Why Work-Life Balance is a Myth with Erika De Pellegrin
Transcript of the episode recording:
Hannah:
Erica, how are you doing?
Erika:
Good, Hannah. Thanks for having me today. I'm excited to have a chat again.
H:
Yeah, thanks so much. I mean, the last time we spoke, I was actually on your podcast, Balance Theory podcast, which I really loved being on. So I did want to introduce, why don't you introduce yourself and like who you are and what you stand for. I did write an introduction in the event, but it would be great for people to know, to know a more about
E:
Sure. So my name's Erica. evidently from my accent, you can tell I'm from Australia, but I'm living in Dubai at the moment. My, guess, bread and butter on my nine to five is that I work as a corporate lawyer, also have a podcast, as you mentioned on the side, it's actually got nothing to do with law and more about my personal interests and passions. I would say it is classed in the self -development self kind of category. And it's really just a documentation of my own struggles, curiosities, things I'm learning in my own personal growth journey. And I have the pleasure of having incredible people like yourself on to learn from, to share their wisdom, and to just create a community of people just working out how to find balance in their own life. It was a bit of a pain point for me trying to, I think, and a lot of your clients and listeners will probably resonate with this being like an A -type high achiever wanting to do it all all the time. But then like, what's that fine line with burnout? So really getting curious about balance. How do I create that in my life? How do I do it all really? Cause I didn't want to have to compromise on the things I cared about and the things I wanted to do, but it's a, I was always interested in finding a sustainable way to do that.
H:
Well, I guess I guess that kind of brings me to the first question because what I see with a lot of my clients and yeah, as you mentioned, I do work with a lot of type A high achieving and a lot of my clients really do want to start passion projects or a lot of them are really innately curious, you know, really want to live more into their purpose, but they do find that so much of their life force and energy just gets not sucked up, but just gets taken up by their jobs. Yeah, exactly. And like they are really committed to doing a great job in their nine to five that sometimes ends up being, let's be real, like eight to 11. Eight to seven. Yeah, exactly. So I am curious like how it is that you have found working as a lawyer and then also running these two side businesses. Like what does balance actually look like on a day to day for you? And like, what tangibly do you do to be able to do all of this?
E:
I think that's a really good question. And this was actually where I started myself. It was asking myself, what does balance mean to me? And this was, guess, what spurred me on this whole journey or quest to really like talk about work life balance, because I think that phrase, right? Work life balance is a standard a lot of throw around or we talk about in the pursuit to find balance in life.
But when we really think about it, I mean, I sat down and I thought about it and I had a few issues with the phrase. I feel like it in and of itself makes us feel like work and life. First of all, a split, they're separate. Then they're 50 -50. Like it almost feels like we have to equate work and life. And I just felt like it was a super unrealistic standard. And it didn't really paint a picture for me of what balance looked like for.
So for anyone listening who maybe feels that, and I guess the biggest telltale sign is like, you feel like the areas of your life are like juggling balls. You're kind of always compromising one at the sake of another, and you can just devigate the balance, right? That's where I was. I had to make a switch and I had to say, okay, the areas of my life are actually more like gardens. They're not balls I need to juggle. They're actually gardens, and they each have their own needs, but in finding what those unique needs are for each of those areas that I can create my own balance.
So I always use the example, right? A lot of people feel guilty that they work so much, but at the same time, they have massive goals that require them to go all in on something at any given moment in time. I think the issue and the problem we have is that we go all in and neglect everything else as opposed to giving ourselves the support we need to work that much. So that we can achieve that goal.
So my approach is if we look at say our health, our relationships, and then our work as garden beds, with gardens and know, like fruits and vegetables, they each have different seasons. And you hear it all the time, something pops up in somebody's health and they need to go all in on their health, they need to fix it, like they neglect everything else because that becomes an urgent priority. Or there's huge deadlines or milestones at work. You go all in on that, you don't go to the gym.
You don't make time for your friends, all of that. You kind of, we have this kind of all or nothing approach. So when I zoomed out and I was like, you know what, I know for a fact that if I can make time for my health, if I can make time for the relationships that are impactful to my life, I know I'm going to be able to better perform in that role. How do I make all of this work? Right. And for me, that was a more sustainable way at approaching my goals and approaching the things I wanted to do and the things I wanted to make time for.
