{"id":8405,"date":"2019-01-28T15:42:53","date_gmt":"2019-01-28T20:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/?p=8405"},"modified":"2019-01-28T15:42:53","modified_gmt":"2019-01-28T20:42:53","slug":"striking-a-balance-what-it-really-means-to-have-it-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/striking-a-balance-what-it-really-means-to-have-it-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Striking a Balance: What It Really Means to Have It All"},"content":{"rendered":"

What does it mean to lead a balanced life, or in the words of one alumna, to \u201cbe in control of the chaos\u201d? Sarah Achenbach \u201988<\/strong> has been asking herself that question since graduation\u2014and for this article surveyed alumnae, too.<\/h3>\n

When Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook\u2019s chief financial officer, and writer Nell Scovell published Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead<\/em> in 2013, I know exactly where I was.<\/p>\n

Maybe not exactly where<\/em>, but I know exactly what<\/em> I was doing.<\/p>\n

\"iconI was juggling several competing work deadlines, arguing with Son #1 to do his homework, planning a Cub Scout meeting, answering work emails, paying the pizza delivery guy, and picking dirt clods off the floor from Son #2\u2019s soccer cleats. Mostly, I was wondering if the laundry in the washing machine from two days earlier was too mildewed to throw in the dryer.<\/p>\n

Embracing my female empowerment and leaning in? Yeah, right. I just wanted to lie down.<\/p>\n

My work\/life struggle\u2014muddled on a great day and mayhem most days\u2014is not what I expected when I graduated from Hollins in 1988. My thoughts then were solely on my career. Soon after graduating, though, the joy and challenges of my nonwork life elbowed their way to the center of my days, where they\u2019ve remained ever since.<\/p>\n

This past October, I returned to Hollins to participate in C3: Career Connection Conference, the annual career preparation symposium for Hollins students. I had been asked to be part of a four-person panel called \u201cChasing the Unicorn: Work\/Life Harmony.\u201d My panelists and I had lots to say on the topic and chuckled over the choice of the word harmony.<\/em> Our lives are rewarding, but none of us described our work\/life balance as harmonious.<\/p>\n

I left C3 impressed with the students I\u2019d met and how much more together they were than I was at their age. But I also left with a few questions.<\/p>\n

By the time I graduated, the word supermom<\/em>, which entered the lexicon in 1974, was a full-blown expectation. When I had my first child at age 30, I bought what my generation was told: We could \u201chave it all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Have we? Do younger generations feel this expectation? Are there new pressures to juggle it all seamlessly? And just how are we to strike a balance when our phones provide 24\/7 access to us (for work and family) and the constant comparison to other seemingly perfect lives on social media?<\/p>\n

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I needed answers and the kind of wisdom that can only come from HollinsSourcing (my word).<\/p>\n

First, the Hollins Alumnae Relations office conducted an email survey of alumnae from the classes of 1980 to 2016. An impressive 379 people responded with passionate, candid comments on work, family, hopes, regrets, joys, and more. For the survey, we purposely didn\u2019t define work<\/em> as paid work outside the home or family<\/em> to mean being a wife and mother. What constitutes work and family are as varied as the paths Hollins graduates take.<\/p>\n

What did the survey reveal? Not surprisingly, most of us did not think about this issue at Hollins. Fifty-three percent never thought about it, while 33 percent did sometimes. Now the question is rarely far from our thoughts: 75 percent think about it often; 21 percent, sometimes; and a blissful four percent, never. Another nonshocker: Nearly everyone who answered the question about balance being a goal said \u201cyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"iconBoth the recently graduated and retired expressed frustration at trying to find a healthy balance. Mercury Hipp \u201915 admitted, \u201cThere is no balance. I work constantly out of financial necessity and the nature of my job. I am physically, cognitively, and emotionally exhausted.\u201d Ellen George Smith \u201980 was just as candid: \u201cWhen I worked full time I did a poor job with balance. Now I am retired and doing a lot of volunteer work but doing a better job at balance\u2014but maybe still tipped toward working.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many spoke of their career having more weight on the scale, whether out of financial need, work demands, or pressure from society, themselves, or technology. Ane Turner Johnson ’98 explained that, while her younger self was excited about the prospect of work defining her life, \u201cnow that it does, I am less enthusiastic because I often feel that life lacks depth as a result.\u201d<\/p>\n

