Our community is comprised of entrepreneurs, artists and creatives. What’s tough about all of these vocations is that there is no clocking in and clocking out. So what should one do – work all day? Never work? Work 9-5? Finding work life balance when you work for yourself isn’t easy, but it is important.

Edna Mancia | Digital Marketer

My balance has shifted towards work, but it helps that I love what I do! There are times when it can be overwhelming, but I am reminded that this is the best for me and it’s helping me to reach my over-all longterm goal. I do believe there should be a balance between work and play, but when a job is also fun and you have the chance to do fun things, then the balance is already there! Read more>>

Brittany Weldon | Artist & Pharmacist

Work-life balance has always been very important to me, especially now that I am a soon-to-be mom. I have a day job, which is my primary career as a pharmacist, as well as my art career and business to run. It is not always easy to balance everything, but I have always put family first. My home life and growing family are my first priority, and because I have set this boundary it keeps me grounded and helps prevent me from becoming overwhelmed. It also helps tremendously that my business is something I am passionate about, the Earth. Because I donate my proceeds to the Nature Conservancy, I feel like I can make a difference with my art. Read more>>

Dominique Nwajei | Attorney

Initially, I was a young, ambitious Attorney dining headfirst into the legal field. Law was all I could think about. As time went by, I got married and had a family. Now, my goal is set on maintaining a healthy work/life balance. Why work hard if you can’t enjoy it? Today, I am all about enjoying the moment before it passes you by. Read more>>

Funke Fagbohun | Real Estate Agent

When I first began my career as a Real Estate Agent I was working almost 24/7, always accessible, and never had a clear start/stop time in my work. Now that I have been in the business for a few years I have realized the importance of having balance. I now have set business hours, I communicate expectations with clients from our initial consultation and when I take a vacation, I’m actually ON VACATION. (I would be lying if I said I don’t peek into my email once or twice though) However, overall, I have realized the importance of taking time for yourself and for your family. Read more>>

Elizabeth Karen Ali | Model & Pet Care Business Owner

My work life balance is constantly changing. I run a pet care business, but I also have passion for art and music. My mind is very active, therefore it is necessary for me to make time to delve into my creative outlets. Fortunately, because I am self employed, I have more control over my work life balance than when I was as an employee for other companies. My outlets for creativity fall under modeling, photography, drawing, writing, makeup, and music- currently, modeling is my main focus, but in order to keep the balance I have learned to flow into what is calling me at the moment. Read more>>

Kerry Harris | Blogger/Content Creator

My work life balance has been a work in progress, but my family always comes first. It was hard finding a balance when my Instagram business page started to grow. I would spend hours on the app trying to post consistently, interact with my audience, and answer as many messages as possible. Now, I think I’ve been doing a great job balancing my full-time corporate job, my almost full-time content creator/blogging job, and my personal life. However, there’s always room for improvement. Nothing brings me more joy than spending quality time with my family. Read more>>

Dr. Lindsay Banks | Chiropractor & Healthy Lifestyle Coach

My work-life balance has changed significantly over the past few years, especially since my boys are a little older now. In reality, when you are a professional and have a family there will be times when one area will receive a little more attention but the key is to never neglect one in place of the other. Over time, I have created a lifestyle that allows me ample space to focus on my business, spend quality time with my family and practice self-care, which is an area that can easily be overlooked when you have both a career and family. Read more>>

Michael Karydas | Plush Toymaker

A lot has changed over the years, what started as a hobby, turned into a full time career. My social media presence is stronger than ever with hundreds of requests for custom toys every week as well as other opportunities. I’m very thankful for the rise in popularity, I love interacting with everyone online and I couldn’t have done it without them and their tremendous amount of support. I can’t thank my followers on social media enough for what they do. it’s a lot of work trying to balance making the toys and running social media as an individual artist, but I love what I do for a living! Read more>>

Rian Strain | Master Esthetician

How my work life balance has changed over time. Well definitely having help and a team has allowed me to juggle multiple work related task, have time for a personal life so that I can nurture my relationships with family and friends and have time for myself. That has changed a great deal because I no longer have to do everything myself and over work myself. Finding that balance I had to let go of the need to want to control and do everything myself. I have to trust that the people or person I hire will have my back and my company’s back and will do things just as I would even when no one is looking. Read more>>

Deidre JohnBaptiste | 4th Grade Teacher and Professional Portrait Photographer

My entire life, I tend to do more than what is asked of me. In school, I was labeled an overachiever. People would always assume whatever task, assignment, or job that there was to be completed, I had completed it at a rate above everyone else. They weren’t wrong, but as I have gotten older, I’m starting to see that the value of having that as a personality trait is actually burdening sometimes. The weight of the expectations of others whether implicit or explicit combined with my own outlooks disallow me from having opportunities to have a break, or it disabled my ability to take a break without feeling any guilt. Read more>>

