Is Work-Life Balance a One-Time Activity?

In addition to my two earlier articles titled: Are You Workaholic? and Simple is Beautiful – A fresh perspective on Work Life, some of my readers have yet again asked, as, after a while the professionals were back to square one and business as usual. In fact, balancing our professional and personal lives can be challenging, but essential. Often, work takes precedence for obvious reasons over everything else in our lives. Our desire to succeed professionally can push us to set aside our own personal and family well-being.

Creating a harmonious work-life balance or work-life integration is critical, though, to improve not only our physical, emotional and mental well-being, but it’s also important for our careers. What is work-life balance? Why is it important? In short, work-life balance is the state of equilibrium where a person equally prioritizes the demands of one’s career and the demands of one’s personal life. Here are five highly critical points to ponder:

1. Go for a Passionate Job

As Steve Jobs once said: “The only way to do great work is to love what you do”. Although work is an expected societal norm, our career shouldn’t be restraining. If  we don’t like what we do, we’re nevergoing to be happy and content. We don’t need to love every aspect of our jobs, but it needs to be exciting enough that we don’t dread getting out of bed every morning.

A million-dollar question that everyone asks is: do we need to be passionate about work to be happy and successful? Well, that depends on who we ask this question to? A large body of evidence-based career advice says: Yes, employees who are passionate about what they do will be both happierand more productive at work. Their passion stems from caring deeply about what they do or where they work and being personally invested in and motivated by its mission. 

2. Is there a ‘perfect’ Work-Life Balance

When we hear “Work-Life Balance”, we probably imagine having an extremely productive day at work, and leaving early to spend the other half of the day with friends and family. While this may seem ideal, it is not always possible.

Let’s not even strive for the perfect schedule; strive for a realistic one. Some days, we might focus more on work, while other days we might have more time and energy to pursue our hobbies or spend time with our loved ones. Balance is achieved over time, not each day. While doing so, let’s not compromise on having quality time with our families especially over the weekends.

3. Learn to Unplug

We all see people who just don’t afford to switch off their cellphones even at the graveyards. Cutting ties with the outside world from time to time allows us to recover from stress and gives us space for other thoughts and ideas to emerge. Unplugging can mean something simple like practicing transit meditation on our daily commute, instead of checking useless WhatsApp morning messages.

Meditation, in every single sphere of our life does help focus on the present and provide relief from the anxiety and stress of everyday life and even for future. This wellness movement has made its way into the corporate world across the world where they don’t only encourage employees at their workplaces to find time for silent self-search or connect with the divine but also motivate them to go beyond and convince their families and friends to try out the same in their free time.

4. Pause & De-normalize

This pointer is more or less similar to the above with some add-ons. Let’s take a step back and ask ourselves: What is currently causing us stress or dissatisfaction in our lives? How are these circumstances affecting us when we perform and engage with our jobs? How are they impacting ourpersonal lives? What are we prioritizing? What are we sacrificing? What is getting lost in the middle? Only after you take a mental pause and acknowledge these factors can you begin to tackle them.

I had honour of talking to some very successful professionals in my friends’ circle who lead busy livesand face similar challenges. Many of them explained that they didn’t normally have the time or the energy to stop and reflect, and even expressed gratitude for the reflection space that our chat itself allowed them to think through. Some professionals were quite okay with long work hours, taking the time to think through these questions and acknowledge the tradeoffs they’ve made (whether intentional or not) is helpful for anyone looking to discover alternative ways of working and living.

5. Organise your Boundaries 

Let’s learn to set boundaries for ourselves and our colleagues, to avoid burnout. When we leave the office, avoid thinking about upcoming projects or answering company emails. Here the bosses or line managers need some training as well as they have to stop bothering their direct reports during their personal time. There will always be urgencies which is not a daily affair.

Additionally, whether we remotely or work from home, it is important to determine when we will work and when we will stop working; otherwise, we might find ourselves answering work-related emails late at night, during vacations or on weekends off. Notifying team members about boundaries beyond which we cannot be accessible because we are engaged with family. This will help to ensure that they understand and respect our workplace limits and expectations.

Wrap Up

Importantly, the five steps outlined above are not a one-time activity, but rather a cycle of continuous re-evaluation and improvement. Especially if we’re under the influence of an overpowering culture of long work hours, it’s easy to slide back into “business as usual” (whether that’s a conscious or unconscious decision). 

In my  interviews, I found that for people to make real changes in their lives, they must continuously remember to pause, relax, connect with their emotions, rethink their priorities, evaluate alternatives, and implement changes — throughout their personal and professional lives.

About the Author

Muhammad Sajwani is the Founder and Managing Director of Evolve HR which aims at transforming, enriching and evolving Human Capital of Pakistan, Evolve HR thrives in challenging assumptions that hinder organisational aspirations, by creating innovative solutions that yield maximum impact, scalability & benefit to a wider base of stakeholders. As a Business Coach and Organisational Consultant, Sajwani knows how to combine business insights with people insights to transform organisations and put them on the path to growth. 

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