Numerous women spoke of the paradox that wherever you are, you feel you should be somewhere else. Courtney Hamill \u201905 said her life is in \u201ca constant state of triage between family needs and career needs.\u201d Lauren ClemenceCasula \u201904 agreed: \u201cI don\u2019t even have children and am often forced to choose between my career, my social life, my husband, my dogs, or my health. Just seems like there\u2019s never enough time or energy to devote to all of it at once.\u201d<\/p>\n

Susan Emack Alison \u201986\u00a0got the message early that life beyond Hollins might not be what she thought it would be: \u201cAt graduation, news anchor Ann Compton \u201969 said \u2018Women can\u2019t have it all.\u2019 That sounded like blasphemy to us empowered, eager go-getters. \u2026She explained that something has to give, that there are sacrifices to make when you balance a career with other life choices, such as marriage, children, and volunteerism. Over the last three decades, I\u2019ve found her take to be true.\u201d<\/p>\n

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I needed an expert to help me wade through the challenges to find some clarity. Jill Weber, Ph.D., president and founder of the Center for Thriving, Inc., has devoted her professional life to helping others lead more balanced and centered lives. A former communication studies professor at Hollins\u2014she\u2019s currently the university\u2019s special advisor for student well-being and teaches an undergraduate course on the topic\u2014Weber explains that because of technological changes, \u201cwork seeps into after-work hours,\u201d which means that \u201cwe need to move from human doing to human being.\u201d It\u2019s a top-down change, she says, starting with management creating clear lines and workers setting boundaries\u2014that they will not answer emails after 7 p.m., for example.<\/p>\n

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Weber<\/p><\/div>\n

To Weber, equilibrium is important, although she knows that this is different for each person. \u201cWorkaholic<\/em> is not a term of endearment,\u201d she explains. \u201cWe have to identify priorities that matter to us and build our life around those.\u201d<\/p>\n

To do that, Weber asks her clients or students who they are, what their purpose is, and where they want to spend their time. Then she leads them in defining what an authentic, meaningful life looks like, identifying what she calls \u201cthriving ideals\u201d\u2014three words that become the compass.<\/p>\n

Then it\u2019s about scheduling. Everyone, even the person working several jobs and raising kids (from the survey results, that\u2019s plenty of us), has five minutes each day to work toward their identified goals. After speaking with Weber, for example, I now carry a journal to write essay ideas, rather than scrolling through Facebook while waiting at my son\u2019s drum lessons. The bonus: a steady stream of ideas for my personal writing aspirations and<\/em> fewer cat videos.<\/p>\n

Weber is a big fan of Bren\u00e9 Brown, noted shame researcher, who identifies 12 shame triggers for women (among them, body, career, parenting, and aging) and one for men (weakness). \u201cI operate on no shame, no blame, no guilt, no judgment,\u201d Weber says. \u201cPutting yourself as a priority moves you toward a goal and gives you hope. I see so many people walking around without anchors, and as a result, they are absorbing other people\u2019s anchors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"computerAgain, she returns to societal expectations. \u201cWomen have been brought up to always be somebody\u2019s something instead of being themselves,\u201d Weber explains. \u201cOur core value is helping others, but we need to give ourselves permission to do what we need to do to live an authentic life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Social media adds to the impression that people are not good enough, Weber explains. \u201cI look at the \u2018should,\u2019 \u2018supposed to\u2019 and \u2018have to\u2019 statements that silence what we want to do. Social media amplifies these messages.\u201d She notes that social media sites also offer a diversity of views and perspectives, but the trick is to curate the deluge purposefully and positively. \u201cI encourage people to add to their feed content that is uplifting and unfollow what they don\u2019t want to see,\u201d she explains, noting that Facebook can include healthy communities around challenging issues, including the Hollins Life Support Facebook Group, which gives members a place to get support and advice.<\/p>\n

