Managing Work and Life

An associate and I facilitated a workshop last week for several business people on Work/Life Balance. The concept for balancing work and life is very hard for many business people, especially women. At times, we tend to put ourselves last behind everything else in life - family, home, friends, our work, church, etc.

We started off the session asking everyone to share one word describing what work/life balance looks likes for them now. Most people in attendance described it as non-exisent, hard to manage, challenged with it, need more of it, etc. The exercises we conducted required people to break into dyads and for each person to think about their lives and look at all aspects using the "wheel of life" worksheet and scoring themselves in each area on whether they were humming along in sync or were driving on flat tires. Each person was given a few minutes to share with their partner what their life looked like in various aspects of their lives explaining how why they scored each area of their life the way they did, positively or negatively. They then picked one or two areas they could shift a little in what's currently going on to change behavior but not be overwhelmed in the process by picking too many. An example of this was one lady sharing she really missed going to the gym and decided she had to incorporate this back into her life for health reasons. We had each person ask the following questions:  how can they implement these changes; what are the challenges around these changes; what they will commit to and most importantly, why it's important to make this change.

The next exercise we conducted was around saying "Yes" and saying "No" which again is hard for women.  We tend to overcommit and feel badly about it after we commit or we are concerned that we may disappoint someone if we say no. A good exercise is asking yourself what will I say Yes to, but to do this I have to say No to .....  An example of this is "I am going to say Yes to going to the gym three days a week (M,W, F) and I have to say No to sleeping in until 7:00 a.m. on those days."  In order to make commitments around change, it's very beneficial to have an accountability partner who will check in with you and hold you to your promises and even better if you can do the same for them.  Most of the people in the dyads decided that their partner in the exercise would be their accountability partner going forward.

It takes 21-days of repetitive practice for a habit to change. So it's important to make sure you put down dates around the accountability check-ins so you don't allow old habits to creep back in. Writing down the change you are bringing into your life can be helpful as well and posting it somewhere where you can look at it daily. Sharing with family members what you are trying to accomplish can be beneficial if you know they will support you.

Taking baby steps in bringing more balance into our lives makes the changes easier to embed. Once you feel you have more control over your well-being, then you can add other areas of your life that need to change in doable commitments. Life is like a river, ever flowing. There will be ebbs and tides but if we learn to recognize when something is starting to affect us negatively we can take action to manage it better.