As kids, when we were asked what we want to be when we grow up, we had such big dreams about our ideal careers: astronauts, doctors, teachers, scientists. Now, as adults, we find ourselves stuck in jobs we hate, surrounded by people who are not our best friends, spending more time at work with our colleagues that at home, with our families.
By going through this article, you will find out more about the work-life balance, hoping that at the end of the reading you will know the exact changes you have to make for achieving that healthy balance between your work and life.
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What happened with our dreams? We always find ourselves in front of a dilemma: we need our jobs, for what they represent (money, stability), but we are missing the time spent doing what really matters for our well-being.
Happiness comes from within each one of us. There is no universal recipe, valid for everyone. If you ask everyone around you what makes them happy, you will get different answers: a lot of money, getting the dream job, spending more time with family and friends. The answers vary from person to person. Among those answers may be few that define happiness as having a balance among all the aspects of one's existence, such as personal life, professional life, and family life.
In our fast-forwarding lives, the pursuit of a healthy work-life balance seems like an impossible goal. Often, the desire to succeed professionally seems to take over on all the aspects of our lives. Our schedules are getting busier than ever before and in our search for a promotion, a salary raise or whatever gives us satisfaction at the workplace, we find ourselves sacrificing everything else on our way. In the end, when we draw a line and see the results, we ask ourselves if it was worth the sacrifice. No one should be put in the situation of choosing one path, sacrificing the other.
It is crucial to find the right work-life balance, the one that brings you harmony and happiness.
The work-life balance definition sets out to achieve an ideal balance between a person’s working life and private life. A more practical definition of the work-life balance describes it as a comfortable state of equilibrium achieved between an employee’s primary priorities of their employment position and their private style.
Most people would agree that the dеmаndѕ of an employee’s career ѕhоuld not оvеrwhеlm the individual’s ability to enjoy a satisfying реrѕоnаl life оutѕidе of the buѕinеѕѕ environment.
Nowadays, the work-life balance has grown into much more than just an appealing concept. The working world is slowly changing as more and more companies are beginning to welcome the idea of a balanced work-life and they are specifically promoting it.
An increasing number of companies are relying on their employees to lead a more balanced lifestyle, as balanced, happy employees are ultimately more productive and motivated. If a company – either consciously or unconsciously – destroys an employee’s private life with too much overtime or an unnatural amount of pressure, it will inevitably result in dissatisfaction and stress that can then lead to health problems, decreased productivity, and alienation from the company.
Wоrk-lifе bаlаnсе does not mеаn an equal bаlаnсе аmоngѕt the both. Trying to ѕсhеdulе a еԛuаl number of hours for еасh of уоur vаriоuѕ work and реrѕоnаl асtivitiеѕ is uѕuаllу unrewarding, unrеаliѕtiс and оftеn unасhiеvаblе. Life is and should be more fluid than that.
Your bеѕt individual wоrk-lifе bаlаnсе will vary оvеr time, often on a daily bаѕiѕ. The right bаlаnсе for you tоdау will probably be different for you tоmоrrоw. The right balance for you when you are single will be different whеn you mаrrу, or if you have children; whеn уоu ѕtаrt a new career vеrѕuѕ when you are nearing retirement.
There is a lot оf flexibility with life, оnе hаѕ to соnѕtаntlу find a balance аѕ life changes.
However, when defining work-life balance, two key concepts are relevant to each one of us: achievement and enjoyment.
These two concepts always go together, meaning you cannot have fulfillment out of achieving something if you did not enjoy it, and you cannot enjoy doing something if you do not accomplish anything. The four pillars of our own existence are: Self, Family, Friends, and Work and they are all subjects both to achievement and enjoyment.
Imagine achievement and enjoyment as the front and the back of a coin of value in life: you can’t have one without the other more than you can have a coin with only one side. Trying to live a one-sided life is why so many successful people are not nearly as happy as they should be. These two concepts, together, help an individual realize the full value of life.
Now you are probably thinking: “two concepts: achievement and enjoyment? It’s simple, I can do that!” However, as simple as it sounds in theory, as complicated it is in practice. Practice means real-life and real life is everything, but simple and it is continuously changing.
A healthy attitude towards the work-life balance begins with the employer. The employers must view themselves not as the highest authority in the life of employees, but rather as a team member, that encourages a healthy lifestyle.
However, managers still struggle to find the right balance between a fulfilling personal life and a healthy amount of discipline in the workplace. The question often arises: how much freedom should one give their employees and how much discipline is required in the workplace? Companies that operate on a very “loose” basis run the risk of the employees taking advantage of the generosity of the employer, which may then lead to negligence, and lack of discipline. On the other hand, companies with aggressive micromanagement have a high rate of labor turnover.
At the end of the day, the employee is also responsible for achieving a satisfactory work-life balance. After all, we are talking about striking a balance, as opposed to a disregard for work in favor of a more casual lifestyle, with the family playing the main role in the employee’s life.
Here are some tips for both employers who want their employees happy and balanced and employees who want to feel sane and safe in their commitments.
We all would love to work in an office where our managers tell us to work fewer hours, to go home and spend more time with our significant ones. That is not always the case. Mostly, each employee has to find and use different tips for work-life balance.
It is not a surprise that researches demonstrate very clearly that a balanced work-life is the base for a successful career and a satisfying personal life.