I go back to the 86 percent of survey respondents who admitted that finding balance in their post-Hollins life was something they either never (53 percent) or sometimes (33 percent) thought about during college. Not anymore. To date, Weber\u2019s popular well-being elective at Hollins has had an impact on the lives, post-college plans, and happiness of more than 100 students. Undergraduates farther north are just as interested in the subject. A year ago, 1,200 Yale University students flooded the registration for the elective Psychology and the Good Life, the most popular class in Yale\u2019s history. In a New York Times<\/em> article, the course\u2019s founder and teacher, psychology professor Laurie Santos, reasoned that students were so interested because, as high schoolers, they had \u201cadopted harmful habits\u2026of deprioritizing their happiness to gain admission to [college],\u201d of \u201cnumbing their emotions\u201d to focus on the next step, whether it was school or career aspirations.<\/p>\n

\"buildingWeber agrees: \u201cWe are at a point in society where we can create our lives more fully, where people want to lead their lives instead of just doing.\u201d This is certainly at the heart of the lives Hollins women are striving to lead. It was in the questions students asked at C3 and in the responses from the surveys, especially in the answers of what advice Hollins alumnae would give their 20-something selves to live their best, more balanced life.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon’t try to be perfect at everything,\u201d said Courtney Frankhouser Myers \u201997. \u201cThat mentality will kill you.\u201d Michelle Fellows Sayers \u201907 added, \u201cDon\u2019t be afraid to say no. Make your own mental, emotional, and physical health a priority, and then it is much easier to balance everything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sarah Achenbach is a freelance writer living in Baltimore.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>\"WWW\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

Find more comments from the alumnae survey at www.hollins.edu\/magazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Michelle Sprint Smith \u201983<\/h4>\n
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Smith<\/p><\/div>\n

For the past 35 years, Michelle Smith has loved her career in research and development. As the associate research and development director for DowDuPont\u2019s Corteva Agriscience Agriculture division, she leads the North America Regional Field Service team in conducting new crop technologies. She\u2019s also raised two children and has lived through several shifts in work\/life balance.<\/p>\n

I knew I wanted to work when I got married.<\/strong> Having kids really changed everything and what it would mean to me and what the consequences were. I didn\u2019t want to travel for work but had to. I always wanted to be where I wasn\u2019t. I learned to be present where I am. Life was a lot easier after that.<\/p>\n

I slowed down my career progress when the kids were little.<\/strong> Now I am able to ramp back up. Parenting doesn\u2019t end when your kids are 21, though. Our daughter has a disability and is independent but still needs support. My husband retired, so he does the heavy lifting. He\u2019s always been understanding and ahead of his time [with household duties]. But that doesn\u2019t mean I let myself off the hook. I fell for \u2018doing it all.\u2019<\/p>\n

I absolutely believe that [work\/life balance] is a woman\u2019s issue.<\/strong> There are cultural and personal expectations that are different for men and women. It\u2019s changing, though. I see more dual-career people than when I started. If there is a man who manages women, and his wife works outside the home, his perspective is different. I see millennials expecting better work life\/balance. It\u2019s healthy. There\u2019s a man on my team who is taking several weeks\u2019 paternity leave. You\u2019d almost never see that before.<\/p>\n

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Shaye Strager \u201995<\/h4>\n
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Strager<\/p><\/div>\n

Fashion stylist. TV personality. Branding expert. Wife. Mother. Road warrior. Shaye Strager wears a lot of hats and logs a lot of miles each month when she travels from her home in Atlanta to clients in New York City, Miami, and Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

