Kelly was scrolling recently and saw a post from a woman describing her life. Running a business. Present with her kids. Healthy body. Intentional home. The caption said something like: you really can have it all, you just have to build it intentionally.
And Kelly felt something. She sat with it.
The feeling? Tired. Not angry. Not jealous. Just… tired. Even though nothing in the post was aggressive or demanding.
If you’ve ever felt that flash of fatigue at someone else’s curated fullness, this one’s for you.
This Month on Chasing Brighter
We’re three weeks into our identity and expectations series. Week one, we explored the identity shift — the quiet drift of becoming someone new. Week two, we unpacked unconditional worthiness and the sneaky way we tie our value to what we produce.
This week, we’re going cultural. Because underneath the individual struggle with identity and worth, there’s a bigger story running — one that’s been told to women for decades. And it’s time to blow it up.
Where “Having It All” Actually Came From
The phrase goes back to the 1980s — the idea that women could have careers and families and personal fulfillment simultaneously. It was sold as liberation. Finally, women didn’t have to choose.
But pretty quickly, having it all became doing it all. Which nobody can sustain. And yet the phrase kept evolving. It got softer language. Now it’s about intentional living. Alignment. Purposeful balance.
It sounds so much better.
And yet here we are — scrolling through someone’s curated life at 10 p.m. and feeling like we’re falling behind in a race we never signed up for.
Shonda Rhimes put it as plainly as anyone has. In her now-famous Dartmouth commencement speech, she answered the question she gets asked constantly — How do you do it all? — with radical honesty. She said she doesn’t. When she’s excelling at work, she’s missing moments at home. When she’s present with her kids, something at work is slipping. That’s not failure. That’s what one person with finite time and energy actually looks like.
And the myth? The myth is that there’s a version of a woman’s life where nothing is slipping. Where everything blooms at the same time. Where balance is a state you can hold instead of a thing you’re constantly losing and finding again.
That version doesn’t exist. And believing it should is what makes us feel broken.
The Reframe: Seasons, Not Simultaneity
Here’s what we keep coming back to: a good life doesn’t have to be a simultaneous life. It can be a sequential one.
Jessica’s life is a perfect example. She put her own dreams on pause to support Justin through medical school. She created a new dream staying home with her kids. Then she built a therapy practice. Then two podcasts. These things didn’t all happen at once. They happened in seasons.
And that’s not a consolation prize. That’s actually a richer and more honest story than “I had it all at the same time.”
The pressure to have everything in balance simultaneously — that’s the problem. Not your life. Your life is actually full. Just not all at once.
Research on work-family conflict supports this. Studies consistently find that the pursuit of simultaneous optimization across roles leads to greater stress, lower satisfaction, and higher burnout — not because people aren’t trying hard enough, but because the model itself is unsustainable. The women who report the highest life satisfaction aren’t the ones doing everything at once. They’re the ones who’ve given themselves permission to prioritize differently in different seasons.
Happiness as a Choice, Not a Result
There’s one more thing Jessica said that’s worth sitting with: I am happy because I choose to be — not because of my career or my family.
Read that again.
Happiness as a choice rather than a result. That removes the achievement from the equation entirely. It means you don’t have to earn your way to joy by assembling the right combination of roles and accomplishments. You just choose it. Today. In this season. With what you have.
That’s not toxic positivity. That’s agency.
🎧 Listen to This Week’s Episode
We go deeper on this one — including Kelly’s story about closing an app after a 45-minute comparison spiral and the one question that pulled her back. It’s the kind of honest conversation you don’t usually hear on this topic.
👉 [Listen to Episode 3: Having It All Is a Myth — And I’m Done Pretending Otherwise]
✨ Try This This Week
- Catch the comparison: Notice once this week where you measure your life against an invisible “everything” standard. Just name it to yourself — “I’m comparing my life to an everything list right now.” That awareness is more useful than most strategies.
- Name your season: Ask yourself: what season am I in right now? Not the ideal life — this season. What does this season actually call for? Give yourself permission to let that be enough.
- Choose joy today: If you’ve been waiting to be happy until things are more arranged — try choosing it instead. One small thing today that’s just for you. Not earned. Just chosen.
📚 Go Deeper: Research + Resources
- Shonda Rhimes, Dartmouth Commencement (2014) — Rhimes dismantled the “doing it all” myth with radical honesty, explaining that success in one area of life almost always means something is slipping in another. It remains one of the most cited takedowns of the having-it-all narrative.
- Work-Family Conflict Research (Greenhaus & Beutell) — Foundational research on inter-role conflict shows that the demands of work and family roles are often mutually incompatible, leading to strain when people try to optimize both simultaneously rather than sequentially.
- Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan) — Research shows that intrinsic motivation — doing things because they align with your values rather than external expectations — leads to greater well-being and more sustainable satisfaction. Choosing happiness rather than chasing it is backed by the science.
🔗 Keep Reading
- Previous in the series: You Are Worthy. Full Stop. — If the “having it all” pressure is tied to your sense of worth, start here.
- Next in the series: Still Figuring It Out — And That’s the Point — Next week we’re closing out May with something raw and real: sliding back into old patterns and what to do when you catch yourself.
- From last month: Invisible Labor: The Unpaid Job Nobody Put on Your Resume — The having-it-all myth doesn’t account for invisible labor. This one makes it visible.
You don’t have to bloom in every season.
You don’t have to hold everything at once.
You just have to be honest about what this season actually needs — and let that be enough.
That’s a full life. 🤍