Joanna Gaines is reflecting on finding balance in life.
The Magnolia founder is a busy woman, juggling her home business empire and life as a mom to her five kids with Chip Gaines.
The couple has been married since 2003, and share daughters Ella Rose, 18, and Emmie Kay, 15, and sons Drake, 20, Duke, 16, and Crew, six.
Writing for the Magnolia Journal Spring 2025 issue, Joanna wrote how she has in her life "looked to balance as a benchmark, a way of measuring how well I'm holding my life together," and that balance has always been "the light at the end of the tunnel, the antidote of sorts for whatever chaos was swirling nearby."
She then recalled: "In my 20s, for instance, I was mothering small children and a small business, and I longed for the secret to make it all achievable. I was exhausted, so I sought balance for the promise of peace."
"Then, in my 30s our business grew overnight, and our dreams were taking off, and I longed for the secret to savor every moment. We were running — fast — so I sought balance for the promise of wholehearted fulfillment," she added.
© Lisa Petrole for Magnolia Journal"Balance, or the idea of it, became a destination, a finish line, and yet this promised land always felt just out of reach," she went on, admitting: "It didn't seem to matter how often I reorganized my schedule, chose this over that, or simply said 'no.' There were very few seasons that felt like I'd nailed it — like I was flourishing on every front in brilliant, shimmering unison."
"Perhaps even more than that, what I found when I held my schedule and my time so preciously was the perspective it produced about what I could or couldn't let into my life. I saw balance as this fragile thing to behold. My desire to reach it bred in me a scarcity mindset, and it made me hesitant. If something new, something unexpected, even something worthwhile landed in my path, I felt as though there was no space left in my arms to pick it up or look it over, much less pull it close," she further reflected.
© InstagramJoanna then shared the approach to balance she has landed on, writing: "I no longer buy the idea that rigidity leads to peace or deep fulfillment. In my experience, balance can often look like staying still because you're too afraid to take on more. Too afraid to drop something. Too afraid to tip over. And that's just not the way I want my world to go on spinning."
© Getty ImagesShe added: "As I'm wrestling with the idea of balance, I've started to wonder if the most important thing isn't actually what we're holding, or how well or how equally we're holding it. What if the most important things are those holding us up? The things keeping us steady."
© Instagram"I now believe it's the things that keep me steady that will move me forward, which for me looks like belief that runs deep. It looks like time spent taking in beauty. Good connection with the people closest to me. It's being true to how I'm built, meaning I won't give myself a hard time for working a long day as long as I also make time for a moment of sheer delight."
The Magnolia Journal Spring 2025 Issue hits newsstands on Friday, February 21 and can be purchased online now at Magazines.com.
