I've had a number of people ask me about work-life balance recently (perhaps because I've been working on so many exciting projects). It caused me to pause and reflect on what work-life balance means and what is the best way to achieve it. When I really thought about it, I was able to boil it down to 3 simple steps. Well, simple to do, but not always simple to implement. Here they are...
1. Decide what matters to you.
Make sure you consider things like relationships, family, money, health, fun, relaxation and success. Not only do I want you to decide what matters to you, I want you to go through and decide which of these matter most. It sounds really easy but when you get into the nitty-gritty of putting these in an order it causes you to have some really interesting conversations with yourself.
2. Assess your life
So this is where it gets a bit confrontational (with yourself). Take your ordered list of things that matter and compare it to your life. How much time are you giving to the things that are most important to you? How important are the things that you are spending most of your time doing? This can be a real eye-opener. How many of you had Facebook or watching TV as a priority?
Do you have incongruence between what you want and what you do? Most of us do (and perhaps always will to a certain degree) but often we don't even recognise it. This is really important because if we are living a life that is incongruent with our values we are going to be stressed and if the stress is more than we are able to handle it will make us sick. Not only that, but if the areas we are lacking balance in include eating well, exercising and positive thinking, then we are going to compound the health problems we see.
3. Alter your actions
I am going to assume that you have found some incongruence there - most of us do. So the next question is, what are you going to do about it? You now have a chance to act on this new information. Sure you may not be able to instantly put your life back into perfect balance but I guarantee you there is something you could do right now that would help move you back in the right direction. It could be as simple as committing to reading your child a story or having a nice dinner with your wife.
Remember that work-life balance is a journey not a destination, and will be out of balance by necessity at certain times in your life. However by making sure you are aware of the inconsistencies between what matters to you and what you spend your time doing, you will help keep more balance in your life and you will achieve better health as a result.
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