How To Negotiate Work Life Balance
Majority of people toil at work for endless hours, but at the back of their mind get this nagging feeling that they are somehow missing out on their life.
Perversely when they are not working and have consciously switched "off" from work mode they find they don't have the energy to enjoy things they are passionate about.
This typically happens when you compartmentalise and think of these two aspects of your life as mutually exclusive, versus mutually inclusive.
Most people view their life as a cluster of +'s and -'s.
Either majority of pluses in their personal life or a majority of pluses in their professional life. Only 5 percent of the working population manage to have a work-life balance.
The way to remove the curse of the work-life battle lies in recovering the sense of a unified self.
In doing so you will stop viewing work as "punishment=negative" and "life=postive". It is imperative to dismantle the competing work/life binary and move away from this black or white labelling.
To recover this sense of a unified self you will have to establish a new blueprint of self, fueled with answers about why you do what you do in life and work both.
This is what brings meaning to your existence as a cohesive whole.
Through this new framework ascertain if your relationships, leisure activities and work align.
This new framework will not be about balance, it will be about alignment.
That is where the magic begins.
When you start to probe you will find:
Work isn't all bad, there are aspects of your life that are not suffering at work. Look again, there may be many positive things that reflect what you care about. For example, you may value creativity, and find that you get the opportunity to showcase it every day at work.
Things you care about at work are the same as what you care about at home/life. For example, you may greatly value friendship in your life, you could practice this value with your colleagues and foster healthier interactions at work. Your values exist in all your interactions when you acknowledge this it helps the construction of a united self.
What you do at home and what you do at work support and enhance each other. For example the kindness and generosity you show your friends can forge good client relationships even when practised at work.
The transition from "balance" to "alignment" will facilitate an inner transformation that will empower you against all odds.
With the blueprint before you, you can identify where the gaps in alignment are and remind yourself why you are doing what you are doing, tweak it or maybe even change your job.
The most crucial thing is that you will never need to use the "on/off" mode because you are constantly aligned and acting in accordance with your values.
You will find that your positive energy will not be subject to draining or overflowing, but will instead flow consistently through all your states of being in a perpetual positive feedback loop.
A value-rich and well-aligned work life help maintain a flow of positive energy and happiness in all aspects of being.
So go ahead and make the blueprint of you.
