Jess Lively

This year I have learned many lessons. It was outwardly my most transformational year and inwardly I made similar progress as well.

One lesson I’ve learned over and over each month is that having “it all” in my career is not a recipe for happiness.

I received many emails and compliments while I was juggling Jess LC, Business with Intention, and the blog. Very kind mentions about how I was so lucky to “have it all.”

But I will tell you the experience of juggling everything was not increasing my quality of life.

There is a saying that I was reminded of time and again this year that says “when you pick up one end of the stick, you pick up the other.” And holding three sticks logs with opposite ends so weighty was draining.

I constantly felt like I was working “in” my businesses, not “on” them… unless I was pulling night and weekend hours (which is never my long-term intention). And though I initially planned to alleviate some of my workload by taking on a more permanent manager for Jess LC, I was stopped in the nick of time by my intuition.

When I started this blog in 2009 I named it Makeunder My Life. After a series of failed attempts at deep happiness via external additions like purses, candy bars, guys, and lipstick, I realized life is improved and strengthened when it is reduced to the most intentional elements. When the unintentional excess is cut out, we shine.

And this universal concept applied to my career as well. Sure if I was truly meant to juggle all three businesses for the rest of my life I would have found a way to make it work. But the fact that I was feeling dull, exhausted, and depleted was a great indication that my “all” was too much.

I think what I’m really trying to say is that no matter how glossy a career looks from the outside, no matter how tempted we are to wish we had a company/job/career like so-and-so, we never know what’s lurking on the other end of that stick. And spending time wishing for “it all” is really a recipe for stress and burnout.

Rather, I hope that we can learn to look inside ourselves for internal direction to find the path that is suited to our strengths, talents, and purpose. Because that’s the stick worth holding.