Keep Balance in Your Life

There’s a lot of talk about work/life balance and the need for a balanced life. It’s logical to assume that a person who is happy with the way the whole of their life functions is less likely to be stressed. They’re more likely to have things in proportion and to have already found ways of managing pressure. If something goes wrong at work, they’re better equipped to deal with it effectively as they have other emotional resources and interests to fall back on.

It’s also logical to assume that those who concentrate predominately on their work tend to be at higher risk of burnout.

Balance doesn’t mean that everything in your life needs to be even. There will be times when you need to give more attention to your work and other times when your focus will be on your family.

Balance is about making sure that you aren’t 100% focused on only one aspect of your life all the time.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for balancing your life. It’s whatever works for you and your lifestyle, but you need to make sure you have some down time, leisure activities, and relaxation along with your work.

If you don’t, then stress can take over your life.

Establish Work/Life Balance Targets

Many of us race through our days without thought for our body as the vehicle for all this activity. We survive on too little sleep, start the day on coffee, gulp food on the run, and unwind with alcohol. Most often, demand exceeds our physiological capacity and the nuts and bolts start to loosen. We’re wired with calories but have no energy, we operate on to-do lists with iPads and phones so we can work 24/7. The relentless demands of work make it hard to stay focused and we end the day exhausted, irritable, and tired.

That’s why it is so important to create balance in our lives. And it is possible to do so.

You may recognize some of these trends in yourself, but you may not be completely aware of what’s going on with your life at the moment. To help you find out, you’re going to complete the separate Work/Life Balance Assessment exercise provided. This is a visual self-awareness tool to help you take stock of the existing balance in your life and think about whether you want to make changes. 

There are two parts to the exercise: answering questions in the assessment itself, and then interpreting the results that will be worked out for you on the work/life web.

1.  Work/Life Balance Assessment

The assessment is divided into six sections which reflect the major areas of most people’s lives:

• Work – this relates to your job
• Finances – how you manage your money (or don’t)
• Home environment – how you feel about where you live and your physical surroundings
• Health and body – how you manage your body
• Relationships with others – how you get on with partners, friends, and family
• Personal – how you see yourself and your life around you

On page one, you will find a series of questions to answer under each section. You can only answer “True” or “False” so you need to make a choice based on what’s normally true of you and your behavior. If there’s a question which has no relevance to you at all, you can leave it unchecked as this won’t affect your scoring. There are ten questions in every section which give you a percentage for each area. 

The “True” answers are devised from experts in the fields of work/life balance, time management, stress management, and personal effectiveness.

Be honest with your answers. There is no point answering “True” to everything just because you know that is the ‘right’ answer. This isn’t about being judgemental but simply taking a snapshot of where you are with your life now. 

As you work through the questions, you will see that your scoring is done automatically for you.

2.  Interpreting the Results

Once you’ve finished answering the questions, you will flip to the second page which will show the visual representation of your responses as well as the percentages.

It will look a bit like a spider’s web:

The nearer your web moves to the outside (100%), the more satisfied you are with every aspect of your life.

The more regular your web pattern is, the more balanced the areas of your life are.

Take the time to study the web and make notes about what you have discovered. The following questions may help you:

• What is your first impression of your results?
• What do you feel about your web?
• What surprised you?
• Which areas are strongest?
• Which areas are weakest?
• Are you interested in shifting any of these scores?

There are probably some changes you’d like to make. Perhaps you want to even out the time you spend at work with other activities. When you work for yourself, it’s all too tempting to pick up your laptop in the evening and look at a few emails. If you never have time off, you’re risking your long-term health. A positive change you could make is to decide what hours you work every day. This will help balance your own well-being and give you time for other things in life.

Think about your life in 6 months’ time. Answer these questions:

• How would you like the web to look then?
• What do you need to do to achieve that?
• Who can help you?
• What are your 6-month targets?
• What three things can you plan now to bring about changes in 6 months?