For women who are juggling everything that won't sit still.
Someone asked me in a podcast interview last week what I tell women about juggling business and life.
I gave a short answer in the room, then left and wrote this. This question pops up all the time, in my programs, events, I even have a keynote speech on "How I run 3 businesses in 4 working days". It does not fit into a ninety-second clip.
This newsletter is for the women I see most weeks. Women running a clinic and a household. Women paying their team and parenting young kids and trying to hold a marriage, a body, and an identity together. Women who keep waiting for the calm season that never quite arrives.
I juggle. Of course I do in this life stage (two kids aged 3.5 and 5 with no family support where we are and 4 solid businesses between myself and my partner).
I haven't got it all figured out. But you know why I feel spacious and in control 99% of the time?
Because I've felt what rock bottom feels like, and that gave me perspective. "If I could deal with that, everything else is easy."
Because I understand busy does not mean mess. "Mess" is a state of mind. You can be full and still feel spacious.
You always have a choice. Choose you more often.
Your kids change every year. Your business changes every quarter. Your team changes. Your energy changes. The shape of the juggle changes with all of it. There's no 'calm season'. One moment you think you've got it, then it goes to puff with one resignation.
Expectations | Resources
Spaciousness happens when your expectations match your resources. It's in how you think and execute.
Overwhelm happens when your resources cannot hold the weight of your expectations.
So the 1 second solution? Build your resources, or change your expectations.
Let me be clear... Working till 2am is not a problem. Working on a Saturday morning is not a problem. Putting a baby down and reopening the laptop at 8:30pm is not a problem.
They're not a problem unless YOU feel resentment towards your way of work.
If you are working those hours and feel a sense of momentum, purpose, even quiet contentment, that is your rhythm.
BUT if you are in that murky middle where you're with your kids but you'd rather be working, or you're working and guilty that you're not with your kids, then THAT'S when you're misaligned.
Read on.
The Match = solution
1. Name your expectations. What are you actually trying to do this quarter? In this season of life? Most women cannot answer this in a clean sentence. They are carrying a list of fifty things they think they should be doing, half of them borrowed from someone whose context bears no resemblance to theirs.
➡️ Pick one or two things per quarter. That is your expectation. Write it down. If you are in a season with very young children, you cannot focus on four big initiatives at the same time. It's impossible to fit it in (don't believe me? run your tasks list in AI and ask it to map to your ideal working hours. it's simply impossible).
2. Audit your resources. What do you actually have right now? Be honest. Team. Practice manager. VAs. SOPs. Tech and automation. A partner who shares the load. Family nearby. A cleaner. A meal service. A regular night with a sitter so you can think.
➡️ Be resourceful. This is a skill that can create diamond out of rough.
3. Close the gap. There are only two moves. The first is to build resources up to meet expectations. If you want to run four projects this quarter, you need the team, the systems, the operating model, and the personal infrastructure that support four projects this quarter.
If those resources do not exist yet, your real job is to actively build them. Or, reset your expectations to meet resources.
Most women need to hear this multiple times before it sticks, but it's the easiest solution in theory.
Catch your biggest time wasters
Often time is seemingly the barrier. Women who are overwhelmed, exhausted, totally in the grind, often say, "I know what I have to do, but I simply do not have enough time."
Time is not something you can save by working faster. Time is something you create by building the resources that take the load off you. The housekeeper. The practice manager. The automation. The boundary.
If you don't build your resources, it's unlikely things will change much. I currently run two clinics, lead a team of 30, build The Clinic Project, finish a Masters, and raise two young children. The thing holding all of that up is infrastructure I have spent years building. When I added projects, I added resources first.
If you want the output someone else has, study the resources they have built. Then build yours. Do not compare your output to theirs, that is unfair to you. There's no 'feeling behind', recognise that as noise and unnecessary drains. Filter it, then go and build.
Run the Match every quarter and at the end of the year. It shifts because everything underneath shifts. Your kids shift. Your business shifts. Your body shifts. Your energy shifts.
The women I see staying in the game over decades have built a better match underneath the juggle. They are also better at listening to their own needs.
Match is what holds a life that won't sit still. If you are in that murky middle right now, the framework is here.
The work, as always, is yours.
With love 🔥
Winnie
If the gap between your expectations and your resources is structural rather than personal, that is what we work on inside The Clinic Project.
Winnie Wu is a physiotherapist, clinic founder and strategist. She runs Movement Laboratory and Papaya Clinic in Sydney, and The Clinic Project, a strategic education platform for women allied health clinic owners.