The Art of Achieving a Work-Life Balance: Quotes From Some of the Most Successful People Who Prove You Can Do It All

So much wise advice, and such proof that we really can have it all. We can embrace balance, and still give time and focus to all the things that really matter in our lives.
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Too often people believe that to achieve success, they must give up their personal life. They do not believe that work-life balance is possible in a meaningful way. These people miss out on the meaningful moments in theirs, and the people's that are important to their lives. They never realize that it is truly possible to have it all. Success, and a meaningful and balanced life. There is no better way to demonstrate this than to hear it directly from some of the most successful people in the world.

1."When you're gone would you rather have your gravestone say, 'He never missed a meeting?" Or one that said, 'He was a great father.'" -- Steve Blank, @sgblank, author of The Startup Owner's Manual


2. "You will never feel truly satisfied by work until you are satisfied by life." ― Heather Schuck, the Working Mom Manifesto


3. Balance is not better time management, but better boundary management. Balance means making choices and enjoying those choices. - Betsy Jacobson


4."Take care of yourself: When you don't sleep, eat crap, don't exercise, and are living off adrenaline for too long, your performance suffers. Your decisions suffer. Your company suffers. Love those close to you: Failure of your company is not failure in life. Failure in your relationship is." ―Ev Williams, co-founder of Medium and Twitter


5. Balance, peace, and joy are the fruit of a successful life. It starts with recognizing your talents and finding ways to serve others by using them. -Thomas Kinkade

6. I've learned that you can't have everything and do everything at the same time. -Oprah Winfrey


7. "Don't confuse having a career with having a life."-- Hillary Clinton


8. "Work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls - family, health, friends, and integrity - are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered." - Gary Keller


9. "You don't have to make yourself miserable to be successful. It's natural to look back and mythologize the long nights and manic moments of genius, but success isn't about working hard, it's about working smart." ―Andrew Wilkinson, founder of MetaLab


10. "I believe that being successful means having a balance of success stories across the many areas of your life. You can't truly be considered successful in your business life if your home life is in shambles". - Zig Ziglar

11."Reconsider your definitions. We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to mankind.: - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.


12."Burnout is about resentment. [Preventing it is] about knowing yourself well enough to know what it is you're giving up that makes you resentful." -- Marissa Mayer, @marissamayer, CEO at Yahoo

13. "You are always a valuable, worthwhile human being... not because anybody says so, not because you're successful, not because you make a lot of money... but because you decide to believe it and for no other reason." - Wayne Dyer

14. "Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life." - Dolly Parton

15. "It is better to rise from life as from a banquet - neither thirsty nor drunken." - Aristotle

16."Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important."- Stephen R Covey

17. "Balance activity with serenity, wealth and simplicity, persistence with innovation, community with solitude, familiarity with adventure, constancy with change, leading with following." - Jonathan Lockwood Huie


18."No matter how busy you are, or how busy you think you are, the work will always be there tomorrow, but your friends might not be." - Anonymous

19. "I don't think a lot of founders really want to hear this, but you set the tone from day one, so who you are is going to be reflected in the culture of the early team. So for us, that was a culture of being scrappy, but honest. Working hard, but also having that sense of balance and sort of respecting one's life outside the office. Making it happen no matter what." -- Julia Hartz, @juliahartz, co-founder of Eventbrite

20. "The most important career decision you'll make is who your life partner is." -- Sheryl Sandberg, @sherylsandberg, COO of Facebook

So much wise advice, and such proof that we really can have it all. We can embrace balance, and still give time and focus to all the things that really matter in our lives. It goes against what we have been told we need to do to achieve, and to provide. However, following that advice leaves room for success in only one area of our life. To be truly successful, we must have balance across all meaningful areas of our life. We now know, from some of the most successful people we can think of, that this balance is truly possible.

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