I take listeners through a little bit of an exercise, which in a very simplistic way, and I have a free 20 minute workshop on YouTube, which you can check out and watch. But basically it gets you to look at the three areas of your life and we categorize our priorities into two lists. Our first ones are our non negotiables. So if we're talking about the areas of our life like gardens, for me, this looks like our sun and our water.
It's basically the bare essentials a garden needs in order to survive. So if I looked at my health and I said, okay, what are, what are those non -negotiables for me? It's daily movement. It's good quality nutrition. It's eight hours of sleep and hydration. Now I could go on and give you a 20 step list of things that would optimize my health, but that's not what this step is about. It's about the bare essentials. It's the things you know, you need. I describe it as like, what do you need to do for yourself in order to have the energy and show and have the life that you want to live.
Because I think this is the, especially as high achievers, we try and shove so much into these step and then we get overwhelmed because we can't do it all. So it's really about peeling it back and saying, what are those basics that I need in order to have the energy that I want? Once we work out that first layer in each of the areas, we create a schedule or a timetable around those. So we basically have a timetable that is non -negotiables first.
Then we have a second tier of priorities. call them, they're called wants. These are things that they're not essential for our gardens to survive, but they would only add more value. So you know, just if you have bees that come and pollinate your garden, these are all things that are going to optimize that area, but we could probably go without them too. So an example of that is in my health.
If I can get in a sauna a week, and maybe a couple of sunset walks, if I finish work in time, that's going to add value to my balance, to my life. But if I don't get around to it, it's not going to compromise that baseline level that I need. And the reason I like having the second layer and the reason I like to identify what these things are is because I think sometimes when we have spare time or we start saying yes to things, and I know we're going to get into boundaries in a we say yes to things that are not going to contribute to our balance because we haven't identified what those things are. So this second layer is almost like additional things, you know, that you can do in your time that are going to add to the level of balance that you've identified you need. So this is kind of like how I've approached balance.
And I think that it needs to work very, very closely and hand in hand with your goals because you can't have a goal of achieving X in your business or X in your career.But then also lifestyle that's not really sick to support that. So if you know that you need to work 12 hours a day, you need to work backwards and say, okay, how can I support that? How can my balance support that? What are my non -negotiables? How do I make time for those so that I can still work that amount of time rather than feeling guilty or working that much time and not having time for anything else?
H:
I think that where people fall down in this, because the non -negotiables, I do a very similar thing in my coaching practice. And I love what you said about how it's the minimum and where, where I see my client, my one -on -one clients really fall down in this is that they try to make their non -negotiable list really huge.
And they're not even, say for working out, for example, this is like a really big one. Like if you don't have a standard level of working out and then someone's like, I'm going to work out five times a week this week. And I'm like, no, that's actually, you're setting yourself up for failure. What we need to do focus on is let's work out once a week for the next four months or for the next month. And then once you get that stable and consistent, then you can build.
E:
A gradual.
H:
Yeah,yeah, because I think the non -negotiables, just want, know, people's perception of what they can do is usually, and there's so much excitement, you know, it's kind of like the excitement of that, like on the change cycle, it's like, everyone's really invigorated and imagines himself at the end goal. But then when they don't achieve that minimum, that was actually really a maximum, then they start kind of getting in like harsh inner critic, then they start getting in failure cycle, then they blow things up.
My work, I one of my clients, might be on this. We even spoke today, you know, she's an extremely high achiever in her professional life, but was really struggling getting her non -negotiables. And it was actually an assignment of, okay, you're gonna do breath work for 10 seconds, twice, and that's your only non -negotiable for the next two weeks. Like we're just going to break it down little by little, and then that's going to cause more success.
E:
I love that. I've heard another kind of approach, which is like gradually bringing things in, which is like, even if you're struggling to get to the gym, the thing you can start with is like putting your clothes out the night before and then waking up and just putting on your clothes, right? Whether you go to the gym or not, you're just knocking off that first step. Do that for a week. The second week you may be, um, you go, you put on your clothes and you try and go once, right? It's always about, if you try and go from zero to 100, and I am a thousand percent guilty of this as I,a type myself when I do something, it like has to be to the full extent. But I think when you're trying to bring in something and for anyone listening, like think about this, if you're trying to do something for the long term, it's not going to be a quick fix. I'm going to get this in my routine. You have to sustain that so you can do it and maintain it for longevity, right? For the rest of your life, for as a long -term practice. So give yourself the time to embrace that habit and try not to rush it.
