As one of my closest friends and I move forward in our entrepreneurial pursuits we adopted a mantra to get us through tough days.

It’s ridiculous.

Shameful.

Appalling.

I admit it.

Ready?

“What would Oprah do?” [insert serious face]

It started as a joke. But, at some point we started to truly believe in these four simple words.

If I was exhausted, my friend (who I shall name Girl X) would firmly ask, “Girl, what would Oprah do?” That question would motivate me to push forward, working all hours of night to complete my 25 item things to do list.

For the past four months, WWOD has kept us going…

Fast forward to month five.

One night, as I was working to get this blog off of the ground, I was simply exhausted.

Girl X was not around to shout WWOD at me.

So, I tried a bit of self-talk [insert another serious face]

“Patrice, you can do this. ‘WWOD?'”

Let’s just say, that ish backfired.

All I could think was:

But, Oprah has a staff of like 100 people.

But, Oprah probably ain’t doing her own laundry and the million tasks that I have to take care of every day.

And she may or may not be cooking, but she probably has a team of 10 helping in the kitchen, alone.

And lastly, I loudly proclaimed

“Screw WWOD. I’m Going to Bed!”

On that day, and despite my respect for Lady O, I laid WWOD to rest. I have not looked back.

The lesson? So what if I don’t get it all done.

Do what I can. Celebrate accomplishments and rest in the name of work life balance.

Have you ever had an “a-ha” moment like mine? What lessons did you learn from it?