Self-Care, Happiness, and Success

As a road warrior in the technology field, I am intimately familiar with the need for maintaining a balance between self-care and job demands. Without some semblance of balance, we can quickly drown in long hours, lack of sleep, poor nutrition, and little or no exercise.

Consultants and others in the technology field typically deal with 24-hour global teams, demanding clients, and overflowing in-boxes. In order to be successful, it seems we must leave our phones always on and be ready to drop everything for the next emergency.

Pressure is on us to produce more and more work, and to do it faster and flawlessly. We must also be flexible, congenial, and patient. We strive to have the answers and be creative, to delight our customers and impress our managers.

But in order to be really successful, it is critical that we define baselines of self-care for ourselves. Those baselines include proper sleep, healthy meals, and regular exercise. Self-care also includes family time and supportive social connections outside of work. And if we really want to be successful, we should make time for nature and spirituality, personal creative pursuits, volunteering, and relaxing downtime.

When we are out of balance, we can get thrown off course easily. We may find that we are less flexible, less patient, less creative, and overall unhappier. We may submit work we are not very proud of. We may not climb the ladder as fast as we had hoped and then we blame forces outside of our control.

Some of these factors may indeed be completely out of our control, but our health is generally not. The investments we make toward our physical, spiritual, emotional, and relational health is very much within our control.

People and companies talk about work-life balance, but really we are talking about work-health balance. Work is not separate from life. Work-health balance means not just managing our hours, but ensuring we focus on all aspects of our well-being.

This is all so much easier said than done. But if we skip these holistic aspects of our lives, our ultimate success suffers. Or we may have career success, but our relationships and health have gone into the toilet. If that happens, then we must ask ourselves if we are using the right measurements regarding success.

Benefits of a holistic approach to work-health-life balance can include some of the following.

• If we make time to exercise, we may find that we have more strength and endurance for work-related activities
• If we stretch or do yoga, we may find that we are more flexible with our colleagues
• If we meditate, we may find that we can focus better on our tasks
• If we spend more time with family and friends, we may find that we can relate more patiently with our colleagues and clients
• If we devote time to personal creative pursuits, we may find that we are more creative at work as well
• If we get enough sleep, we may find that we can focus more completely on the job at hand
• If we are nourished with good food, we may find that we have the energy needed to do all the things we'd like to do
• If we make time to laugh, we may find that we can tolerate fools more easily
• If we get out into nature more often, we may find the purpose we seek in our lives
• If we take care of ourselves, we may find that we are more successful in all aspects of our lives

Sometimes we may fantasize about walking away and finding a less stressful career, and for some of us that may be the only solution to a happier and more balanced life. But if we can learn to set better boundaries within our current jobs, perhaps we will find success and happiness right under our noses.

Please comment - I'd love to hear your thoughts!

(I am now closing my laptop for the evening so I can go spend time with my teen daughter laughing at some silly movie).

[edit Feb 25 - minor change to article title]