Is Work Stealing Your Feeling of Balance in Your Personal Life? Take Steps to Get That Balance Back
As someone that promotes wellness in the workplace, I am constantly listening to the people around me to learn as much as I can about topics like work/life balance, stress in the work world and the effects of work on things like sleep and nutrition.
I met a good friend of mine for a glass of wine last Saturday. She was telling me about how she had just left work and was hoping she could avoid going in the next day. That captured my attention as she seems to be at work late most days, and then in on the weekend. She then proceeded to tell me about how she was really worried about all the work she had piling up, and it was causing her a lot of stress. She described a dream she had experienced the night before. She had been at work and a co worker had asked to talk to her. She walked into that persons office and her co-worker started yelling at her… and she responded by stomping away in a pretty bad mood. Her boss and the in-house lawyer then walked into her office to tell her that she needed to apologize to the rude coworker that had just yelled at her!! She woke up… and had to get ready and go to work. What a great example of work life taking over personal time. My poor friend has so much on her ‘work plate’ that it has started to affect her stress levels outside of work and her sleep. She is VERY good at her job and really identifies with it…. and thus takes the results that she has at work to heart. It seems to have invaded her personal time as well though. Not just through time at work… but time stressing about work. Do you identify with this story? If so, it may be positive for you to take a moment to think about whether or not you are happy with the time you have for yourself. You deserve it. You may be very good at your job, but you are good at your LIFE too… and deserve to feel balance. The first step to making changes in this area is realizing what you are currently doing.
Do you feel a sense of balance between your work and your life? If not, I encourage you to ask yourself the following questions….
1. What are the biggest priorities in your life?
2. Are you happy with how much time you spend on your priorities?
3. Why is it important to you that you focus on your priorities?
4. What are your challenges with achieving work/ life balance?
5. Why is achieving work/life balance important to you?
5. What small change can you make this week that will help you start achieving the balance you desire?
This exercise is just a small activity you can do to start thinking about achieving the balance you deserve. I teach a lot of seminars on work/life balance and have learned A LOT about it in the process. My participants are the best teachers!! This is just a jumping off point… but you have to start somewhere….
Wishing you balance and wellness this holiday season!
April Smith
January 6th, 2010 at 12:42 pm
Finding that work/life balance is a continuous challenge. I like these questions to help determine individual priorities and in order to make change, one needs to truly put those priorities into action. I learned at a seminar that family time should always be written in ink in your daytimer, so that those activities do not change. Other appointments can be written in pencil. Since I own my own business, I struggle with spending enough time on my business and question if I spend enough time with my family or with myself. I have to break it down to one day at a time and what can I do today to achieve that balance. I also have to accept that I am not perfect and some days I will achieve this better than others. Small changes is how it works. For example, today I am making time for excercise, which will help me cope with any stress that comes my way. Thanks for such a great topic.
January 6th, 2010 at 9:00 pm
Hi April, Thanks for your blog. Its good to hear your perspective on stress, work, personal life and finding balance. It’s a very important topic. I know I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself already even before work or or personal life adds to it. I guess it’s partly personality based. But it’s also a lot like you say: it’s about priorities and being able to sort out what to spend time on and what is not as significant - because the truth is: some things can wait and not all things hold equal value - we just cannot please everyone.
There came a point when I was feeling so much pressure from work and my personal life that it really brought me to an unhealthy place in my life. Now I have learned from this and really make an effort to protect my personal time in order to find balance and keep a healthy perspective. Work cannot just take over my personal life and there need to be boundaries.
The small thing I do each week to acheive balance is to schedule in ‘my time’. This is the time when work or other expectations, duties and demands of life are not allowed to infringe on this time. I have heard it said that you need to take care of ‘the chicken that produces the golden eggs’ - meaning to take care of yourself so that you can be productive because once you stop taking care of yourself you will not be productive and will not ‘lay those golden eggs’.
Thanks again for the reminder about what is important.
James