But yeah, this practice of like breaking down what are the kind of most important things and keeping that as lean as possible. So I guess to build that out a little bit, I shared my non -negotiables in my health, in my relationships. That looks like a date a week with my fiance, a FaceTime a week with both our families, because we live abroad. And if I was back at home, it would also be a night with my best friend. But I speak to her quite regularly. So maybe for some people, they don't need that much.
Communication with their external relationships, maybe just their romantic ones important, or maybe they're not in a relationship at the moment. And so it's just about their friendship circles. know, like everyone's going to have different weighting on different relationships, but it's about always working out which ones are the ones that give you energy and then building it out from there.
H:
Yeah. And I know for me, for example, like I'm a writer. just finished last year, I finished my master's in creative writing. And since I've been on this journey, leaving my corporate job, I left LinkedIn, I think it was four years ago now, went back to school, became a coach, really transformed my whole life. But for me, I know now, even when building my business and the intensity that comes with building a new business, part of my non -negotiables are writing, working on my fiction three times a week. I'm in a third draft of a novel. I'm like sending a lot of short stories out.
But that's also been a really huge negotiation of I used to write five times a week. Now at the stage of my business, can't do that as well as work out, be with my partner, walk my dog. I meditate 40 minutes a day. I have a very long list of non -negotiables. feel a fucking enlightened monk sometimes with how much I do to really keep up my well -being.
But I've really realized that my creativity is definitely a non -negotiable. And even that, if that means that I have to strip back on social engagements for the week, like I know that I need to be putting that energy into something I want to say for people trying to figure this out is like other people's non -negotiables can't also be yours. And we're all very, we're all very different. Some people need a lot more social interaction. So like for me, I need like a lot of rest and recuperation.
My favorite thing to do is going to the beach and reading The New Yorker alone. That's one of my favorite things to do. So just really honoring how you want your life to look and your passions and your creativity and whether that's a lot of fit, whether you need to work out.I have clients that need to work out five to six times a week. I have clients that just need to work out one to two. And so I think it's just realizing that it is not one size fits all here and you do have to listen to your body.
And also what season you're in, like you said, are you in a health season? Are you in a work season? Did you just have a child? Are you a new mother? Then a lot of things are going to strip back and not kind of feeling like if there's constant guilt for that and there's not, if someone can't really move past that guilt of like, I should be doing more, should is a really good indication. Then I think that if that's lasting for a really long time, then that's really when you need to either seek a therapist or seek a coach who can just help you move through that.
E:
Yeah. And I love that you brought up that it's not one size fits all. And that's why I had such a grapple with the work life balance metric. And the thing I like about, I guess, the garden analogy or working out your priorities is it not only honours the fact that, you know, there's difference of balance between me and you, Hannah, because we just have different ideas about life. We've got different interests.
We've got different priorities, but also for myself. At different stages in my life. That could even be every six months, every year. Like if I reflect on 10 years ago, what I was doing in my time, what my priorities were, it's vastly different to where I'm at today. So this kind of approach, I think sometimes like when we have these formulas or ways of thinking, we can get really rigid, but I actually like this approach because it allows me to be flexible. And I think there's a fine line with you being a slave to your routine and needing to do things because it's set in stone and I said it was a priority, so I have to do it. It's like just giving you clarity on what's actually important, which I'm sure we'll talk about in the context of boundaries.
But you need to be flexible with that as well. Like sometimes we, you know, as females, our hormones change throughout the month, which might actually mean I can't train as hard or as much as I would like that week.
And I just need to honor that. And again, not feel guilty for not doing something, but it's just about having that awareness. Like, okay, these things are important. This is what I need to prioritize. And then just, you have to go with the flow at some point too, which for a lot of us is difficult and I'll throw myself in there to say as well, but it really is freeing when you, when you embrace that flexibility in and amongst something you've identified is workable for you.
H:
And also when you embrace like what is actually going on in your body and what is actually going on. I mean, I love that you brought up the hormonal cycle because I coach both men and women, but I've really had to look at this and like running my own business. Like I definitely have way more energy at a certain time of the month and my energy is really depleted at the rest. And just recently I decided I'm only doing live events or webinars like at certain times in the month where I have that.