If we do not take time to rесhаrgе and are tоtаllу fосuѕеd оn wоrk, we risk exhaustion and won’t be аѕ еffесtivе аѕ ѕоmеоnе that bаlаnсеѕ their life рrореrlу. The problem is that instead of our minds and bodies telling us we need to cut back, they adapt. But only to a certain extent. Eventually, the long hours take their toll and we end up exhausted, stressed, and burnt out.
According to a survey conducted by Harvard Business Review, in 2008, 94% of 1,000 people working in professional services (consultants, investment bankers, accountants, lawyers, IT, and the like) said they put in 50 or more hours a week, with nearly half that group turning in more than 65 hours a week. That doesn’t include the 20 to 25 hours a week most of them spend monitoring their smartphones while outside the office. And things have gotten worse since then.
Based on the “2015 Workplace Flexibility Study”, 67% of HR professionals think that their employees have a balanced work-life, yet almost half (45%) of employees (35% of job seekers) feel that they don’t have enough time each week to do personal activities. One in five employees surveyed spent over 20 hours working outside of the office on their personal time per week – a clear indicator of suboptimal work-life balance.
The brain needs to disconnect occasionally, it needs time to process what it just has learned. Psychologist K. Anders Ericsson of Florida State University has spent more than 30 years studying how people achieve the highest levels of expertise. Ericsson has concluded that most people can engage in deliberate practice for only an hour without rest. He also has shown that people can commit themselves to only four or five hours of concentrated work at a time before they stop getting things done. Past the peak performance level, output tends to flatline, or sometimes even suffer.
Outside of wоrk, it's important that you keep strong relationships with ѕignifiсаnt оthеrѕ and friends. Be default, we are gregarious, therefore having a ѕtrоng ѕuрроrt ѕуѕtеm iѕ оnе оf thе kеуѕ to being happier in life.
But lately, we have made our jobs so much a part of our lives and our identity that breaking up with them seems impossible. Comparing our relationship to work to a passionate romantic one, Gianpiero Petriglieri, organizational behavior professor at INSEAD, writes:
“Romance has long been known for making us lose our minds. It is no different when work is involved…We ‘over’ work not when we work too hard but when working becomes less of a means and more of an end. When meditation, exercise, sleep, holidays, and even parenting, are cast as tools to make us better workers.”
According to numerous studies by Marianna Virtanen of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, overwork and the resulting stress can lead to all sorts of health problems, including:
Achieving a balanced work-life involves a continuous battle on two different fronts: work and life.
Here are a few tips to reduce stress to achieve work-life balance at WORK:
Tips to reduce stress to achieve work-life balance at HOME:
For sure, it is difficult to juggle a career and one’s personal life, especially if there are family and friends involved. That does not mean, however, that it cannot be done. Achieving work-life balance is a challenge, but it is one that anyone can rise to. Here are some methods on how you can achieve and sustain work-life balance.
Maintain a journal and create a timetable
You can start small. Write down all the activities that you perform in a week, from Monday to Sunday. When we say "all activities", this includes those that are work-related and personal life-related. Writing things down in a journal helps in making things more concrete and resolute. In case you are confused about what to do, you can simply consult your journal and be reminded.
By creating a schedule, you will have a better picture of what to expect in the week to come. This will mentally prepare you for anything that may come up at work or at home. It will also put a semblance of order into things, so you do not find yourself flailing about aimlessly, with no direction.
Insert a downtime in your schedule
No matter how busy you will be in the coming week, make sure to build some downtime into it. It could be time spent with family and friends, or you could insert some relaxing activities that you can do by yourself.
The purpose of this downtime is to let you recharge, gather your bearings, and "catch your breath", so to speak, especially if it has been a particularly busy week at work. This downtime will also give you something to look forward to and anticipate.
Examples of downtime inserted in one’s schedule are an hour-long yoga class at the end of the day, swimming several laps at the pool right before breakfast, or going for a run in the early hours of the morning before taking a shower and heading off to work.
Do not give the “I don’t have time” reason. “I don’t have time to even have a morning run" or “I don’t have time for a yoga class after work before heading home”. Make time. That is why you have to be more proactive in your scheduling.
Organize your tasks efficiently
This goes for both household chores and work tasks. At home, if you are used to doing your laundry every day, you can probably schedule it every two days or three days, or during the weekend.
When you are going to shop for your groceries and household supplies, list down everything you need so you can purchase them all at one go, dispensing the need to go on multiple trips to the supermarket every time you need something.
WRAPPING UP
The balancing act between work and home life can feel overwhelming at times. It’s crucial for workers to do what they can to avoid overworking themselves and striking a healthy balance between home and career. And it’s equally important for employers to promote a healthy work-life balance for their employees. We hope that these tips help you to achieve some balance in your lives.
What we know is that all sides benefit from a work-life balance. Our performance-oriented society all too often disregards the importance of the “happy employee” principle, which still causes confusion and skepticism in some levels of management. This is due to competition and the fact that every important link in the chain must function to remain competitive – especially in terms of the so-called shortage of skilled workers and demographic developments.
Something that is often misunderstood is the fact that employees are not machines that can work incessantly during the day and simply fill their tanks at home at night to repeat it all again the next day. In most cases, people work to live and not the other way around.
Remember that work and life coexist: wellness at work follows you home and a healthy private life accompanies you at the workplace. Work and life are not opposing forces trying to break the balance. On the contrary, they go hand in hand, mixing and blending as two parts of a whole: YOU!
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