Balance. Some people feel that this term is inappropriate, as it gives the impression of a weighing scale with work on one side and life on the other.
However I feel that balance is a perfect term for what we are trying to achieve. In the real world, balance is not a static experience; it is a fluid re-adjustment in response to our surroundings. Physiologically, chemically and emotionally our bodies constantly adjust to internal and external conditions.
Work/life balance refers to the need for us to constantly evaluate and readjust to the various demands of the job and our personal needs. Now, there's nothing wrong with making short-term sacrifices when you are trying to achieve a goal, the problems arise when self sacrifice and deferred happiness becomes a way of life. According to Hamilton and Denniss, authors of 'Affluenza', deferred happiness syndrome is ‘persisting with life situations that are difficult, stressful and exhausting in the belief that the sacrifice will pay off in the longer term'.
Instead of a fluid re-adjustment to periods of overwork, we respond like Pavlov's dogs to our work culture and our own expectations of what a ‘good' leader needs to do to get ahead. We become comfortable with specific ways of thinking or doing. When this occurs, we tend not to really ‘listen' to the feedback our bodies and minds are giving us. We become static in our thinking and actions.
And even though these patterns may be unhealthy and we may even start to develop some physical, relationship or emotional signs, we ignore them. It is called cognitive dissonance - this is the incongruity we experience when a belief and action are in conflict. For example believing family is a number one priority but spending inordinate amounts of time away from them because of work. Unfortunately, what tends to happen is that people start to change their beliefs in order to justify why they continue to act the same way.
Many of the leaders I have worked with, initially had a raft of reasons why they worked the hours they did. As they dug deeper, many eventually admitted that they knew that they were living lives that were unbalanced, but often felt trapped by their own and others expectations.
So, do you listen and adjust or have you become static? To help you re-evaluate your current working patterns, take this short test. Which statements would you answer ‘yes' to?
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- You don't like what you are doing for a living, but feel trapped and unable to do anything else
- You often have to take work home or complete work on the weekends
- You don't seem able to spend the time you want with your family/friends
- You often blame the rush and press of external things for your inability to spend time on yourself
- You think scheduled breaks are a good idea, but have never got round to it or the time gets filled up with other things
- You rarely take the time to look after (or even think about) your health
- You wonder if being successful is worth it
- You feel guilty when you take time off work
- You find it difficult to keep in regular contact with a network of friends
- You don't have time for personal interests, such as hobbies, sport or religion
- You don't feel motivated or get satisfaction from your work as you used to
- You often eat lunch or other meals while you work, or skip them altogether
- It feels like you spend your life doing what you ‘should' instead of what you really would like to do
- Your relationships with family/friends are suffering because of your workload
- You feel that you are always playing ‘catch up', no matter how hard you work
- You assume that your family/friends will understand if you have to work late
- You don't feel that you have time to relax and enjoy life
- You have not sought assistance for a medical condition as you do not have the time
Score 1 point for each 'Yes'. Score: ____________
0 - Congratulations - you are doing well
1 - 4 - You could benefit from a review of your personal and professional goals and current work/life strategies
5 - 10 - You require some planned time for self-reflection and need to incorporate changes to increase your work/life balance
11 and over - You need to take immediate action |
We are certainly not the first generation to spend long hours at work away from our families and friends, but we are probably the first to choose to do so based on priorities other than the need for food, shelter and survival. The trouble with many work/life balance strategies is that they are based on the premise that we will be happier if we just learn to do things more efficiently. So we are told that we must get up earlier, delegate, learn to multitask, adopt whiz-bang strategies for prioritising, cluster our activities, write lists, only handle pieces of paper once, use electronic gizmos that can help us to plan better, use our drive time to dictate, employ a battery of service providers, and use internet services such as banking.
There is no doubt that these strategies have helped many people to fit more into their days, but where they fail spectacularly is that these strategies do not end up creating more time for ‘life'. Why not? Because history has shown that when we find ways to do things faster we use the time we've ‘saved' to do more work, not to have more life. We see it today in research that shows despite all the new streamlined services and systems, and despite all the new whiz-bang technology, we're spending more time at work than ever before.
None of these strategies help you to ‘listen' - to really address the underlying issues. Today, in the developed world, we have the ability to spend more but we're not happier; we have bigger homes with less people living in them; we have more gadgets but less time to use them; we spend less time being involved in our communities, but complain about feeling isolated; we paint ourselves into corners with high levels of debt, but we still want it all now.
The bottom line is–
Work/life balance is about finding the best mix of fulfilling demands and meeting your own needs. Even though there are many legitimate external pressures that affect us, undoubtedly the single most important issue we need to address is our own mind-set. Unfortunately, it is our own expectations of self-sacrifice and delayed gratification that are largely to blame. So while we may kid ourselves that we won't defer our happiness forever; that we will slow down once the business is up and running, when we pay off the mortgage, when we build the extension, when we've put the kids through university–the reality is that what we are doing now may leave us with negative long-term health and relationship consequences.
Remember work/life balance is not a static experience; take the time to listen to your personal feedback and adjust where necessary.