Yeah, and it really has made a huge impact because I think too, if you are running your own business or even if you do have some sort of agency over your schedule, just really looking, I mean, this is more for females than males, but even for males, like what is that like in a 24 hour cycle? If you have more energy in the morning, this is kind of like, you know, a bit of productivity 101, but if you have more energy in the morning or if you have more energy, at certain times of the month, like how do you maximize that? And then how do you do things that are softer, more reflective? Maybe this is the time of the month. I even love looking at non -negotiables like on a monthly basis rather than even on a weekly basis. So it's like, okay, I know that maybe the end of the month is more my creativity time. The beginning of the month is more like my social, you know, getting that in.
E:
Yeah, I love that you brought that up. I was going to say for the men listening, they can look at daily energy. You know, females, can look at it more in a monthly cycle. But I think for everyone looking at a day to day is important to like I'm a morning person. So if I have really heavy or deep work to do, I can't do that in the afternoon. And one thing I really try and avoid is any meetings after 1pm. Because I don't know, I just feel like if I've got a meeting looming at the end of the day, it's like always in the back of my mind, and I can't get into the zone. So for me, I prefer if where I can having meetings only in the morning.
But then, yeah, I've heard a lot of people talk about kind of planning their work around their cycle and the different phases. So, yeah, really interesting stuff. And it's all just like body literacy, right? Like you're just getting to know yourself better.
H:
I did want to talk about, you know, boundaries. I coach on boundaries a lot. And was actually just listening to one of your recent podcasts and you made the distinction between think the language, I'm not sure what the language is, but it was like setting boundaries and then maintaining boundaries. I would like to hear from you just in terms of keeping with your balance and keeping with your, you know, what you are looking at with your non -negotiables, how have boundaries played a part in that?
E:
Yeah, I think a good place to start because one thing I really struggled with, and I know this is something that's really commonly felt, is actually setting a boundary. And the reason I found that difficult, so for me, when you set a boundary externally, so to other people, it's the ability to say no to something, right?
And really struggled with that for a long time. was a yes person. I didn't want to disappoint people. know, I mean, going back, I have a lot of people pleasing tendencies and there's a lot of limiting beliefs there that I've worked through, which is kind of an aside, but definitely it has been an important part of this process. But what I would say to anyone listening who's struggling with this is I think it's hard to set a boundary when you don't know what you're setting a boundary for. So it's hard to say no to something when you don't know what you're saying yes to instead or what you're saying no for.
And a huge mindset shift I had was saying yes to somebody else, given it's something you don't really want to go to, you feel just guilty. You have to do it is saying no to yourself. And when I zoomed down and realized that I was like, like, that's crazy. When you think about it, like imagine someone else just saying yes to you and forgetting like, or forgoing what they actually want. So when I realized this in tandem with, I need to actually get clear on what I'm setting a boundary for, like what is this fence in front of this? Garden, like what is behind it? What am I protecting? Is it a house? Is it an apartment? Like, what is it? What does that look like? So for me, once I did the exercise of the gardens and I'm like, my non -negotiables are this. It made it so much easier. Example, we've gone out for a lunch, which is steamrolled into afternoon drinks and everyone wants to kick on and go out. I know a non -negotiable for me is eight hours of sleep. And I know that if I kick on and go out, it's going to be a late one, 1am, 2am. It's a straight no for me.
It's not even. It's not even difficult for me to say that now because I know what the eight hours means to my sleep. I know what it means if I don't have it, how that impacts my Sunday, the way I can enjoy my Sunday, what my Sundays are for. So I think when you get clear on what you're saying no for, doesn't even, it's not even a question, you know, like you don't even need to grapple with yourself on, do I need to set a boundary here or not? You don't even need to feel guilty for it because you're saying yes to yourself. So that's kind of an external one.
Internally, I would say the same thing, right? Like, and I think internally is like, if you set yourself, you're going to do something or not do something, and then you go against that, right? You don't have that consistency with yourself. Maybe there's a lack of clarity as to why something deserves to be protected. Because the way I see it is boundaries protect your priorities and your priorities help you live the life you want. If you've identified that these are your non -negotiables in order for your garden beds to be sustained, or in order for you to have balance, then those boundaries are like the ring fence around those to make sure that they can actually be priorities.
