You Can Have It All — Just Not All at Once
The Myth of Balance in Motherhood
For the past six months, I have had an overwhelming urge to get a puppy.
Which is slightly unhinged, considering I have a five-year-old in half-day kindergarten, a three-year-old, and a two-year-old at home with me all day. I’m building a business in the margins of nap time and early mornings. Most days feel full before 8 a.m.
My plate isn’t light.
But I wanted the puppy.
My husband gave me an almost impossible checklist — temperament, size, energy level, shedding, and trainability. It felt like a list designed to quietly end the conversation.
And somehow… I found him.
The perfect dog.
The first week he came home, all three kids got sick.
Of course they did.
I spend a lot of time writing about balance. Trying to understand it. Trying to live it. And here I was — voluntarily tipping the scales.
It made me ask:
Is balance something we actually maintain?
Or is it something we are constantly recalibrating?
What Balance Really Looks Like in Motherhood
We talk about balance like it’s a place we arrive.
Like one day the house will stay clean, the laundry will stay caught up, the business will finally feel steady, the dog will be trained, the meals will be planned, and everything will hum at the same time — and we will finally stand still.
But balance feels more like standing on one foot.
You can do it.
You can hold it.
But you are constantly adjusting.
Tiny shifts in your ankle.
Arms subtly moving.
Your core is tightening and softening as needed.
Balance isn’t about being perfectly still.
It’s about responding to movement without falling.
And motherhood is movement.
Why You’re Not Meant to Be at Your “Prime” Forever
Maybe the clearest example of balance being unsustainable is the idea of being “at your prime.”
We admire it. We chase it. We measure ourselves against it.
But no athlete stays at peak performance forever.
And motherhood has its own version of “prime.”
The pre-kids energy.
The early career momentum.
The body before three pregnancies.
The quiet house.
The uninterrupted thoughts.
But that season required less of you.
This one requires more.
More patience.
More surrender.
More strength that no one sees.
More resilience in the small, uncelebrated hours.
We don’t often call this a “prime.”
But what if we should?
What if this season — messy, loud, stretching you thin and growing you wide — is not a dip in performance, but a different kind of power?
Not visible strength.
But sustaining strength.
Not dominance.
But devotion.
Not the top of your game.
But the depth of your character.
The Quiet Pressure to Prove Ourselves
We’ve been sold the idea that we can “have it all” if we just try hard enough.
But maybe what we’re really chasing isn’t “all.”
Maybe we’re chasing proof.
Proof that what we are doing matters.
Proof that our effort counts.
Proof that we are doing this well.
There are days I feel steady.
Capable.
Present.
And there are days when all three kids are crying at once and my nervous system feels thin — and I wonder if I am even cut out for this.
Motherhood doesn’t come with metrics.
It doesn’t hand out awards.
It rarely tells you clearly, “You’re doing a good job.”
Balance becomes impossible when worth turns into performance.
You Can Have It All — Just Not All at Once
Maybe the desire to “have it all” is really the desire to feel secure in our worth.
Sometimes I catch myself thinking,
“If I could just build something visible — something measurable — then I would finally feel solid.”
But even that would crest.
Even that would soften.
Because no season holds its peak forever.
You can have it all — just not all at once.
There may be a season where your creativity crests and your house is messier.
A season where your children need more and your ambition softens.
A season where your body feels strong and your business grows slowly.
A season where you begin again in ways you didn’t expect.
Beginning again is not regression.
It’s evolution.
You aren’t losing yourself in new seasons.
You’re meeting yourself differently.
Trusting the Rhythm of This Season
The ocean doesn’t panic when it recedes.
It trusts the rhythm.
Maybe balance is a lot like happiness.
Both feel steady when we’re in them.
Both feel frustrating when we’re not.
And both slip through our fingers the moment we try to grip them too tightly.
You don’t hold happiness forever.
You experience it in moments.
You don’t achieve balance once and for all.
You return to it.
Again.
And again.
And again.
What if instead of striving to maintain a perfect, motionless balance, we practiced returning?
Returning to center.
Returning to breath.
Returning to what matters in this season.
This season of motherhood has been teaching me to find my seat at the table of womanhood in a completely new way.
You can have it all.
But not all at once.
And maybe balance — like happiness — was never meant to be permanent.
Maybe it was meant to be practiced.
And maybe you are not behind.
Maybe you are powerful exactly here.
For the Days When Everything Feels Like Too Much
Motherhood holds moments of beauty and moments of overwhelm — sometimes in the very same hour.
If you're in a season where the noise feels loud and your nervous system feels thin, I created something simple to help you pause and steady yourself again.
The Hard Days Pause Journal is a gentle place to slow down, breathe, and return to yourself — even in the middle of chaos.
You don’t need to fix everything today.
You just need a place to pause.