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5
Ways to Create Work Life Balance
What does the words “life balance” mean to you?
To most people, balance is about having enough time for family and
work. If you took the time you
wanted to spend with your family, would your work suffer; would you be
completely happy or stressed out; would you be satisfied with life?
Probably not… The
concept of work life balance is tough to imagine for most Americans today.
As the world economies become more and more competitive, Americans
are forced to work more. While
the rest of the industrialized world learned to reduce the number of hours
worked,
America
found itself to be at the top of the increasing trend instead.
A recent study showed that the percentage change in hours worked
from 1970 to 2002 has increase by 20% in the
U.S.
Could there be balance when
you’re asked to work 20% more? While
during the same time frame, other industrialized nations such as France,
Germany, Japan has all decreased hours worked by 23.5%, 17.1%, and 16.6%
respectively. How does this
relate to your hours worked?
The impact of this trend is
reason for serious concern. The
increasing health costs for organizations are an undeniable fact.
Even with all of our technology, we still experience knowing
someone with unexpected heart attacks.
Many Americans suffer from some form of back ach, while others are
dependent on drugs to get through the day.
Even those in the health field like doctors are low in their
morale. A 2001
California
survey of physicians found that 75% of respondents were less satisfied
with their work. Many believe
that it is impossible to have that balance between your work and personal
life. Without that balance,
what is life for? Rather than
blaming your work, could it be that the concept of work life balance be
flawed?
Consider a different
perspective on the term balance. The
traditional concept of balance is an external idea.
It is dependent upon other environmental factors outside of you,
allowing blame. Balance is an
internal way of life. It has
highly influenced by your inner self rather than the outer environment.
Everything around you is simply a reflection of what’s going on
inside of you. You’ve heard
the term – “mind over matter”. Expanding
the term mind into intelligences, this concept is true!
You intelligences have the power to create the reality you desire.
The following 5 ways to create work life balance is not just
something to do; it is also a new way of thinking and being.
It incorporates many research studies from emotional intelligence
to systems thinking. It is
something that I’ve developed, taught and coached many students,
executives and organizations. These
steps are a contextual methodology that can flow in any environment and
give you the balanced life of your dreams, as it has for me and many
clients.
# 1: Identify your passion. Passion
is one of the greatest drivers of human life.
It gives meaning to the simplest actions and events.
It puts smiles on people’s faces and your heart.
Without passion, life is not worth living.
Look at those with heart attacks – do you know that heart attacks
occur most frequent on Monday mornings at 9AM and least often on Friday
afternoons at 5PM? No
other mammal exhibit such a trend. Do
you think those with heart attacks have passion for life at 9AM on Monday
or have their hearts decided to quit?
How’s your passion level on Monday mornings?
To better your life,
identifying passion is a conscious effort.
It doesn’t happen at the coffee machine at work.
One basic tool that’s proven to work very well is a dream
collage. To create this dream
collage, obtain a bunch of magazines and cut out pictures that attract
you. Don’t try to make sense
of them or allow your mind to tell you why you can’t have it.
Simply cut them out. When
you’ve got a stack of them, paste them on a large poster board.
This dream collage is now a representation of your passion in a web
of images. Place this collage
at a visible place such as your office or your doorway.
The more you look at it, the more your unconscious will make the
dreams happen. Passion is one
of many systemic medicines that relieve stress.
And it’s significantly cheaper than any medication.
So, by when will you have your dream collage made to lengthen your
life?
# 2: Make time to learn.
Contrary to what schools teach you, learning does not mean read 20
books every year and pass an exam. Learning
is not just about taking in information; it is about taking action with
the new information to create knowledge.
Balance within life comes from the constant shifting of who you by
spending at least 30 minutes a day learning.
In these 30 minutes, you
can reflect on what happened during the day.
Understand the lessons that were presented.
Ask yourself, what would you do differently next time?
Write it down. Absorb
some new information from journals and educational books.
Create an action plan to incorporate the information into your
being. This will be your own
knowledge management system, share it with others.
Within months, you’ll be able to reinvent yourself on a regular
basis and create a balanced reality. So
think back in the past week – what lessons have you learned and what are
you doing differently?
# 3: Engage in emotional intelligence (EQ) learning.
The majority of your education thus far incorporates only
analytical intelligence or IQ. Consider
spokes on a wheel – if you have one spoke that is well developed and
strong and another that is weak, would your wheel be able to maintain its
shape as it rolls through the ups and downs of life?
Probably not… In
order to achieve any form of balance, your EQ must be further developed on
a conscious level. To get a
fundamental understand and some basic development activities, read and
incorporate into your life these two books: Multiple Intelligences by H.
Gardner and Executive EQ by R. K. Cooper & A. Sawaf.
When engage in your
everyday communications, seek the underlying emotion that drives the
logic. Learn to have emotional
conversations with friends and colleagues. This
type of conversation facilitates heart to heart communication. As a
result, balance is created in most situations. Consider this thought –
80% of human decisions are made by emotions while only 20% are logic
based.
# 4: Engage in somatic awareness.
Somatic awareness is another key spoke on your wheel of life.
It deals with the intelligence of your physical being.
For example, when another person is about to bump into you, your
body automatically tenses up to get ready for the impact.
The act of becoming tense greatly reduces your ability to move out
of harm’s way. Another
common situation is your breathing – in moments of tension, fear, or
anxiety, your breathing tends to become shallower.
The shorter breaths increase your heart rate which speeds up your
thinking. This significantly
reduces your ability to think clearly and not just react.
Your body is an incredible
radar system that facilitates its own needs.
In order to create any form of balance in life, you need to be
conscious of the signals that the body is sending you.
This level of awareness will bring about the possibility to change
your way of thinking, as well as your physical health.
Next time when you get into a challenging situation, take a look at
how you’re breathing. Focus
on slowing it down and see what happens…
#5. Create a default schedule. Most
people can quantify some percentage of time that they’d like to be
involved in a certain activity. Yet,
few actually measure it, for fear of realizing the truth.
Take a moment to jot down how many hours you’d like to be
working, playing, and hanging out with the family/friends.
Once you’ve got the overall hours down, go deeper into the
various divisions within each category.
For example, in the 40 hours of working time each week, you need to
be doing 5 hours of administration, 5 hours of marketing yourself, 25
hours of production, and 5 hours of learning.
Schedule all of these activities into a default schedule where your
entire week can be planned out with specific focus.
When something comes up, you’ll automatically know when the next
time slot for this activity is, and place it there.
The default schedule is a
tough challenge for many people, as they now have to be disciplined to
follow their own schedule of their idea life.
Don’t make excuses, just follow it.
It’ll take you at least a month or two to create one that works
well for you. Once you have
it, this tool will give you a new level of comfort in life and also
greatly increase your focus level where you can be fully present to
accomplish tasks. Just
imagine, what would it feel like to live everyday as the day of your
dreams?
Balance is not a duality of work and personal time.
In contrast, balance is about an inner peace that facilitates
completeness. The 5 ways
I’ve described gives you a start on getting there.
Although there are tangible actions, these methods are primarily
focused on a new way of thinking and being.
When you enter this journey, you’ll find that life can be
perfect, just as you imagined it when you were a child.
By Dr.
Ted Sun
February, 2005
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