A friend asked Amy a loaded question the other day — one that came with a tone that said I am barely holding it together over here: how do working people actually create balance? Amy's honest answer? You're probably not going to love it. This episode digs into the mindset that keeps so many high-achieving, hard-working people perpetually behind the eight ball — the reflexive, reactive, drop-everything-right-now way of operating that quietly steals your power and your peace. Amy shares a personal experiment with time that shifted everything for her, and offers a surprisingly simple reframe for anyone who's ever felt like their schedule belongs to everyone but them. Practical, honest, and a little bit uncomfortable in the best possible way.
[00:00:07] Hey everybody and welcome to another episode of Healthy AF. My name is Amy Chang and I'm a health coach here with Healthy Life Health and Wellness Coaching. I'm so glad you're here with me today on this little podcast. I believe this is our first one in September. So yay September. We are almost through the hot, hot of August. Not really quite. I mean, it was like 94 degrees here today in Wilmington, North Carolina. So still a little bit on the steamy side.
[00:00:34] But we're beginning to ease in to fall. Falling weather, falling leaves, falling temps for sure. And I wanted to spend time this month talking about transitions. It's occurred to me that my whole work is actually around transitions.
[00:01:00] Transitions are funny little things. And there's a lot of different ways you can address your transitions. And some of them serve you well. Some of you have you survive.
[00:01:14] And my focus is to find each transition for my clients and the world around me, honestly, my buds, my kids, my mama. And look for what we can use and who we can be inside and outside that transition. So that when we finally get closer to the place we're headed, we're actually better off than we were.
[00:01:43] So let's dive into that today. You're going to hear all about transitions in September. This first week, I wanted to start with a lovely question that one of my besties asked me the other day. I wrote it down and here it is. She says, you know what I think people want to know, Amy? I'm like, what? She says, how do working women today create balance?
[00:02:08] And when she said it, she had a tone. OK, I'm not sure I portrayed her tone, but she had this tone of like, I'm up to my eyeballs here. How the hell am I supposed to do this? And so I took some time to think about that and got back to her and said, yeah, I don't think you're going to like my answer very much.
[00:02:32] My answer is we've got to transition to a new way of thinking and we've got to transition to a new way of living. And you should expect discomfort and doubt. Now, let's dive in a little bit more and give you a little bit more practical, useful, actionable things.
[00:02:55] So her question was, how do I balance everything I want to balance inside my work life and my personal life and my body life, my health life? How do I how do I really balance all that stuff?
[00:03:14] What I see with people that I work with and people I play pickleball with and, you know, people that are around me who have full time jobs, who maybe or maybe not are in corporate.
[00:03:28] What I'm saying is that I'm not saying is wrong, right? But that whole the customer is always right mindset that I've been asked to do something and I need to do that like right now lickety split mindset.
[00:03:56] The request has been made. And so I drop everything else and do that request mindset that really does not work well for balance, peace, serenity, empowerment, choice. Those things don't come into play.
[00:04:13] It really hinges on reaction, like not response, not mindful thought, but just straight up reaction. Something has happened now. I have to do this. Without any space in there to figure out like, wait, does that work for me at five minutes past five on a Friday? Because it might, but it might not.
[00:04:41] And if we don't at least begin to cultivate a space where we can like go like, wait, I have choices here. Then we're not going to get over there where we feel balanced. So let's talk about some discomfort.
[00:05:01] We've talked before about changing our patterns and how when you change your dance steps, the whole world has to change their dance steps because we're in a dance with all these different systems. You're in a dance with your boss. Or your neighbors.
[00:05:31] All of that is a finely tuned movement, right? Like I come up and you come that and we do right and they do left and everything in that. It's like a symphony orchestra. And you can imagine that if the piccolo player just decides to go her own way, what the rest of the symphony orchestra might be like, wait, hang on. She's playing on the four. She's supposed to go on the, you know, three.
[00:06:01] And things get weird and they get uncomfortable. And that's okay. Weird and uncomfortable is okay. It might have you begin doubting like, oh crap. I've thought about this for a long time playing on the four. I know I'm supposed to be playing on the three. But I really want to try playing on the four. I'm going to try it. And then like, oh crap. Maybe I should not have done that.
