BB Ep 88: How to Be a Successful Woman and Live a Balanced Life with Sarah Sloyan, Jen Sievertsen, and Suzanne Simms

How to Be a Successful Woman and Live a Balanced Life   1:26 How You Can be Successful in Many Areas of Your Life 4:39 Seven Areas of Your Life to Find Balance 11:30 Making Time for Both Your Family and Career with Sarah Sloyan 31:04 Leading with Grace and Strength with Jen Sievertsen 43:51 Focusing on Goals to Be Successful with Suzanne Simms 54:53 Challenge: The Best Way to Have What You Want Resources 2020 Business Boutique Goal Planner Get going on your goals and make 2020 your best year yet! Order the new Business Boutique 2020 Goal Planner at BusinessBoutique.com/Planner and use the code BBPLANNER to receive Christy’s Setting Goals video that you can watch right now! If you have a success story you would like to share with the Business Boutique community, email me at [email protected]. New podcast episodes are available every other week. You can be successful in many areas of your life. Work, Sleep, Family, Fitness, or Friends: Pick 3. I recently stumbled upon an article online with that title. And I have to tell you guys, I disagree with it. The idea that you can’t work, get enough sleep, and have time for family, friends and fitness is crazy. I’m tired of hearing the message that if you’re winning at work, you're failing at home. Or if you're winning at home, you're failing at work. What's interesting is, not only is this message common in media, but it’s also reinforced by the narratives in our heads. So many of us have this broken record on repeat in our heads telling us we're always failing. It's not if we're failing. It's which thing are we failing at today. But you know what? It's simply not true. Now, I know you can't do everything in the world (of course you can’t). But you can do the most important things. You can't take advantage of every single opportunity, but you can do the right things, and you can do more than three things. The truth is: You can be successful in many areas of your life. Related: Ep 84: Cultivating Good Habits in Every Season of Life 7 Areas of Your Life to Find Balance I love Zig Ziglar’s Wheel of Life. It paints a great picture of the most important areas of a person's life. If you’re not sure where you should be prioritizing your time, these seven areas are a great place to start. The Wheel of Life isn’t a prescription for every single person, but it does hold true for most of us. Just like a bicycle, when one wheel isn’t working, the entire bicycle will have trouble moving forward. That’s why it’s important to find as much harmony and balance as possible in each area. Let’s go through each of the different spokes of the Wheel of Life and what they each represent. This list is not in order of priority. You should prioritize these different areas based on your season of life, and then set appropriate goals in each. 1. Career (and Business) You spend a lot of hours of your life at work or in your business. So this should be an area of your life that brings you joy and fills you up. 2. Finances Your money affects everything. It impacts almost everything you want to do in life. That’s why you need to be intentional about how you manage your finances and set goals in this area of your life. 3. Spiritual growth Growing in your faith is not going to happen accidentally. Your relationship with God is like any relationship. It will grow in proportion to the amount of time you invest in it. 4. Physical health I’m not talking about being skinny here. I'm talking about how you feel. How's your energy? Are you sleeping enough? How are you taking care of yourself? We only get one body, so taking care of it should be a priority. 5. Intellectual growth Are you investing in your personal development? What books are you reading? What conferences are you attending? What podcasts are you listening to? What are you putting into your mind that will change the actions you take and the decisions you make? 6. Family It's really easy to take family for granted because they're just always there, right? But you know what? Your relationship with your family will grow in proportion to the amount of time you invest in it. So find time to pour into your family members. 7. Social This area includes your friendships, hobbies, creative outlets, etc. It's really easy to neglect this one when you get busy. Friendships tend to fall by the wayside. But without friendships and hobbies, your life will feel unbalanced. Related: Ep 67: How to Build Community With Your Business I know it can feel overwhelming to think that these seven areas of your life need to be perfectly balanced. But remember, life balance isn't doing everything for an equal amount of time. It's about doing the right things at the right time. It's about finding confidence in the choices that are right for you, knowing what those are, and then making them a priority. You know, successful women don't do everything, but they do know that they can be successful at many things. And if you focus on your priorities, then you can too. Being Successful in Many Areas of Life with Sarah Sloyan, Jen Sievertsen, and Suzanne Simms Y’all, today is a special day because I’m sitting down with three incredible women! Sarah Sloyan, Jen Sievertsen and Suzanne Simms are all senior leaders at our company, Ramsey Solutions. You may recognize these women from past Business Boutique conferences, where they sat on panels discussing topics like balancing family life with demanding careers. I had so much fun sitting down with each of them again—this time, individually. These interviews are jam-packed with incredible insight and wisdom into becoming a successful, well-rounded woman. Sarah Sloyan is the senior vice president of EntreLeadership. But with three young kids at home, I wanted to talk to her about how she makes time for more than just family and career. We talked about: Giving yourself grace when expectations aren’t met Prioritizing the most important things according to your season of life Letting go of unrealistic standards and cultural norms Related: Ep 59: How to Work Smarter Not Harder in Your Life and Business Jen Sievertsen is a Ramsey Solutions board member and the chief marketing officer. I so admire the way Jen leads with such grace and strength. That’s why I wanted to talk to her about: Being a strong female leader without being a bulldozer Going after something even when you don’t feel ready Leading people who are older and more experienced than you Suzanne Simms is a Ramsey Solutions board member and the senior executive vice president of the business to consumer division. Suzanne is gifted in saying no and standing her ground. We talked about: Taking your season into account when setting goals The most important question to ask yourself after you’ve set a goal How to know when it’s time to quit something Challenge: The Best Way to Have What You Want A few months ago, my husband and I decided we were going to finally move forward with a bathroom remodel. Now, our bathroom isn’t terrible, but it's also not great. In our house, it's probably one of my least favorite rooms. There's no counter space, the bathtub is tiny, there’s old tile all over the place—it’s just a sad, pitiful room. So, you can imagine my excitement when we finally decided to get it updated. We found a contractor, signed the contract, put a deposit down, and locked in the demo date on the calendar. What’s so interesting is that from that moment forward, I became more frustrated with my bathroom than ever before. I could now envision the brand-new, luxurious bathroom we dreamed up with the contractor. So, every day, when my makeup brushes would fall into the sink or my legs would be cramped up in the tub, I would get even more annoyed than I’d been before we decided on a remodel. Related: Ep 70: How to Be Content in Every Situation Well, there was a small turn of events: The handyman had a scheduling conflict outside of his control and had to cancel our bathroom remodel. Y'all, I was so disappointed that I didn't even want to go out and get a new quote. All my dreams and excitement for a beautiful, new bathroom went out the window. Well, last night when I got home, our neighbors were out on the front yard and asked if we wanted to walk down to the duck pond with the kids. So, I grabbed my family and we joined them on the walk. And when we got back, the kids spent some time jumping on the trampoline. And as I watched them jump, I thought, You know what? We live in the greatest house, in the greatest location, in the greatest city ever. I would not want to live anywhere else.   And immediately, my perspective shifted from being disappointed about our bathroom to being so grateful for a beautiful house with great neighbors. And then it dawned on me: The best way to have what you want is to want what you have. There are so many people who would give anything to have our old, 1983 bathroom. There are so many people who would love to live in our house and be friends with our awesome neighbors. There are so many people who would love to live in this location and enjoy the yard we have. All of a sudden, I was so grateful. It's amazing how choosing to want what you already have changes your perspective. Friend, I know you want bigger and better things. I love helping you go after your dreams and chase your big goals. But I just want to encourage you today: Don't get so focused on the finish line and so focused on the next thing that you miss the now. Don’t miss the opportunity to be grateful for what you have today. Remember, the things we have today are things we prayed for years ago.