It's your Life Balance not your Work/Life Balance!!

I have a personal crusade to remove the term Work/Life Balance as a phrase from common vernacular in favour of Life Balance, where work forms part of our life balance in the same way that sleep, leisure and an array of other activities do.

As a qualified Executive, Leadership , Change Transition and Life coach I regularly talk to people about what is most important to them in their lives.

Generally the top 3 are family, friends and health with work generally ranking somewhere between 5 and 8.

We then go through a congruence exercise whereby we determine whether what they say or intend is aligned with what they do in reality? In general we find a lack of congruence, that is whilst we say family is more important than work, the decisions or actions we take don’t support this.

So if there are a myriad of other things that are more important than work why the evolution of the term Work/Life balance and why has ‘work’ assumed the position of first in consideration of our life balance?

Now don’t get me wrong, work is important as it generally provides us with the financial resources to hopefully lead life as we would choose to lead it, and does consume a significant portion of our time but should it come first?

Placing Work at the front of Work/Life Balance, provides it with a place of importance that is not deserving. If it is mentioned first, it is most important, the first thing to be considered and sub consciously in living our lives, becomes our main priority.

And with COVID providing the opportunities to work more flexibly, it has enabled us to start to address the imbalance.

Below is a template I use with individuals to reflect on their current situation and rank on a scale of 1-10 their level of satisfaction. From a coaching perspective this provides a picture of the individuals life as it is, where they would desire it to be and provides some food for thought as to what the individual would like to achieve or work on in coaching.

So I challenge you to undertake the exercise and see what the results tell you and then validate your results with those nearest and dearest to you. I dare you, as most in self reflection are kind to themselves!!

And talk about whether your Life is in Balance holistically and whether you are comfortable where it currently is. And if you need help re-balancing reach out!!