So if you want the life you want, you need to identify the priorities that sit in that and then the boundaries sit behind to protect those. You brought up one thing which I spoke about, I think it was two weeks ago, it was in the context of how we look at success. And I think we often use metrics that are very tangible, like our salary, our job title, things like that. Right?But I spoke about six things that are signs you're doing a lot better than you think you are. And one of them was if you're the kind of person who can not only set boundaries, but actually stick to them. So I think this is really a twofold. They're each as important as the other, but we often don't speak about them in two phases. So what we've just spoken about now is setting boundaries, which is so important. It gives you that clarity, gives you that foundation.
But sticking to them to me is consistency. Not saying yes one time, no another time. It's being consistent. And I think the more correlated or aligned you are with a priority or the why behind that priority, the easier that consistency will be versus if you're just saying, I'm going to go to the gym because I think that's good for me or I think that's good for my health. maybe you don't really enjoy the gym environment. Maybe it doesn't inspire you. Maybe you're not confident. Maybe something like an at -home Pilates workout is more suitable.So if you're misaligned in that way, you may find that there's inconsistency in the sticking to it part. So I think it's really important to look at both and that can uncover a lot in terms of how aligned your priority is or not.
H:
Yeah. And I do think that the bound, like you said, the boundary work really becomes easier once you have a clear idea what your non -negotiables are, also what your values are, your purpose is. I have friend today, she's a coach as well as a spin instructor. She invited me to a class on Sunday and it seemed really fun and then they're going to do values exercise. This would be totally my vibe with an amazing group of women. But every Sunday, that's the time that me and my partner walk our dog. And that's set in stone. That's our Sundays.
To me, it's like, okay, well, this, you know, that enforcement of each Sunday, we do that. It was something that I requested. I really wanted quality time with my partner. It's kind of like, you know, a very relaxing state. We do a relationship check -in every week saying, what have we contributed to the relationship this week? What do we want to contribute next week? It's a really beautiful time. And so I got invited to something, but it was just very easy to say like, that sounds amazing, but I'm gonna have to pass on this one because I know that this is my non -negotiable, this is my relationship time, and because what I want out of my life is a really healthy, thriving, romantic partnership with my partner.
So I have to put a ring fence around that. And then it's just, there's less exactly what you said. There's kind of less wishy washy, there's less emotion behind it. It's just no, this is a very protected time. It's a sacred time similar to, no, I actually need eight hours of sleep at night.
So it is like once you kind of do the upfront work, then it becomes a lot easier to set the boundaries, to enforce the boundaries. But I do think that, yeah, if it's not fully integrated, if someone doesn't actually believe, like where I see this falling down is kind of health and fitness. If someone doesn't actually believe this is going to really contribute to my longevity, then that can then fall down and then they can not really make that they're non -negotiable and start to compromise on that, even though they've committed that to me into themselves. So then it is kind of going back to, what are we actually optimizing for? Like, what's your ideal life here? Is that actually your ideal life? Is it something else? Like what's the conflict?
E:
Yeah, absolutely. And this was a huge realization for me because I really used to struggle with a lot of guilt. You know, I think just from different things of how I was raised and I mean, we haven't really spoken about limiting beliefs, which I think play a big role here in terms of the way you think you should be or the way you think about yourself. You know, I kind of was always that person that was trying to make everyone happy and create harmony and peace. I don't know if it's because I'm the oldest child or just like the way I was raised. But once I realized that that's that was why I was struggling with so much guilt. That was why I couldn't put myself first. It felt really selfish to me.
So for anyone that resonates with that. I would say is, you know, I think I hear this a lot. I'm not I'm not yet a mother myself, but I speak to a lot of moms. So for anyone listening that might resonate with this in any way, it's that feeling of like, I feel selfish putting myself first. And my counter to that always is filling your own cup means you have more to give. So it's actually the most selfless thing you can do. Because if your why or your priorities involve giving to other people, children or work or relationships you actually need to give from a full place.
And so it really is the most selfless thing you can do. If you reframe it in that way, it really helps with that guilt and that feeling of I'm being so selfish right now in doing this. It's like you're actually filling up your own cup. So you've got more to give. So if that's a reframe that helps anyone, if they come from a giving place, which is such a beautiful quality, like some people really just feel like they want to give to a lot of people and that's their purpose. I feel like reframing it in that way really helped me as well.
