities that align with your greatest ambitions, allowing you to look back and say you had it all.

4. Invest In Yourself
You deserve to thrive professionally and personally, so give yourself every chance to do so!  The time and money you invest in career development and personal well-being is never wasted. As LinkedIn’s co-founder Reid Hoffman says in his book, The Start-Up of You, “We are all works in progress. Each day presents an opportunity to learn more, do more, be more, grow more in our lives and careers.” To keep improving, you need to keep learning and betting on yourself.

So take advantage of professional development programs and incentives offered by your employer to improve your skills. Conferences, webinars, and professional networking groups can also be great ways to give yourself a break from your usual day-to-day routine and gain new insights and skills outside your company’s learning and development program (provided that they have one). Even an online language program can be a fun way to become more competitive in the global economy — while also preparing you for that backpacking trip you’ve been planning since college.

What if you simply need to give yourself the gift of time? Save a few hours on household chores with the help of a cleaning service or grocery delivery subscription; then use that time to finish your book club novel or hit up your SoulCycle class instead. Vacations can also be useful in giving you a fresh perspective and renewed energy so you can get back to tackling the most pressing issues of the day. When you bet on yourself and invest in your own development, there’s no telling how far you can go!

5. Define Your Limits and Stick To Them!
The only thing that makes work-life balance so elusive is the lack of boundaries that keep one from dominating over the other. It’s not clear exactly when work and life became polarized, but the key to integrating them is to define your limits for how you work, when you work, and for whom you work.

Things to consider may include: Are you willing to relocate for a job? Is there a point in your career when you would like to be your own boss? Do you find the traditional 9-to-5 schedule inflexible, or do you prefer set hours? What values do you expect your employer to uphold? What ethical guidelines will you follow? These are just some of the questions you will need to explore to determine where you draw the line between work and the rest of your life. They may even change over the course of your career.

You will also need to set limits to prevent work from encroaching on your personal endeavors. If you have committed to reaching a fitness goal, you have to guard your gym time from being erased by work deadlines, meetings, or impromptu office parties. Same goes for religious and family obligations; if it’s important for you to attend church service on Wednesday evenings,  that probably isn’t the best night for you to play in the weekly softball league. Some families designate certain nights of the week as family day or implement other guidelines for spending time together. It will look different in every household.

When you set boundaries in your personal life, you can ensure you respect the commitments you’ve made to yourself and to others. Let’s be clear: skipping your Tuesday night yoga class to join colleagues for happy hour is not the end of the world — you certainly need to be able to adapt your schedule to the happenings of the day. But by setting your limits ahead of time, you know when you can be flexible, and when to hold your ground.

It’s not always easy to chase your dreams when the demands of life are bearing down upon you every day, but it is possible. With a little planning and support from others, you can “have it all” — whatever that looks like for you.

Of course, every woman has different ideas of what it means to “have it all,” and not everybody dreams of having a family, or even a spouse. Maybe your career goals are not as lofty as others’ are. So whatever your ideal life entails, you have the power to create a life you love! What’s stopping you?