Balancing Business and Life: Tips for Female Coaches & Entrepreneurs

Struggling to balance business and life?

Work life balance is something we hear a lot about, but for good reason! Creating a healthy balance when you're a coach, therapist or entrepreneur is essential if you want to avoid burning yourself out.

Many women in business juggle multiple responsibilities alongside work, and if you don't work in a way that also prioritises your health and wellness, it can become increasingly difficult to remain focused, motivated, and able to achieve your business goals.

This is something I'm passionate about, as someone who was once high energy, always busy and juggling life and a teaching career as a single Mum.

I picked up some viruses when I was teaching, and due to my often chaotic lifestyle and always working at 100mph, my body simply couldn't recover. I developed post-viral fatigue, which then developed into ME/CFS and other issues.

Nowadays, my work life balance is my number 1 priority, and while I don't always achieve it – it's 99% better than it was before!

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Why Creating Balance is Important

As I mentioned in the intro, creating an effective work life balance is essential for maintaining your health and well-being.

If you run your own business, you are your biggest commodity – without you there is no business! Being able to work in way that encourages rest and recharge, will support a sustainable way of working and living.

If you stay in the boom / bust way of working, the chances are higher for burnout, stress and overwhelm.

It's also crucial for keeping your spark alive – staying creative and in tune with your bigger visions and goals. If you push yourself too hard, you may find it more difficult to drop into creative flow, which in turn can increase feelings of stress if you feel like you're not getting anywhere.

We're not machines, and we need to be able to decompress and spend a little time being instead of doing all the things all of the time!

Balancing Multiple Roles

It's important to address gender bias and societal expectations. It's much more likely that women will experience things like stereotypes in the workplace / professionally. As well as this, the responsibilities of home and family life can often fall onto the shoulders of women.

This often means that not only are you working full-on inside your business, but you are the one who has most of the responsibility for keeping the home organised, sorting children and childcare etc.

Of course, this isn't the case for all, but it's not a unique idea that there's often a lot more responsibilities resting on woman's shoulders longside their professional work.

Creating a work life balance will help to negate the risk of burnout or stress, while enabling you to work towards your professional goals.

Practical Tips for Work Life Balance

Creating an idea work life balance can be tricky at times, especially if you're managing lots of different projects in your work.

The thing to remember with this, is that this is going to look different for everyone. Some people may be able to function well while working 8+ hours a day. If that is you, then you know this, and you can use this to plan your life around how you are able to effectively function.

However, I would say, if you are someone who can work long days every day, look at how you can introduce some additional moments for you, to ensure that you are getting that work life balance right for you.

If you know you can only focus at the level you need to for a few hours per day, create your plans around this. There will be other things you can focus your energy on, while also creating that much needed work life balance.

There isn't a right or wrong way to do this, it's individual and unique to you and your situation.

Take a look at some of the practical tips for creating an effective work life balance below:

Prioritise Your Well-Being

Understand how you work best, and plan your work and rest time around this. There will be times when you need to ‘step up' your focus and work longer hours, but equally, there will be times when you can take the foot off the pedal a little.

Understand how you work best, your natural cycles, as well as the things that light you up, energise and motivate you. These can all help you to focus on your work, but to also be mindful of your own needs.

Don't think about rest as simply sleeping, think about how you can do more of what lights you up, even when you've got a lot on.

Focus on improving your sleep, drinking more water, getting some exercise in and switching off from work completely.

Prioritise your mental well-being through self-care, journaling or connecting with friends and loved ones.

Plan Regular Breaks

Following on from the last tip, a great way to ensure that you're taking care of your own needs is to pre-plan your rest times.

Although it may feel like the opposite, taking regular breaks actually helps improve productivity. When you're well rested your focus will improve, as will your energy and enthusiasm towards your work.

Think about how it feels in your body when you're completely exhausted. The very last thing you want to do is get up, get dressed and go for a walk.

If you are constantly draining your energy and not giving your brain time to recharge, it won't work as well. you'll find it harder to concentrate. You'll become more distracted, make more mistakes, and probably become frustrated with your work a lot more.

I discuss the importance of regular breaks in my article that looks into The Pomodoro Technique. You can see it here –

For more information on The Pomodoro Technique, take a look at their website.

Create Low Energy Days

As someone with low energy and multiple fluctuating illnesses, low energy days have been a complete game changer for me.

Working and planning in this way has meant that I've been able to complete my counselling training, a Masters Degree, Coaching Qualification, and set up and run multiple businesses.

With ME/CFS levels of fatigue and illness often fluctuates. Since I moved from severe to moderate ME/CFS, I have been able to find a way of working that allows me to pause whenever I need to. With conditions like this it can happen out of nowhere. One minute sat at my desk, the next I'm crawling to my bed.

I created a “Plan B” a few years ago to help me manage when things like this happen. It essentially means that the bare minimum tasks will be done, the rest left. For example, contacting clients if calls are planned, or in some cases, only doing client calls and leaving every other aspect of the business for a few days.

I have systems in place to help automate things. They're like my back up posts for social media and emails etc. Invoices are already set upi and automated, and if I know it's going to be a few days, I get in touch with who I need to, and take the break!

