{"id":174,"date":"2015-03-18T03:02:26","date_gmt":"2015-03-18T03:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/behavioralhealthmn.com\/blog\/?p=174"},"modified":"2021-11-22T14:58:01","modified_gmt":"2021-11-22T20:58:01","slug":"secrets-to-work-life-balance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.behavioralhealthmn.com\/blog\/2015\/03\/18\/secrets-to-work-life-balance\/","title":{"rendered":"Secrets to Work Life Balance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes having it all may not be all it is cracked up to be. In the recent blog post by Karen Young at HeySigmund<\/a>\u00a0identifies 10 different ways to ‘have what you want’ instead of ‘having it all.’ \u00a0Here is a brief summary of the 10 steps, but I encourage you to read the full article<\/a>. (photo credit above: HeySigmund)<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n

    Accept that both work and life might want more than you want to\u00a0give at a particular time. And that\u2019s okay.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Having work life balance doesn\u2019t \u00a0mean that you will be able to give both work and life what they need to flourish \u2013 not at the same time, anyway.\u00a0The truth is, life and work are intertwined \u2013 and that means sometimes one has to compromise for the sake of the other. \u00a0Decide where you want to put your energy and why, then make the decision free from stress, guilt or regret that you can\u2019t do more.<\/li>\n

  2. \n

    \u00a0Be deliberate.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    There\u00a0will always be\u00a0competing needs. You can give time and energy to all of them at different times, but not all at once. Let me illustrate \u2026<\/p>\n

    Think of the important areas of your life \u2013 the big ones for me are self, relationship, work, children. It may be different for you. Imagine that each of these areas is represented by a\u00a0light bulb. To burn at their brightest, they require 10 units of energy each. So to have all 4 light bulbs glowing at their brightest, 40\u00a0units of energy is needed.\u00a0But \u2013 here\u2019s the issue: At any one time, you only ever have a total of 20 units of energy available to put into those light bulbs.<\/p>\n

    The challenge is to accept that, and to distribute your energy wisely and \u2013 here\u2019s the rub \u2013 guilt free.\u00a0So, you can have each at an average glow\u00a0but if one is to excel, the energy has to be taken from somewhere else, compromising the glow from that bulb\/s. With me?\u00a0One can be up to full, but that means there is only 10 units to share between the other 3, so the other bulbs will be switched down to low \u2026 you get the idea. Where you give your energy will change from time to time and probably throughout the day. But the thing to remember is this \u2013 when one is fully on, the others get next to nothing. Spend your 20\u00a0units of energy wisely.<\/li>\n

  3. \n

    Decide what\u2019s important.\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    What\u2019s the role you enjoy the most?\u00a0Wife, husband, mother, father, friend, professional? Don\u2019t make the mistake of thinking that because it\u2019s the one you enjoy that it\u2019s the one that can wait. Be deliberate.<\/li>\n

  4. \n

    Be ruthless about what not\u2019s important.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Work-life clutter is just as suffocating as any form of clutter. Get rid of it. Keep what\u2019s important and get rid of the rest. First though, you might need to make a checklist of what counts as important. Will it get you\u00a0home earlier? Will it tighten the ties? Will it make you more productive? Will it teach you something? Will it help you achieve something?<\/p>\n

    Or are you including it because I want to or because you\u00a0don\u2019t want to say no. Which brings me to \u2026<\/li>\n

  5. \n

    Learn to say \u2018No.\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    When you say \u2018no\u2019 to the things that aren\u2019t important, you\u2019re making room for the\u00a0things that are.\u00a0That \u2018no\u2019 might have just paved the way for dinner with your kiddos.<\/li>\n

  6. \n

    Don\u2019t make yourself too accessible.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Email. Phone. Twitter. Facebook. All good to have but don\u2019t check them all day. Self-impose a restriction on phone and social media \u2013 unless you want to do it of course. Try banning yourself between the hours of 7pm-7am \u2013 or whatever works for you.<\/li>\n

  7. \n

    Make your goals specific.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    What are your long term goals? A successful career? A happy relationship? A stable family life? Put your goals into specific terms so you know what it looks like when you reach it, or when you\u2019re straying off track. What will \u2018a successful career look like?\u2019 Rather than, \u2018I want a successful career,\u2019 try, \u2018I will attend 2 conferences\/workshops this year.\u2019 Rather than \u2018I want a happy marriage,\u2019 try \u2018I will have dinner with my wife\/husband once a week\u2019 or if you live with little people and getting away is tricky, whatever works for you. Rather than, \u2018I want a good relationship with my kids,\u2019 try \u2018I will be home to read them a bedtime story at least twice times a week.\u2019<\/li>\n

  8. \n

    Big Rocks and Little Rocks.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    You\u2019ve probably heard this one but let\u2019s do it again \u2013 because it\u2019s excellent. This concept was developed by\u00a0Dr Stephen Covey<\/a>. Imagine that you have an empty glass jar, a pile of big rocks, a pile of little rocks, and another one of sand. They all need to make it into the glass jar so what goes in first? The big rocks. Then the little rocks will settle in between the spaces and finally the sand will fill the leftover gaps. Do it the other way round and the rocks \u2013 or the big things in your life \u2013 won\u2019t fit, however much you want them to. The lesson? Make the big things your first priority \u2013 get them in the jar first (give them your time and energy). Once the bigger things are taken care of, the smaller things will find a way to fit into the gaps.<\/li>\n

  9. \n

    Get home at least twice during the\u00a0week for dinner and, if you have kids, for bedtime.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Stay too much out of the day to day routine during the week, and it will take longer to feel like you\u2019re part of the family routine come the weekend. You don\u2019t want that. And they want that less.<\/li>\n

  10. \n

    Stop comparing yourself.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    It\u2019s so easy to focus on what we don\u2019t have compared to what others do, but that will never end well. People tend to put their\u00a0best foot froward and keep the struggles quiet. If only everyone knew everyone\u2019s shortcomings \u2013 could you imagine! All of a sudden we\u2019d be so much more settled with our own.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    As with most things, a large part of achieving\u00a0balance between work and life lies in how you think about it. You can\u2019t change workload or the expectations of other (pity!) but you can experiment with putting boundaries where they need to be and accepting that which\u00a0is stubborn to change.<\/p>\n

    For more information on how to achieve Work Life Balance<\/a>, please contact Healthwise<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Sometimes having it all may not be all it is cracked up to be. In the recent blog post by Karen Young at HeySigmund\u00a0identifies 10 different ways to ‘have what…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":175,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[43,2,64],"tags":[30,116,120,38,175],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.behavioralhealthmn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.behavioralhealthmn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.behavioralhealthmn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.behavioralhealthmn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.behavioralhealthmn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.behavioralhealthmn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":383,"href":"https:\/\/www.behavioralhealthmn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions\/383"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.behavioralhealthmn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.behavioralhealthmn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.behavioralhealthmn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.behavioralhealthmn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}