Work Life Balance Is A Myth.
Or Is It?

Learning to create personal work life balance is an essential skill in today's hectic environment. High expectations, new technology and an increasingly competitive work environment have eroded any boundaries between work and home life that might have existed in the past.

If you feel your personal work/life scale is unbalanced it may be that you are focusing most of your time and energy into one area of your life.

And for most of us, that area is work.

Making a career change may be the answer you need. In fact in May 2008 Time Magazine reported that more than 20% of career changes are made to improve work life balance. So you are not alone!

There's lots to consider when making a career change including the importance of finding the right career. But there are lot's of other things you should be doing to achieve work life balance before you resign and walk out!

So read on, and discover how to get your work life balance scale balanced!

Success with work life balance allows you to manage stress and fatigue, and avoid burnout altogether. You'll also have a wider circle of supportive friends and find you're not the one missing baby's first steps or grandpa's birthday.

Using the metaphor of a scale is a bit misleading when we talk about work life balance. Work life balance is not just about balancing two areas of life. True balance in life means we need to look after these four areas of life:

This means we need to concentrate on

• Looking after and renewing the SELF
• Looking after and renewing the FAMILY
• Looking after and renewing WORK
• Looking after and renewing our place in SOCIETY or the COMMUNITY

We need all four of these for long term work life balance.

Take a moment now and imagine a bar graph representing each of these four areas of life.That's YOUR bar graph representing SELF, FAMILY, WORK, and COMMUNITY.

The idea is that each of these areas should be balanced, or at least close to it. What does yours look like?

Chances are the graphs are higher in some areas and lower in others. Work and family are two culprits that often take most of our energy and time.

Now comes the harder part! What do you need to do to rebalance these areas? Making a career change might be part of the answer but is there more? Here are 3 more questions to consider:

1. What needs to change?
2. What could be the difficulties in changing?
3. What help do you need to make the changes?

People who enjoy a healthy work life balance meet these 5 fundamental conditions:

• They enjoy good physical health.

• They have good mental health.

• They feel successful (they are self-confident and believe in their potential).

• They have a purpose and believe in creating meaning in their lives.

• They feel they are in control of their lives. They believe the decisions they make affect what happens in the future and are aware of what they can and cannot control in their lives.

What should I aim for?

Well, in an ideal world someone with great work life balance would include the following in their day and week:

• An 8 hour working day - maximum.
• 8 hours of sleep at night.
• Plenty of time for breakfast and travelling to work in the morning.
• One hour for lunch.
• A balanced, healthy diet.
• No work on weekends.
• Quality time with their partner.
• Quality time with their children.
• Quality time for self.
• An hour for exercise every day.
• Social activities at least twice a week.
• Regular contact with family and friends.

Now, I'm not sure about you, but if I do the math there are not enough hours in a day to do all of this! So the key is to create these ideals as intentions rather than expectations.

Make it an intention to include these in your week. You don't need to rush into this. Add them at a pace you are comfortable with.

If you are not as successful as you'd like to be, notice what stopped you achieving work life balance. Then try again, this time managing whatever blocked you before.

Making it real

Shirley Conran, author of Superwoman and Down with Superwoman says “The key to personal work-life balance is time management and realistic expectations, plus life coaching and mentoring”(Sunday Times, February 22 2009).

She believes the recession is no reason for anyone to abandon the work-life balance dream and suggests we need to be realistic. You can have it all, but probably not all at once.

Achieving work life balance means we need to begin focusing on what is important to us.

Here's my all-time favourite activity for deciding what's most important in your life. I call it:

Curly's Finger

Do you remember a 1991 movie called City Slickers? One scene I always remember is when Curly (Jack Palance) tells Mitch (Billy Crystal) about finding what's most important in life...

Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is?
[holds up one finger]

Curly: This.

Mitch: Your finger?

Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don't mean shit.

Mitch: But, what is the "one thing?"

Curly: [smiles] That's what you have to find out.

So, what is your "one thing"?

If you were told to choose the one most important thing in your life to focus on, what would that be? Take a moment right now and decide what's most important to you.

When you've decided on your "one thing" add a few more priorities. After your "one thing" what else is most important in your life? And after that? Write down your top 5 priorities in life.

The secret to achieving work life balance is to focus on your priorities and to stop doing anything that's not moving you towards your priorities.

This is where life coaching and mentoring can be very useful to help you practically move toward work life balance.

• Keep a diary for a week. Make a note of how you spend all your time. How much is devoted to time for yourself and how much is devoted to work?
• Put yourself first. Make real time for yourself.
• Let others help you. Your partner, children and boss are not mind readers! Let them know what you want to achieve and ask them to help you. Get professional help in the form of a life coach to support you along the way. Use your company EAP or wellness program if you have one.
• Leave work at work.
• Include your family. Include your children and decide together what needs to be done at home and who will do do it. You may need to remind them but they'll get there!
• Make time for fun. Take one evening a week to do something for yourself.
• Learn to be assertive. Know what you will and will not do and then draw firm boundaries for yourself.
• Put First Things First. Use time management techniques to help you focus on what is important. Stephen Covey has some great thoughts about time management in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. His 4-quadrant time management model is part of the third habit: Put First Things First.

Achieving work life balance means you need to develop attitudes, skills and behaviours that support this in your personal life. Here are some useful habits that are necessary to develop in the pursuit of work life balance:

1. Learn how to relax. Take a stress-busting course or read about controlling stress. Learn how to relax your body and mind.
2. Live according to your values. Discover your values and then use these as positive guides in your life.
3. Diet and Exercise. Eat healthily and get plenty of exercise during the week.
4. Get plenty of sleep. It's hard to focus on what's important when you are tired.
5. Create and use a strong support network. Find people who care for you and who will listen to you without trying to 'fix' everything.
6. Decide what's important. Stephen Covey says 'Begin with the end in mind'. Focus on what you want to achieve and don't let the unimportant stuff get in the way.
7. Practice self control. This is one of the essential elements of Emotional Intelligence. Control your emotions so you don't react to situations. If you get angry it does not need to be destructive.
8. Get organised. Clear your desk and living area of clutter. Organise your diary for today and tomorrow. You can get rid of a lot of stress by organising your life.
9. Manage your time well. Focus on what is important and be in control by managing how you spend your time.
10. Laugh, a lot. Don't take yourself so seriously. Make the next DVD a comedy rather than a drama. City Slickers is a great example!

Another side of the same coin

All that you have read so far is based on an assumption that there are specific things you need to be doing to get work life balance. It's what the experts would tell you - based on the idea that experts know best.

This is not a great coaching perspective. The problem lies in the assumption that someone else understands exactly what you need in your life.

Work life balance is essential. And the information you've read is excellent knowledge. But work life balance cannot come from the expertise of professionals.

Real work life balance comes from your own awareness of what's right for you. You can only be happy by being you.

Each of us is different. Some don’t have any need for family. Others have little need for work. Or for money. Or whatever.

Take some time to discover what's important for you. When you know what's important to you learn to put that first. And learn to trust your awareness to continually bring it back into balance.

Making a career change is one way to find work life balance. Before you do that take some time for yourself. Use this time to build self awareness. And then chase what's important to you with all of your being.