As my health has improved a little more, I introduced low energy days and weeks. This is a more preventative way of working, to lessen the risk of the sudden onset of PEM (Post Exertion Malaise).

Even if you don't struggle with limited energy, creating low energy – or bare minimum days – is a brilliant way to give you a bit of a cushion for those unexpected times that life can throw your way!

As you plan your week ahead, fill in the sections of your planner with your meetings, and non-negotiable tasks. Then, plan in your rest breaks and the start and end of the working day.

Once you have this clearly set out, you can plug in all of the other tasks. If you leave time for you until the end – you're more likely to just over-fill your week!

Set Clear Boundaries

Boundaries is another fun one to think about… If you're allergic to saying “no” and feel immense guilt if you do, boundaries can become your new best friend!

But, it's not just about saying no to others, it's about creating boundaries for yourself. If you know you're the sort of person who just keeps going, and finds it hard to stop and take a break, commit to creating schedules for rest and recharge time.

Work can wait, your health and well-being can't. It's something I learned many years ago when first diagnosed. In hindsight, if I had allowed myself the time to fully recover, the chances are I would have recovered from post-viral fatigue.

However, my strong work ethic, and fear of disappointing others pushed me to return too early, and keep trying to fight rest.

Some things you can do to introduce boundaries include:

• Create an end of work-day routine.
• Keep your evenings free – step away from your laptop!
• Add do-not-disturb during focus sessions, then take a real rest.
• Limit social media (doom scrolling).
• Make time for you each week (daily if possible).
• Create set times for emails and other admin tasks.
• Agree with clients when you are contactable, and when you are unavailable.

Improve Time Management

Effective time management can help you create a better work life balance. There are various tools and apps you can use to support how you use the time available.

If you can work more efficiently, you can again lessen the need for work to spread into your free time.

Some of my favourite tools / strategies include:

The Pomodoro Technique – As discussed above – it's a brilliant way to work in shorter focus sessions with zero distractions, followed by micro breaks.

Sunsama – Sunsama is a brilliant tool for planning and scheduling your week / day. You can easily move tasks around, review on your day, and set weekly objectives. It includes some focus tools like The Pomodoro technique for increased productivity. Perfect for busy minds!

Google Calendar – It has lots of features, including setting reminders, scheduling calls and meetings, as well as setting tasks. You can select add ons as well to help with your daily productivity.

Priority Matrix – The Eisenhower technique is a brilliant way to identify your prioritise and use these to decide on what to work on each day.

Tools, Resources & Support

Each post I add my favourite tools and resources, so here are some more just for you!

Sunsama – A brilliant task management that is perfect for busy and neurodiverse minds who easily find themselves overwhelmed and distracted. grab a free 2 week trial and free month!

Time Audit – Gain a clear understanding of exactly where your time and your energy is spent. Highly recommend doing this if you're planning to focus on increased productivity.

Canva Pro – Upgrade your content design with Canva Pro. Explore the enhanced features available in Pro. Grab your free trial here.

Etsy – Are you ready to create your own online store? Etsy is a brilliant shopping platform that's used by millions. Setting up your store is simple, and when you sign up with this link we both get 40 free listings!

Task Batching – I created this task batching / brain dump workbook to help you get to grips with batching tasks. You can also read the post here for further info!

Pinterest Guide – If you're looking to get into Pinterest, I highly recommend Amy's free guide and Pinterest course. It's up-to-date for 2024 & she also has a brilliant course for only $67 that's updated frequently. (I have a 50% discount on the course using this link SEO and the code RANK)

Final Thoughts

Creating a sustainable work life balance is something that we should all prioritise. I completelt get how easy it is to be so lost in work that you forget to worry about your own needs!

A work life balance that enables you the flexibility and structure to work and take time for you is what it's all about!

If you're a coach or an entrepreneur with your own business, the chances are you came into this world to make life a little better, or to get away from that corporate style of work-hard mentality.

So why are you working yourself into the ground now?! Yes, there will be times when you need to step it up that bit more – you've got a deadline, or you're marketing your business. But, working hours on end without proper breaks or time to be you, shouldn't be the normal day-to-day for you.

I would love to know what your work life balance is like, and what changes you need to, or have made to improve your approach to work!

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Meet Lynsey

Hey there! I'm Lynsey, a coach, counsellor, and mentor for low energy, introverted or low confident female coaches & small business owners. With over 5 years’ experience of running businesses, and over a decade as a tutor and trainer, I've learned the value of effective time management that energises you through working with your energy.

I've lived with chronic illness – ME/CFS since 2011 and since then I re-trained as a counsellor, and achieved a distinction for my MA in Counselling and Psychotherapy Practice; all while running 4 businesses! I want that for you as well & it is possible with the right support and pathway to success.

Improving your mindset, finding acceptance and developing a solution-focused approach to achieving your goals is my passion. Blending mental health support where needed, as well as a supportive space and methods to manage your work more effectively.

If you'd like to know more about working with me, you can email [email protected] or find me on socials (links in the menu)

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