Work Vs Life - Can You Have Both?
Will Goodall
Channel Sales Leader - Relationship focused - Industry speaker - Podcast Host
I must confess as I have progressed in my career different things have come to the fore. Initially it was about having some cash, lads’ holidays and a night out at least once every weekend! At the age of 36 I know work solely for my family to provide for them and allow my daughter to enjoy a great life which is some change in over 10 years!
When I was reviewing my career to date and my work life blance earlier in the year something struck me, I had the balance wrong. The defining moment occurred when I was working late one evening with my laptop on my lap when my 8-year-old Daughter came up to me and wanted to play. I told her not now, but I would be free in 10 minutes, she waited patiently and returned to play. I must confess I again sent her on her way and told her I couldn’t play with her telling her off for wanting to play with me while I worked (to my shame).
That moment played out in my head for weeks afterwards,
Why work if you cannot enjoy moments with your family?
How must she have felt?
Was I working on something that could wait for the following day?
It dawned on me, in society we almost accept that 9-5 hours is the norm and to be expected with many of us falling into the trap of thinking hard work and dedication is adding more and more work time into our daily lives at the expense of everything non work related. Almost 1 in 2 of us in Britain report that we are unhappy with our work life balance which cannot be right or healthy for us as individuals or the businesses we work in.
I feel passionate work life balance needs to feature in all businesses, not as a sound bite but as a culture a way of life in business. It will only be with this acceptance that we can start addressing the balance in the workplace. Changing perceptions on what hard work is and being kind to one another. I encourage anyone reading this to put that tablet down, don’t make that call, delay responding to that email and spend time more time making memories. I promise your work will not suffer and will actually improve!
Will a strong work life balance reduce output from individuals?
Absolutely positively not! Speaking from personal experience coming out the fog of constant work and lack of family time has improved my drive, determination and desire to exceed. I have no doubts if we all support each other in business we can be the cause of positive change driving improvements in everything we do while most importantly spending more time with our loved ones.
Thank you so much for reading
Will
P.s it would be great to get some feedback on people’s views on work life balance and how they feel they are on the balance ??
(data source office for national statistics).
Radio 2nd line Operations Manager
5 年I wish I had the flexibility in my work life that I have today when my children were younger,because I missed so much of all the little moments that were important to them. To this day,my 30+ year daughter still remembers me missing one of her school performance . Now that I have grand children,I make the time to spend with them and I do my work round them,whether it’s starting early or working later,plus FaceTime/WhatsApp video them once a day,watching my 16 month old granddaughter break into a smile when she realises it’s me on the video ,is worth a million late nights ...great article #willgoodall
Award-Winning ABM Specialist | Forbes Council Member | Driving Scalability, Agility and Results for Enterprise Businesses
5 年Nice article Will. You do become more acutely aware of the importance of a work life balance when you have kids!
Highly experienced Account Director at Sky Business Wholesale supporting established strategic partners
5 年Reading this just made me go and give my little daughter one more extra big hug before she goes to bed tonight... great article and written from the heart as always with you Will ????????
VP IT at Stealthy Squirrel Designing, building, securing and managing IT at scale for mission critical applications
5 年Nobody dies lamenting they didn’t spend enough time in work - I work so that I can spend time with my family which is the best and most fulfilling part of my day :)
Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at Trustpilot / Co-founder of Cyber Scotland Connect / Global Top 100 CISO / Speaker
5 年I have a 9:30am meeting every day. At 9:25am whilst making a coffee (I work from home), my toddler asked me to read her a story. I couldn’t. She cried when I tried to explain. I attended the meeting then at 10am I sure as hell came back downstairs & read to her. Not all of us are in jobs that afford that flexibility, but I structure my working day around my family, not the other way around. Nice blog piece.