“You can have it all – just not at the same time”
We all have different desires in our lives, and very often we find this overwhelming for ourselves. We want a great career, a family, a busy social life and the amazing husband or wife on top of it. The problem is, we want all of this at the same time and immediately. This is the problem, as we don’t realize that these things require time and investment from our side to get rewarded by achievements later. A great piece of advice, therefore, is to understand that we can have all of this, but we should try not to want it all at the same time.
What this means in essence, is that in order not to burn out or be constantly on edge, we need to set priorities. Important to understand in this context, those priorities will differ, depending on what stage in our lives we are at. In our 20s, we might only have an eye for our career, while in our thirties, with a family and children, we might make them more of our priorities and sacrifice a bit of our career. The fact that we cannot have it all at the same time is therefore an important realization as it allows us to make choices that set priorities. We just need to make those consciously, as otherwise we might not be happy with the path our life takes.
As always, in setting those priorities, balance is key. It is unhealthy for us in really any context to focus on one thing with 100%. If we focus on our job 100%, we will very quickly feel burned out and besides following our career priority still not achieve growth and happiness. Balance is therefore very important. We need to balance between career and family, between our partner and our social life. Everybody has to define that healthy balance by themselves, in line with their individual priorities set for themselves.
For example, if we want to spend more time with our children and see them growth up, why not agree to work on only three days a week if we can afford to? We cannot have children and work like a high-profile career woman at the same time. We need to find a balance. When our children are grown up, we can focus more on our career again.
This example is exactly what is meant by “we can have it all, but not at the same time”. We can have a great career, a great family, and a vibrant social life; however, we need to focus on those things one after the other at different stages in our life. All those desires must be in balance, and we should avoid focusing on one thing too much. We will get there eventually, but it takes time and patience if we really want to live a happy and balanced life and achieve most of our inner desires. The interesting thing is also, that those desires will change with time, and we will learn to adapt them. We should regularly listen to ourselves what our desires are, if we feel we have an inner balance and where we want to set those priorities in a conscious and active way that works for us. It is a balancing act that we have to learn to master.
In our fast-pacing world today, we always want it all, immediately. This will not be the path of success for us to reach our inner desires. It takes thoughtfulness, patience, and hard work, together with balance, setting priorities in an active way and listening to ourselves and to our desires changing. Then, we can have it all, gradually and over time, but not all at the same time and right now.