The shift in recent years has become harder to balance<\/strong>, but the key is being in control of the chaos\u2014and keeping ever present about what is most important. I make sure that nothing gets in the way of things that matter to our family. Knowing, too, that it will all get done when it\u2019s supposed to\u2014or that it won\u2019t, and that\u2019s okay \u2013 keeps things in perspective.<\/p>\n

I make lists for everything: <\/strong>the house, groceries, clients, and goals, and one cohesive list every Monday of what must get done. I have a reality check on that list each Wednesday and Friday. Prioritizing deadlines and delegating are key.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a great deal of power and fulfillment in saying \u201cno<\/strong>.\u201d My husband changed my ringtone to Meghan Trainor\u2019s song \u201cNo.\u201d It\u2019s funny when it goes off but also very helpful to remind me to only do what I love\u2014and what I can handle.<\/p>\n

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Kismet Loftin-Bell \u201903, M.A.L.S. \u201904<\/h4>\n
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Loftin-Bell<\/p><\/div>\n

Taking juggling to an art form, Kismet Loftin-Bell, who has a law degree, founded Beyond the Box Consulting, is a Gallup-certified strengths coach, and serves as a political science professor and student life and engagement administrator at Forsyth Technical and Surry community colleges. She\u2019s also a single parent who homeschools her teenage son.<\/p>\n

We do a disservice when we tell women that they can be superwomen<\/strong>. I know that I don\u2019t have to do all that I am doing. I ask myself if this is moving me in a direction I want to go. Young women need to know that if something is not working, you have the option of changing.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m an ideas person who can\u2019t hold everything in my head, so I write it down.<\/strong> At Hollins I had a little pocket calendar, but now my Google calendar is my best friend. My son knows if he doesn\u2019t upload his calendar to mine, it doesn\u2019t exist in my world. I use the Any.do app to schedule my tasks and maximize my productivity.<\/p>\n

Recently, I started taking a day of rest.<\/strong> It\u2019s a day to stop and try my best not to do any work. And every day, my phone goes silent from 8:30 p.m. until 8 a.m. Only special people can get through during those hours. I have to create boundaries.<\/p>\n

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Caitlyn Lewis ’17<\/h4>\n

Part time is<\/em> full time for Caitlyn Lewis, who dreams of a life in nonprofit management. She\u2019s a part-time graduate assistant in Hollins\u2019 Cultural and Community Engagement office, teaches physical education at the Gainsboro YMCA in Roanoke every weekday morning, is enrolled in the part-time, online Hollins M.A.L.S. program, and serves on the Girls Rock Roanoke board.<\/p>\n

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Lewis<\/p><\/div>\n

As a dance major, I always assumed that I would juggle things<\/strong>. Performing and teaching weren\u2019t going to pay 100 percent of the bills. [As an undergraduate], the Hollins way is to do everything and anything all at the same time. It\u2019s a great way to learn, but it can be damaging to self-care. I had to learn to prioritize. When I want to be by myself, I put my phone on airplane mode. That\u2019s as good as it gets right now.<\/p>\n

Social media influences a lot of what I imagine I am supposed to be at my age [23].<\/strong> It makes me idealize a certain image or thought that I may not want for myself. The frustrating part is that I know that it\u2019s 100 percent curated. I stopped posting as much. I need and want to establish boundaries, but it\u2019s been challenging.<\/p>\n

I look at other generations and see the work involved.<\/strong> I don\u2019t feel the pressure to have a perfect life. My generation has been able to see and hear about many different career paths. I hope my work will define me because of who I am: I work with women of color because I am one, and I work with LGBTQ issues because I exist in that space. My balancing act right now is allowing flexibility.<\/p>\n

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What does it mean to lead a balanced life, or in the words of one alumna, to \u201cbe in control of the chaos\u201d? Sarah Achenbach \u201988 has been asking herself that question since graduation\u2014and for this article surveyed alumnae, too. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8476,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[74],"class_list":["post-8405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-winter-2019"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8405"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8422,"href":"https:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8405\/revisions\/8422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hollins.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}