[00:06:31] Maybe this is too much. Maybe I've been selfish. Right? Right? So I think that my answer to my friend is there's a transition space through there between I'm doing what I'm doing over here. And I really want to go over there, which is balance. And in the middle of that is like this really uncomfortable, doubt-filled place.
[00:06:58] So the shifting has to happen with you first. And that shifting happens with clarity. Like, what about your work is working for you? What about your work is not working for you? What are you missing in the rest of your life that you want to balance out? You know, I did an interesting thing a few years ago.
[00:07:27] I really was trying to work more hours. I was trying to restructure my week so that like I had more work hours. I was kind of in this mode of like, I need to grind. I need to get after it. And I calculated up all the hours in a week. I think it's like 168-ish, 164. I can't remember. But I calculated up like how many hours in a week.
[00:07:53] And then I put in how many hours in a week I wanted to work. And then I took in like how many hours in a week I wanted to sleep. How many hours in a week I wanted to, you know, do housework and chores and things like fix food. How many hours a week I was driving. You know, all those kinds of things. And then I put in like, okay, well, I want to spend, you know, an hour a week meditating, an hour a week journaling.
[00:08:22] You know, three hours a week exercising, whatever. And I've tried that for a while. And it didn't feel quite right, even though I was clear on sort of where my boundaries were. And it was interesting. I started tracking. I started using a time clock to actually track what I was doing when I was doing it. And so that went on for a little while. It didn't feel really great. But, you know, I did it. And then I did it. I did that experiment again.
[00:08:50] I pulled back out that 168 hours and just organically started listing out my hours in the week and what I was going to spend. But I didn't start with work. Work was the last thing. And I didn't plan to do that. It just kind of happened.
[00:09:18] And so my first priority, it probably happened because I was really struggling with some sleep. You know, the perimenopause and you can't get any sleep. And you're like, if I have to be in bed for 12 hours to get six and a half hours of sleep, that is what we will be doing today. And I started with sleep. And then I went with my meditations and prayers and exercise and, you know, other forms of movement and breath work.
[00:09:45] And how long really does it take me to feed myself well? To go to the store. To think about the recipes. To make it. To sit my butt down at the table. And then to clean up at least three times a day. It's a lot. And really, like, look at those commitments.
[00:10:13] And then I was like, wow, I've got these many hours left in my week. I guess I could squeeze in some work. It was a complete mindset shift. But it took me about three months of messing around with other systems to figure out that that really felt like a good balance. And the funny thing is, the work hours weren't that much different. But I was. I was.
[00:10:41] I knew what came first. So just playing that little game of when I look at my time, that is my time. It's no one else's. It's mine. And I look at what's important to me. How do I prioritize my time? So I hope that that's helpful. That's the best answer I can give you.
[00:11:06] If you are in a job that is a full-time job or even a part-time job, and it is sort of consuming more of your life force maybe than you want it to, that switch of weight, my time is mine. I have power and choice over how I spend my time. And listing out sort of what it is that brings you balance.
[00:11:35] And really, how long does it take committing to that? And then put in, what does work look like? I don't know what solution you're going to find. You might find that you actually really love working 12-hour days and you're going to talk to your employer about working 12-hour days. Or like a 10-hour day works great. Or that you do your 40 hours during the week. And it's not all that bad to like squeeze out five hours on Sunday afternoon when you're all relaxed.
[00:12:04] I don't know what's going to work for you. But I know balance comes between your ears, just like anything else. So that's what I know about creating balance when you're working. Good luck with that. I hope that's helpful to you. It was eye-opening for me. And if you need more of a conversation about that, gosh, almost every person I talk to is having this issue. How do I find balance?
[00:12:32] How do I work and make money and do a great job and have my bosses love me and also have my sanity? So that's a conversation you can always give me a call, schedule a consultation. I hope your day is in flow today. I hope you stay mindful of what you're choosing to do and when you're choosing to do it, transitioning from one spot to another. And I'll see you next week on Healthy AF.