Work-Life Balance Tips for Coaches & Entrepreneurs
Are you struggling to create a work-life balance?
Work-life balance is something we hear about all the time, and for good reason. When you’re a coach, therapist, or entrepreneur, creating a healthy work life balance is essential if you want to avoid burnout and sustain your passion and focus for the long term.
Many women in business juggle multiple responsibilities on top of their work commitments. But when you don't prioritise your own health and wellbeing, it becomes harder to stay focused, motivated, and energised enough to achieve your goals.
This is something I’m deeply passionate about, because I’ve experienced what can happen if you don't prioritise yourself. For years I had high levels of energy. I was always busy, juggling life and a teaching career as a single Mum.
But unfortunately, everything caught up with me. After a series of viruses and years of running on empty, my body simply couldn’t recover. I developed post-viral fatigue, which later became ME/CFS and other ongoing health issues.
These days, a work-life balance is my number one priority. I don’t always get it perfect (does anyone?), but it’s better than it used to be, and it’s made all the difference to my energy, focus, and overall happiness.
Creating a healthy work-life balance when you're a coach, therapist or entrepreneur is essential if you want to avoid burning yourself out.
*Affiliate Disclosure: Some links in this post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase something via the link, I may receive a small commission. This doesn't affect the price you pay.
If you have any questions, reach out for a chat [email protected] or check out my other blogs
Table of Contents
Why Creating Balance is Important
As I mentioned in the introduction, creating an effective work-life balance is essential for maintaining your health and wellbeing.
If you run your own business, you are your biggest asset, and without you, there is no business! working in a way that prioritises time for rest and recovery supports a sustainable lifestyle, and helps you to continue doing what you love.
If you stay in the boom/bust cycle of overworking and crashing, the chances of burnout, stress, and overwhelm increase dramatically.
Balance is also crucial for keeping your spark alive. Feeling energised is great for staying creative and connected to your bigger vision and goals. When you push too hard, it becomes more difficult to think clearly or feel creative, which can lead to frustration and self-doubt.
We’re not machines, and we all need time to decompress, to simply be rather than constantly doing.
Balancing Multiple Roles
It's also important to acknowledge gender bias and societal expectations. Women in particular, often face additional pressures both personally and professionally.
Many women carry the bulk of responsibilities in the home. From managing childcare, housework, and emotional challenges, while also running businesses or pursuing careers outside of the home.
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 on top of everything at home.
Of course, this isn't the case for all, but it's not a unique situation that there's often a lot more responsibilities resting on woman's shoulders alongside their professional work.
Creating an effective 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 ideal work-life balance can be tricky, especially if you're managing multiple roles or projects.
The key is to remember that balance is going to look different for everyone. Some people thrive working long days; others need shorter, more focused working patterns. What matters is knowing your limits and planning your schedule around your natural energy cycles.
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 function best for only a few focused hours each day, build your routine around that. If you can comfortably manage longer workdays, make sure to schedule intentional time for rest and enjoyment.
There’s no right or wrong with this, only what works best for you.
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 should be times when you can consciously take the foot off the pedal and slow down.
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.
Prioritise your physical and mental health. Improve your sleep, stay hydrated, move your body, and allow yourself to fully switch off from work. And don't forget to prioritise your mental well-being through self-care, journaling or doing things that bring you joy.
Plan Regular Breaks
Pre-planning your rest times is one of the most effective ways to ensure you actually take them.
Although it may feel counterintuitive, regular breaks actually helps improve productivity. When you're well rested, your focus, creativity, and efficiency will improve as well.
Think about how your body feels when you're completely exhausted. It's so much harder to do the things you want to do. Without proper rest, it's harder to stay focused, you become more distracted, make more mistakes and feel more frustrated.
If you’re prone to overworking, explore techniques like the Pomodoro Technique (linked below), which encourages you to work in short, focused bursts followed by intentional breaks.
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.
They’ve allowed me to complete my counselling training, Masters Degree, coaching qualification, and run multiple businesses, all while managing ME/CFS.
Because my condition fluctuates, I developed a Plan B system. On low-energy days, I focus only on the essentials. For example, client calls, responding to urgent emails, or essential admin, while everything else can wait. 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 rely on things like automations for social media, invoices, and emails, and when I need a break, I take it guilt-free.
Even if you don’t manage a chronic condition, creating low-energy days or bare-minimum weeks can give you breathing room when life gets busy or feels difficult.
When planning your week, block out meetings and non-negotiables first, then schedule rest and finish times before filling in the rest. If you leave rest until last, it’s the first thing that disappears.
Set Clear Boundaries
If you find it difficult to say “no”, or if it makes you feel guilty when you do, boundaries will be your new best friend!
Boundaries aren’t just about saying no to others, they’re also about saying no to yourself when you’re tempted to overwork.
To support healthy boundaries, create routines that mark the end of your workday, switch off devices in the evening, and give yourself permission to rest without guilt.
Work can wait, your health and well-being can't.
Some things you can do to introduce boundaries:
- 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 to do something relaxing or fun 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 supports a better work-life balance. Working more efficiently will reduce the need for work to slip into your free time. There are various tools and apps you can use to support how you use the time available.
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.
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.
Brain Dumps – Braindumps can be brilliant as you can empty your mind of everything that whirling around in there. It enables you to identify priorities, and declutter your mind.
Tools, Resources & Support
Each post I also like to add my favourite tools and resources, so here are some more just for you!
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!
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)
Grow With Evelyn – Evelyn Weiss is an extraordinary coach. GWE is the best membership I've been in. The level of support, the courses, challenges & community are exceptional. Highly recommend if you're a coach, digital creator or small business owner.
Impact Stationery – Have you ever dreamed of creating your own high-end stationery products? Laura has an amazing course & community designed to help you created printed products that you can market on Amazon, or your own website. It's different to KDP in that they're not print on demand, and the quality of products are incredible.
Final Thoughts
Creating a sustainable work-life balance is something that we should all prioritise. I completely 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!
If this post helped or you enjoyed reading it, please share one of the images below as it really helps my blog – Thank You!
Meet Lynsey
Hey there! I'm Lynsey, a counsellor, coach and mentor for women who want to create change, but are feeling lost, uncertain and exhausted. With over 7 years’ experience of training, running businesses, and over a decade as a tutor and adult trainer, I've learned the value of a gentle and intentional approach to work and life that energises you without draining all of your energy.
I've lived with ME/CFS since 2011, and since then re-trained as a counsellor, and achieved a distinction for my Masters in Counselling and Psychotherapy Practice; all while running 4 businesses!
How? Improving your mindset, finding acceptance in yourself, and developing a gentle, but solution-focused approach to achieving goals is key. Knowing that it's not about how fast you move, but finding your own pace and trusting that you can achieve your goals in your own way, one step at a time.
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)
Have you seen my online store Quietly Conquer – Find DFY templates, downloads and more!