H:
Yeah, I I I, I fucking hate that word selfish because I also think that what I have seen in my practice is when people say I'm being selfish, 100 % of the time, I've actually seen what they're trying to do is meet their basic needs of like, sleep, rest, exercise, eating healthy, and not somehow deemed as being selfish. So I think there is a lot and I'm like, I feel sometimes like pretty strict with my clients on this of like, if you if you are considering that it's selfish, and it's actually meeting your basic needs, then we then there is more work to be done here.
Because there is the conditioning that I mean, I had, it came up in one of my sessions today, like, one of my clients very high achieving, you know, she does a lot of output for her work, but then she wanted to go to the gym for an hour, the guilt that then goes on and not and we have to really look at okay. Where is that coming from? What part of you really feels like that? How do we soothe that part? And it can be quite complex work and actually take, I've seen it, it take months to unravel, maybe even like a year of constant work at it. But I think it is possible to switch that narrative because, yeah, once you start thinking that looking after your basic needs is selfish, it's actually quite dangerous because then like you are playing with your health there.And it could cause major impact. So I'm glad that you wrote that you brought that up.
E:
Yeah, absolutely. And just on that, like feeling guilty for going to the gym. can really resonate with that example. I used to work in the city in Sydney and I'd say like, I'll give you two examples from 12 months apart from like me understanding what boundaries actually meant, what I was protecting from before when I'd feel really guilty. So before, if I had a really long day and I had to start early, I would say, okay, I'm going to go do a lunch session.
So I can just get out, move my body, come back and just power on with work. And I feel so guilty for even putting on my gym clothes and going, because I would look around and no one else would be leaving to go to the gym. And I think deep down, maybe a lot of people can resonate with this. It's this own internal projection of I'm not being productive enough. I don't care about my job enough. It looks like I'm not interested if I have something else that I'm interested
Fast forward 12 months, I identified how important daily movement was for me. I know that my output is only more beneficial if I get in my movement. And I really stopped caring whether other people thought that or not. At the end of the day, it was my own internal projection because that's what I thought. I think at that point, if I had seen someone else doing something else, I would have thought, oh, they're less engaged in their job. But now I'm in a very different place. I say I'm so interested in what people do outside of work or their interests or wow, isn't it so great that they prioritize their health in the way they do. So once I actually shifted what that belief meant to me, and I think it's always very interesting identifying like that guilt, where does it sit? What's the belief that sits behind it? This is probably a standard you put on yourself. So you're thinking that everyone's there judging you for this thing, but you're probably just judging yourself and projecting that. And I mean, I know this is like a whole different can of worms, but I think it's just interesting to reflect on. Because it helps you identify the source.
H:
Yeah, the question is, OK, am I actually judging others for that action? Like I say that I want to be healthy and fit and do this, but is this a judgment that I have? Am I also projecting? And like, what do I really believe about this? And this came up in a client conversation earlier in the week where a client was like, you know, I preach that I want to be healthy and calm and doing all this, but actually internally, I'm not doing any of that. And that cognitive dissonance like starts to cause stress in the body as well. Okay, I'm not really aligned with what I'm saying or what I'm preaching and my actions are doing another are doing something completely different. So usually, if there is a lot of guilt, I love that just like watch for the projection and try to see if this is a belief system that you also hold.
E:
Yeah, use it as like a bit of a teacher.
H:
Yeah, yeah. Well, and then we're out of time, but I want to let people know where they can find you, where they can listen to your amazing podcast. I've also been a guest on it. So if you want to look, that was a really very fun episode. So yeah, let people know where they could find you.
E：
Thank you so much. Yeah, I definitely recommend everyone go check out our chat. It was, it was really fun and insightful. And I think we aligned on so many things. So was just a very natural conversation. For those of you on Instagram, you can just go to our Instagram at the Balanced Theory podcast. All the links are in the show notes. We're on YouTube, Spotify, Apple podcasts, LinkedIn, if you want to connect with me personally, it's Erika DePellegrin. yeah, basically type the podcast in anywhere and we'll come up. But thank you so much for having me, Hannah. I love the work you do and it was nice chatting to you again.