With 2022 in full swing, I wanted to share my Top Tips on a Better Work Life Balance with you. There is an imaginary world that some of us would like to inhabit, where we are blissfully happy in all areas of our work and life at the same time and we feel totally fulfilled in them all…..and then we wake up and smell the coffee.
There is no such thing as work life balance, really it’s just all life and how we decide to spend our time.
The idea of a work-life balance is one of those myths that you see sometimes, and which can be really negative if you take it on board. The reality is that this is one of those traps you can fall into, where you allow yourself to believe that there is a way you ‘should’ be living your life. You can start to believe that you are ‘failing’ because you feel that your life is ‘out of balance’. When you’re working you feel that you ‘should be’ relaxing or having adventures, or spending time with family and friends. When you’re with your family, or relaxing you feel that you ‘should be’ working.
It is really liberating to know and understand that there is no actual rule book, and no perfect balance that you are somehow able to achieve. When you let go of that illusion, and understand that we only have now, the present moment and how you decide to spend this moment, you can free yourself of the ‘should’ pressure which can be overwhelming.
Instead of viewing life as something that needs to be balanced between life and work, instead consider that it could be viewed as simply decisions about how you spend your time. Sometimes it’s really important to work incredibly hard and to provide for your family, other times, your family actually needs you and your time more than money and those are times to spend with them. Other times you will need to rest and recharge and that is equally as important. Once you take the ‘I should..’ conversation out, and start seeing that that is just a societal belief, you can see it for the BS it is. Instead of ‘I should..’ replace it with ‘I choose to…’
This is so much more empowering and reminds you that you are in charge of your time and your life. And even if you’re doing something today that you would prefer to not be doing, if you tell yourself , ‘I choose to do this’ it makes it empowering as an active choice.
Perhaps , I choose to work today so that I can earn money for my family. Or I choose to spend time with my children, so that we can create memories together, and I will choose to work another day. Or whatever is appropriate for you. Give it a try and see how it changes your attitude to your day.