SmallBizResource Blog -- Women in Business

Wednesday's Woman: Julie Watson Smith, The Conscious Character Coach

Posted by Gayle Kesten Wednesday, Oct 22, 2008, 12:53 PM ET

Want to know the best way to balance work and family? Quite simply, drop the notion of work-life balance and, instead, get your two worlds into alignment.

"Balancing implies everything is equal and in a static mode of activity. I know my life is in constant motion. Alignment honors that life is in motion and is not equal," said Julie Watson Smith, who, through her coaching business, Inspired Imaginations, teaches her mostly women clientele this new way of approaching their time. "There are days where I might work all day long, and days I might not have to work at all. It's what needs my attention most at that time -- and being OK with it."

Watson Smith didn't come by her expertise without a few bumps and bruises, and I appreciated her candor. The mom of three young children had moved from San Diego to Boulder ahead of her husband and felt overwhelmed by taking care of their kids, running her business, and unpacking a new house. (Who wouldn't be?) Watson Smith's breaking point -- one that any working mother can relate to -- was two missing pieces to a $1.99 puzzle. "I just lost it," she admitted to me. "I felt like I wasn't keeping up with what I was supposed to be doing or what I should be doing. The more I tried to balance things, the more frustrated, overwhelmed, and unhappy I became."

That moment sent Watson Smith on "a whole process of growth," during which she involved herself in personal and business development programs (often online or by phone) and by reading books about how to simplify your life. "They were really effective programs, but a lot of them kept coming back to, 'You have to balance your life.' That was what got me into trouble in the first place!" she said. "I kept journaling about this and realized it had nothing to do with balance. It was coming down to the very basics of deciding what I valued, what my purpose was, and what legacy I wanted to leave in my life and to my children. When you're aligning rather than balancing, you're coming from this place of wanting to connect your family with your business."

How do you get in alignment sans chiropractor? Watson Smith devised this five-step process:

1. Decide if you’re a business-first family or a family-first business: A business-first family is usually where you find most startups. "It doesn't mean that family isn't a priority, but you might not volunteer in your children's classroom as much, or maybe Dad isn't home for dinner every night," she explained. A family-first business is where Watson Smith said she sees a lot of mom entrepreneurs and people who have been in business for more than three years -- those who can be home for dinner every night. "The reason this is the first step is it helps you let go of some of the expectations that both business and family have to be first. Really, they can't be," she explained. "And just because someone is business-first does not mean they don't care about their family. It's about that moment."

2. Create a family mission: Similar to a business mission, a family mission establishes what you and family value -- the guiding factors and direction you want to take your family. "In my experience, most family/parent entrepreneurs start because they want to create a better life for their family," Watson Smith said. "In creating that family mission, you're setting the groundwork for a more powerful business mission. You include the whole family in the process."

3. Create a business mission (or review the one you have): This encourages people to ensure their business vision is in sync with their family vision. "It's carrying these same thoughts and ideas into your business and grounding them in there," Watson Smith said.

4. Create one family/business schedule: Determine your working days, look at your obligations and responsibilities, and then list them on the same schedule. "During the week, I've scheduled Mondays as my planning day. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are focus days [when I work on specific tasks]. Fridays are my personal development and family fun day," said Watson Smith, who also devotes the weekends to her family. "Knowing those are my overall themes of my week, I look at all my actions, activities, and responsibilities and start fitting them into those days." Once you do that, she added, you can see where you may be overcommitting on business or family activities. "It gives you a clear picture and the ability to say yes or no to new things," she said.

5. Connecting everything with character and choice: This is what Watson Smith calls "conscious character," which embodies six core traits -- responsibility, respect, integrity, perseverance, citizenship, and kindness. "Let's take responsibility," she said. "It's about doing what you say you'll do. If you say you'll have report done at 3 p.m., then you should have it done. If you don't, it starts to take away your choices. You start to feel more frustrated. You feel pressure. I find that the more you live in those character traits, the more choices and opportunities open up for you."

Perhaps the most appealing byproduct of all is when you're aligning rather than balancing, you're coming from a place of compassion -- for yourself, Watson Smith said. "When you're being gentle with yourself, other people will treat you in that same fashion. They'll be kinder too," she said. "It's really about letting go and taking things back to where it's comfortable and where you feel authentic -- not from the place that everyone else has to be at."

Along those lines of being kind to yourself is one final piece of advice, which I hope gives you as big a laugh as it did for me: "Stop 'shoulding' on yourself," Watson Smith said. "You have to be diligent about letting go of the shoulds. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. The reality is you're one person. "

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• Chilly Jilly Founder Jill Boehler
• Juliet Carlson, On The Journey
• Archives

The Wednesday's Woman series is written for today's community of hard-working, small-business women, featuring profiles, industry trends, research, work/life balance issues and other topics of interest. Send your ideas to Gayle Kesten.

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