A Feat of Balance

The pursuit of having it all

Working on that work-life balance hiking up a mountain in New Zealand.

Even if you haven’t quite achieved it, creating a healthy balance between your professional and personal lives seems simple in concept.

It’s making yourself stop doing admin work early enough to go to a yoga class, planning a tour so you can still attend a close friend’s wedding, or declining a gig for a long-planned family vacation.

It’s working less, living more. Prioritizing family and friends as much as accomplishments and career growth.

And, at first, it can be as simple as making better choices, strengthening your boundaries, and practicing saying “no” more.

The real challenge of maintaining a work-life balance as your career grows isn’t turning down work you’re not that enthusiastic about in the first place to do something enjoyable or good for you. What most of us don’t realise at the beginning, is that illusive healthy work-life balance is hard-earned in those difficult choices between work you absolutely want to do and the person or activity to which you’ve already promised your time and energy.

I spent two decades prioritizing nothing but music.

I’ve lived most of my adult life away from my homeland and family, pursuing musical opportunities.

I’ve missed birthdays, weddings, and funerals because I had gigs pop up. I said yes to everything I was offered, canceling any personal commitments without a second thought.

A few years ago, frustrated by the feeling that I was being held captive by my career, I decided to work on creating a life where I could choose the music work I did. Saying yes when I wanted to instead of needing to take absolutely everything offered just to pay the bills.

I gradually developed a source of non-music income, and by last year I was playing only the music I was excited to - mostly Tattletale Saints and Brandy Clark gigs.

It took me a while to realise the illusion of balance was actually that I’d found a partner in Jake who was incredibly forgiving of any sudden need to fly away and join a tour, regardless of my commitments at home or in our business.

The only difference to years past was that I’d stopped saying yes to work I didn’t want to do in the first place, but I was still prioritizing gigs over everything else in my life.

As a hired touring musician, there are no residuals. I must be physically present to make money, standing on stage and playing my bass. When schlepping my 50-pound bass around finally gets too much, I want another income source already flowing. So, at the end of last year, we decided to expand the business and open a new clothing store. To build something that could support me financially in the future.

I put together what I thought was a good plan for balancing both pursuits: getting to play the music I love and building something for the future with the person I love. But now that we’re a few months from our store opening and the start of the touring season, the balance chickens are coming home to roost. And so are the calendar-management chickens.

Looking at the tour plan and key dates for the business, I realize that balancing any two pursuits, personal and professional or two different business interests, is incredibly hard.

The times you choose one often means missing out on something incredible with the other.

It means letting someone down, whichever way you decide to go.

And I know it will sometimes mean disappointing myself in the short term for long-term gain, turning down a fun gig now because I’m working to build something to support myself financially in the future.

It also means experiencing that dreadful social media-fueled condition we know: FOMO.

While friends were donning haute couture and performing at the Grammys a few weeks ago, I was wearing polar fleece and hiking in New Zealand.

I knew planning a vacation in February ran the risk of me not being able to join Brandy if she was asked to perform (she was up for six Grammys and won one!), but it was the only gap we had to go, and we both desperately needed the break and chance to reset after the challenging year we’d had.

The trip was fantastic; we did some amazing hikes, spent time with loved ones, and came home feeling revived and ready to hit 2024.

But oh boy, when the Instagram videos of the Grammys started rolling in, the FOMO was bad. I spent twenty minutes wallowing in self-pity, then logged out of Instagram (the best antidote for FOMO I’ve found).

Even if the choice you make in pursuit of a work-life balance is the right one, it doesn’t mean it won’t hurt a little.

Creating a better balance between work and play gives us the chance to have a thriving career and inspiring relationships and life experiences. To build a support system outside our music to help us navigate the emotional rollercoaster of life inside the music business.

But there’s no perfect formula, and choosing between two things you want will always be hard. A decision isn’t wrong just because it still makes you feel a bit bad in the moment. It just means it was important, and you cared.

When you’re first starting to pursue a healthier work-life balance, it’s important to remember that it won’t necessarily feel good; sometimes, it may even feel quite bad, but it is worth striving for anyway.