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The phrase “work/life balance” is one of those well-worn terms we hear all too often. What exactly is work/life balance? Can your work be equally balanced against your personal life? Like the scales of justice (or that old-time scale you see in the vegetable section of your grocery store), the scales never sit perfectly still and aligned – they are constantly moving. What you want to see are the scales only dipping slightly more to one side or another, as sometimes your work needs more of you, and sometimes your personal life needs more.
How did I get here?
In coaching, one of the things I’ve noticed is that people have not stopped to look at what they’re balancing currently and need to off-load, rejig or redistribute in order to create more of that balanced scale effect.
If you think back to your 20s and early 30s, that was the time where you created your goals: career, housing, partnering, children, etc. Those were big goals you set your sights on, and you went about the process of trying to achieve them.
But as your life creeps into the 40s, 50s and 60s, you’re so busy trying to juggle all those balls you set in motion a long time ago that you’ve never taken the time to examine a) what you have achieved; b) what’s still working; c) what’s not working; and most importantly, d) what do you want next?
Resetting the scales
In order to create more work/life balance, taking the time to examine what you’re doing and why you’re doing it is the first step. For example, perhaps you’ve achieved many of your career goals but find you have no time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. That’s a good reason to set up some coaching sessions to figure out where you can offload, redistribute, or handle differently those tasks which don’t align with your values (and the 24 hours in your day). Not only that, what you valued in your 20s may be very different from what you value now, at this later stage of life. The time to reset the scales isn’t when you’re 70, or when you’re burned out, or when you just keep going on that hamster wheel because you won’t take the time to get off for a few hours. Nothing will change until you take charge of your life.
Work/life balance doesn’t mean quitting your job or having no life
This isn’t an either/or situation. The word “balance” in work/life is just that – a balancing of all the things you have to do and the things you want to do, and finding a way to feel complete, where all aspects of you have time to shine.
Creating the template
In order to create work/life balance, here are some questions to ask yourself:
1) What am I currently doing that I dislike?
2) What am I currently doing that I love?
3) What proportion of my time do I want to spend… a) At work? b) With friends/family? c) Engaged in self-care activities?
4) In looking at #3, how am I doing today compared to what I want to be doing?
5) What do I value? Write as many values as you can think of. Example: honesty, fun,
laughter, connection, self-love, freedom, peace, etc.
6) With what I’m currently doing that I dislike, are there ways I can… a) Stop doing the task? b) Get help doing the task? c) Do the task in less time? d) Be more creative and evolve this task to be more pleasant?
7) If I had no fear and commitments at all, what would I be doing today?
8) If being X (insert one of your values) is very important to me, what can I do to make X more of a priority?
9) When I’m 70, what do I want to be able to look back and say I accomplished?
10) If I knew I only had 15 more years on this earth, what would I do?
Obviously these are some big questions you’re asking yourself. It’s important to be brutally honest with yourself and be prepared to make some difficult decisions. However, the reward is a life that is more aligned and in tune with who you are and what you want to be HERE. TODAY. NOW.
Posted in Work Life Balance
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