acknowledge our priorities and are able to complete the tasks in front of us with higher efficiency. When we try to achieve balance, we end up overwhelmed, with the stress making it harder to get anything done with as much competency.
That night, I synthesized the ideas in front of me with that lesson I had learned in church all those years ago. When we know our priorities, we can focus our efforts on the things that matter most to us in that moment. When we focus on flow rather than trying to balance all of our different priorities, we’re better able to concentrate and get in the zone as we work on the parts of our life that are highest up on the list at any given moment. We’re more likely to do a better job, build confidence in our own abilities, and feel fulfilled in our purpose. All of these things lead to contentment and less stress.
What does this have to do with money?
If all this is feeling rather squishy to you, rest assured that there are hard numbers involved. When we choose our careers over becoming a homemaker or even having a family at all, it inherently impacts how much money we’re bringing in every month. Making this decision increases our cashflow and allows us to avoid those dreaded resume gaps that so many claim are to blame for the gender pay gap.
But choosing to be a homemaker is just as valid of a decision. Maybe you ran the numbers and you’d essentially be working to put your kids in daycare. Maybe you’d make enough, but you’ve decided you’d feel more fulfilled raising children and keeping house 24/7. Or maybe you and your spouse have decided it will go the other way around: your spouse will stay home while you work.
Foregoing childbearing—whether in favor of a career or not—is just as valid a decision as having kids. You give up a lot of freedom when you become a parent, and knowing that’s not something you want to sacrifice is a mature and rational decision.
Remember that feminism is about equal access to choices. Your priorities are just that: yours. They’re not anyone else’s, and if others judge you for them, that’s their problem—not yours. You can be a feminist homemaker or a CEO, or you can spend your time wandering the world as a digital nomad. All of these are valid choices. The goals of feminism are to make all these options available to you and to have the decision to pursue any particular route be made by you and your partner if you have one—not by outside cultural pressures.
You cannot be all things to all people at once. As empowering of a concept as it’s meant to be, in reality, there is no superwoman. We’re all just imperfect beings trying to make the best decisions possible relative to the context of our own lived experience.
We can better do that when we recognize we will never be omnipotent. When we prioritize and release some of the stress of being all things at all times, we are actually doing a lot to help our bottom line. A 2014 study at the University of Michigan revealed that women going through acute stress saw an income decrease of 18 percent to 30 percent. While we’ll never be able to dodge all stress, we can relieve some of it by letting go of the idea of becoming that woman with a perfectly balanced life, and potentially improve our finances while we’re at it.
Instead, we can go with the flow, allowing ourselves to live our best lives rather than what we think is the life of the “perfect” woman. Because she doesn’t exist.
The Imperfect Wealthy Woman
We’ve established and accepted that the “perfect” or “super” woman is a myth. But we can still find wealth even with all our perfectly normal imperfections.
Defining wealth is tricky business, though. Traditionally, the word is associated with mountains of money. While that’s certainly one aspect of wealth, you can have tons of cash and still be totally miserable. We also need to pay attention to factors like our physical health, mental health, social networks, and overall contentment.
If you’re working 60 hours per week in front of a screen, you may have a ton of money but not a ton of physical activity in your life. You may also be having a hard time connecting with your friends and family because of the scarcity of free time. This is a problem because our social connections play a large role in our mental health and have even been identified as a corollary factor in living a longer life.
And then there is contentment or happiness. This is such a complex topic that the entire next chapter will be dedicated to it. Before we delve into how to be happy, though, take a minute and think about your own values. In much the same way as you prioritize your time, consider how you prioritize these factors as contributing to your overall wealth status. Because a wealthy life isn’t all about dollars and cents.
Take Action
•Let go of the idea of superwoman.
•Prioritize these five areas of your life:
•Family
•Friends
•Work/School
•Volunteer/Community Efforts
•Personal Goal
Be sure to rank them in order of importance to you now, not by how important each has been to you in the past. Also make sure you are making these decisions without outside influence.
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•Before you get into evaluating your money, think about how you are doing in other areas of your life, as these can affect your perception of being your wealthiest self, too. Some examples include physical health, mental health, social networks, and overall contentment.
Money Isn’t the Key to Happiness
Stop chasing cash. And stop chasing smiles while you’re at it.
We’ve established that you won’t find happiness in having it all—primarily because that’s an unachievable goal. We’ve also identified that happiness or contentment is a primary concern when we’re defining what a wealthy life looks like for us as individuals. Despite that, you may be surprised to find out that the reverse isn’t necessarily true: the amount of money in your bank account does not dictate your happiness levels.
According to research by positive psychology professor Sonja Lyubomirsky, only about 10 percent of one’s happiness level can be attributed to our circumstances. Our circumstances include things like where we live, how we look, and—yes—how much money we make. That means that our income has far less than 10 percent bearing on how content we are in our life.
That being said, not having enough money can lead to higher stress levels. Higher stress obviously makes us less
