One of the hardest things I struggle with in my life is balance. I know for myself, it’s difficult to portion out all the attention needed to sustain my faith, marriage, children, career, friendships, and other commitments in life because I know there will be nothing left for my own needs.

Like a lot of women, I put everyone else’s needs before my own; eventually ending up exhausted, frustrated, and yelling like a madwoman at anyone within earshot. 

There’s a saying in the Jacques house, actually there are many sayings, but one of my favorite is, “Why to I have to become a raving lunatic before any of you people hear me?!”
I cannot be the only wife/mother who has said this, somebody please back me up on this!

For me, I pick up a little slack here, a chore or two there, and before I know it, I’m back doing everything for everyone, have no time for myself or everything I need to do, and eventually hit my breaking point. The only reason I’m ever really yelling or angry is because a) I realize I’m not consistently holding everyone accountable for their responsibilities and b) then quickly become overwhelmed with everything and finally c) I’m angry that I cannot do it all myself.

Over the past few months, I’ve been ignoring many of my over-committed calendar’s regularly scheduled distractions. Admittedly, a huge part of that was from having the kids home for summer vacation, but I got to a point where I literally had to turn everything off. That included things I really enjoy doing like blogging, running, reading, and being a guest on various shows, in order to bring myself back to zero. The idea was, if I dropped everything, and slowly added in the necessities, I would soon find out which superfluous activities I could keep off my calendar.

The problem is, once I got back to zero, things kept creeping into my day – making it impossible to fit everything I wanted to accomplish into my waking hours.

There simply aren’t enough hours in the day. I get up at 5am and there’s just no way I could cram everything I want and need to do into my schedule! I need to cook, clean, support my husband, care for and nurture the kids, keep up with laundry, work, handle my obligations, and last (and most certainly least) I have to care for myself as well. Add to that list the things I want to do: spend more time at the range (both gun and archery), read more books, work out every day, spend time with friends, hunt and fish more, visit family, volunteer more often, maybe get a massage or just exist without anyone or anything nagging at me to do something.

While I choose to accept that there are days I won’t get everything done I need to do or many of the things I want to spend time doing, I still struggle with that fact and think I should be able to do it all.

Does anyone else feel this way? What are some things you do to find balance in your life?