Lam Todd | Social Media Manager

My balance has shifted as I move through different stages in my life. In my twenties and early thirties, I worked really hard to be financially secure and put in a lot of hours to get to the top! I think this is very typical during this stage in life. Now being a mom in my mid-thirties, I would say that getting the dishes done and dinner on the table for my family is just as hard as my early days I put into work. The balance is still difficult, but I have learned to put support systems in place so that I am not the only one carrying the load. I also utilize all modern resources available to me to work smarter, not harder! Read more>>

Kyna Nelson | School Teacher/ Designer

Lets start with Covid 19 that’s when I began to see the shift happen. My career, personal life, and designing all began to intertwine and to be completely transparent it became a bit overwhelming. Keeping up with everything career related, transitioning from being in a work environment to now having class from the comfort of my home, working with my daughter on her assignments, transforming my business model due to Covid 19 from handbags to making masks, spending many late nights going to bed at 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. only to wake up at 7a.m and do it all over again. Read more>>

Megan Frankum | The Pickler Next Door

Being a CNA and working in the hospital at this time and still managing The Pickler Next Door is pretty hard. I love both my job and of course my small local business. If it wasn’t for gardening and canning I think I would go crazy! Keeping a balance between them both is definitely not hard for me because I love both of my jobs. Of course we all have our days but positive thinking always helps. Read more>>

Sonja Nwabuoku | Young Rembrandts SW Houston – Program Director

In the first 10 years of my career, I did what I thought was best for visibility and promotion. I have worked for some of the largest companies in the world. And back then, I thought I wanted to climb the corporate ladder. But as I came into my own, I realized that personal values were often set aside in order to do just that. The next phase of my career, I was driven by financial rewards. I earned another degree, put my head down and worked a lot of hours. I said yes to too many projects, but made a little more than I did earlier in my career. Then I started a family. All of a sudden the long hours mattered more. Read more>>

Hosanna Rull | Brand / web designer & branding photographer

My life: Work balance has changed a lot over time and over each phase of my life. In the beginning, like every new hustler I became obsessed with my work and for some reason I prided myself how busy I was, how little sleep I was getting, and how no matter how much work I was juggling I still said yes to every event and GNO I was invited too. I was starting to gain weight, missing fitness goals, and even struggling with heart palps from all the coffee I was consuming. The first adjustment I made was only accept projects that made a certain amount of profit. Then I stopped telling everybody how busy I was. I realized I was expecting this make believe trophy for jam packing my schedule. Read more>>

Monera James | Fashion Entrepreneur

I believe that work life balance changes consistently and will look different day by day. What balance means to me is delegating as much time as possible for myself, family, friends, and business. One day will not look like the other some days I can check off everything on my list and somedays I may only check one. No amount of scheduling is guaranteed that you will not drop the ball in some area of your life. The point is to keep picking it up and trying not drop it in the same area as before. Give yourself grace, you have to do what you can when you can and not be hard on yourself, especially if you are doing your absolute best! Read more>>

Natasha Rutland | Baker & Nurse

Outside of utilizing my baking skills, I’m also a registered nurse at a hospital that specializes in eradicating cancer.It’s a 40+ hour job and I also have two small children that are now home more than usual due to the pandemic we’re learning to navigate through. Maintaining the interests of my children in STEM activities is also important to me and it has made for many long nights and early mornings. With the steady increase in cupcake orders, I recently made adjustments to my baking schedule by making deliveries on Mondays and Friday-Sunday for now. Read more>>

Melissa, Andrew Munoz, Gonzalez | Melissa Munoz & Andrew Gonzalez

After starting Tejas Mexi-Q, our work/life balance shifted quite a bit. We were (and still are) working more often that we’re not. For us, being our own boss means answering the phone and emails 24/7, giving up weekends and constantly brainstorming new ideas on how to be better. Even though we are technically always on the clock, it does not feel like work. Finding something you truly love to do and turning it into a business is a dream. Read more>>

Dionna James | Freelance Makeup Artist

When I first started my business I was burning both ends of the stick between my day job, my business and other things I was involved in. One day I wore myself completely thin and needed up getting sick and from that moment on I decided that I need to set some boundaries and create a set schedule and now things run so much smoother. So morale of the story is create a solid schedule and set boundaries for yourself and your business. Read more>>

Carrington Barfield | Fashion & Lifestyle Blogger

Work/life balance has always been something I value, especially since starting my own business. I’ve never wanted to be someone who can’t “leave the office” so to speak. I think it’s important to have family time and to be able to put away the work while you’re at home. When you have a blog especially, it’s often difficult to do that, as most weekends I have to spend time shooting pics or finishing up sponsored posts for the following week. I really just try to not spend more than a few hours each weekend out shooting and when my boyfriend and I do go out shooting, we try to incorporate elements of fun into being out and about as well. Read more>>