On February 19, UVU alum and well-known life coach Emily Cheney shared insights with women from UVU and the local community as part of the WBIL Impact DEN (Develop, Engage, Network) series. Related to her talk, Emily contributed the following article about best practices for achieving work-life balance.
Three years ago, while studying music at UVU, I was struggling to balance the many responsibilities in my life—rehearsals, performances, classes, homework, my business, and being a newlywed. It often felt overwhelming, and I couldn't shake the thought that, once I started a career and family, I would only take on more. Was I destined to live a life constantly short on time, stressed, and exhausted? The stress was affecting my relationships and even my love for music. Something had to change. That’s when I met my first life coach. She was accomplishing more than anyone I knew, but without all the stress. Her insights empowered me to take on a rigorous life coach certification while in college, running two businesses, and managing my responsibilities without sacrificing my physical or mental health. I realized that no matter how much you have on your plate, it is possible to feel calm, capable, and in control.
The first thing you need to understand is what the real problem is. When we’re feeling overwhelmed or burned out, we often think the problem is our workload, our boss, our family situation, or how busy we are. But the real problem is how we’re thinking about it. There’s a huge difference between the circumstances of our lives and our thoughts about those circumstances.
Circumstances are the neutral facts—things that can be proven true. For example, the temperature outside, the number on the scale, how many hours you work, or the exact words someone said. To be more specific: It’s 35 degrees today,I weigh 150 pounds,I work 7 hours a day, or someone said the words, “You don’t care about me.” These are neutral facts that aren’t good or bad until we assign meaning to them with our thoughts. In other words, circumstances are not inherently positive or negative—it’s our thoughts about them that make them feel that way.
Thoughts are our interpretation of those circumstances, influenced by our beliefs, past experiences, and opinions. And it’s our thoughts that create our feelings. This is key because we often feel like we’re at the mercy of our circumstances. For instance, when there’s a work deadline coming up, we think we’re overwhelmed because of the deadline itself. Or if our kids don’t clean the house to our standards, we might feel frustrated because of them. But what I want to show you is that the reason we feel overwhelmed or frustrated is not because of the circumstances themselves—it’s because of what we’re thinking about those circumstances. Our thoughts create our feelings, which drive our actions, and create our results.
Here’s what this looks like:
And in another example:
This happens so quickly we often don’t catch it, but it’s happening all day, every day.
When we think we’re at the affect of our circumstances, it’s hard to take control. But the truth is, it’s your thoughts that drive your feelings, your feelings drive your actions, and your actions then create your results. Thus, your thoughts literally create your results! Everything comes back to our mind. This process is called The Model, developed by Brooke Castillo, the founder of The Life Coach School, where I was certified. It’s a tool that can help you with any problem, including work-life balance.
Here’s how The Model works in real life. Let’s say you want to lose weight but you struggle with consistency. One day, you eat a bunch of cookies, and the thought pops into your head: “It’s not possible for me to lose weight.” You feel hopeless, so you stop following your diet, beat yourself up, and avoid the scale. The result? You make it nearly impossible to lose weight.
Now, if you shift your thinking just a bit: “That wasn’t my best, but it doesn’t mean I can’t lose weight,” you feel determined. You plan your meals, talk to a friend for accountability, and keep going. The result? You keep working toward your goal and make progress.
In both scenarios, the circumstances were the same: You weighed 200 pounds and ate cookies. But the thought you chose changed everything. This isn’t about pretending to be perfect or denying struggles—it’s about staying focused on what you can control and choosing thoughts that empower you.
Now, let’s apply this to work-life balance. Imagine you have a big project due at work, but your daughter has a dance performance this weekend, and you want to be there for her. As the deadline approaches, you feel overwhelmed thinking, “I can’t let her down, I have to get this done.” But as you try to focus, stress levels rise, and you start feeling more distracted and disorganized. It’s harder to get things done. And when Friday rolls around, you might still be scrambling to finish your work, unsure if you’ll be able to attend your daughter’s performance.
Here’s what this might look like in The Model:
Notice how this works: The thought “I can’t let her down” leads to feelings of overwhelm, which impacts your actions and creates the result of not meeting your expectations. The stress doesn’t come from the project or the dance performance—it comes from your thoughts about them.
Burnout doesn’t just happen because we are busy. Burnout happens when we are mentally and emotionally overloaded. We get stuck in thoughts like, “There’s not enough time,” or “I’m not good enough.” These thoughts drain our energy and create feelings of stress, pressure, and overwhelm, which affect our ability to perform at our highest. That’s the cause of burnout. But the good news is, you don’t have to stay stuck in that cycle. Change starts with being aware of your thoughts and being more intentional about how you want to think about your life and responsibilities.
Remember, I’m not saying we need to be happy all the time or ignore our challenges. I’m suggesting that by taking responsibility for the way we think, we can better manage our emotions and create more productive, peaceful outcomes. Burnout is not caused by only how much we are doing, but the way we are doing it. You will be surprised by how much you can accomplish and how good you can feel when your mind is free from these heavy thoughts because you know how to manage them.
To help you get started, here are a few thoughts I use to stay productive and determined, rather than overwhelmed and burned out:
The key to achieving work-life balance isn’t about doing less or having the perfect schedule—it’s in how you choose to think. By shifting your mindset into productive thoughts, you can transform overwhelm into clarity, stress into peace, and exhaustion into energy. You don’t have to wait for less to do or more time—you have the power to feel calm and capable right now. The change is within your control, and it begins with your thoughts.
