The Guide to Harmony Between Work and Life
Forget work-life balance. Embrace work-life harmony.
I am sure you remember how years ago everyone talked about work-life balance. It was definitely trendy, but unfortunately, it did not work well for a lot of people. While it might have been helpful in the pre-pandemic era, when most of us went to the office and leaving the office was a signal that we leave work, it does not work now when almost all of still work from our homes, remotely and there is no clear end to work. Our work is at home. Concept designed to help people handle their professional and personal life with balance is no longer valid and for a lot of people who wanted to exercise it perfectly, it caused a burn out.
How did work-life balance become so popular? Well, to begin with, everyone wants a balance. History of the world proves that we always looked for a balance, so many of us believe in a universal balance too - between good an evil, seasonal balance, unfairness and justice, successes and challenge, etc. Logic would suggest that work-life balance makes sense. It implies that - like with everything - we should find a balance between work and life. It is a shame though, that it also implies that we should dedicate at least half of our time to work and have some time for our personal life too. Now let’s think about it - how many of you have jobs that take less than 8hrs a day? I think most of us work way more than that. How can we find the balance then? We can’t. We should be looking for a harmony.
You might be thinking now - work-life balance and work-life harmony are the same. Let me tell you - they are not. It’s not just a corporate rebranding. Let’s look at the differences. While work-life balance focuses on ensuring you find balance between a lot of work and enjoying your personal life (you can already see how absurd this sounds), work-life harmony involves incorporating work into the rest of life in a way that promotes happiness both at home and in the office. Work-life balance refers to how people manage the time they dedicate to work and the time they spend on other aspects of life. It focuses on balancing two lives (professional and personal life) keeping them separate. Work-life harmony though, focuses on prioritizing personal life among everything else, allowing work to fall into our life smoothly. Work-life harmony allows your work being a part of your life, not the other way around.
With this mindset, you can actually integrate work into your life in a way that feels more complete (work-life harmony). You don’t need to view work and having personal time as separate (as work-life balance implies).
How do we create the harmony?
1) Be present. Focus your mind on the moment you are in right now. When you work - put your full energy into it, do your best and don’t get yourself distracted. When you are not working - be present in your personal life. Make the best out of it and don’t let your mind drift to work, carpe diem. I know - easier said than done, but it is very much possible and if you practice your mindset to help you re-shift accordingly, you will feel the difference in a better quality of your time and your life and will be grateful for it.
2) Own your time. Yes! How many times do you say to your family and friends: “I didn’t have time”? Probably too often. It’s not about having or not having time, it’s about what is your priority and how do you decide spend your day, every minute and every hour of it. Think about it - everyone has the same amount of time. It is up to us how we choose to spend it, how productive we learn to be. Stop blaming time for not being there for you - own it and take it under control. Start delegating tasks that do not require your attention and can be done by anyone. Making being cautious of your time a habit will allow you to see how much more you can do in just one day and how happy you feel not being behind. You will realize that with top focus and efficiency, your work will be done much faster, with a better quality, and you will be able to fully enjoy your personal life. Remember - work will always be there, challenges will keep arising, so it is your mindset that needs to take control, help you own your time. As as a result you will be happy and satisfied. As someone once said - busy people are multi-tasking, productive people have the right focus. Own your time, keep your focus.
3) Set priorities. Establish the plan of your priorities for each day and each week. Long-term planning is important, but short term agenda is critical. Make sure that every morning you are clear on your to-do-list and keep your mind focused on the tasks relevant for you at the moment. When at work - don’t let your mind drift to anywhere far from your job, your work to-do-list. That way when work ends, you will be able to focus solely on your personal life. If you do need to pause, take lunch, call your colleague from work and have a cappuccino break. Anything that will help you relax will then help steer your mind back on the right track so you can re-focus on work again. When the work is done and it’s time to focus on your personal life - do just that. Master this process and you will be one step closer to reaching the harmony.
4) Establish and execute on your boundaries. In order to be successful, you need to be able to set the expectations and then execute upon them. Understand, establish your boundaries and guard them. In practice, it will give you a lot of freedom and space, it will allow you to spend your time how you want it and more importantly - you will be able to remain assertive, say ‘no’ to yourself or anyone around you. It is a very worthy skill to have. You need to remember that the goal is not for everyone to like you. It is about you liking yourself and your life - being happy in it and pleasing others is not going to get you there; not to mention - you are better at anything you enjoy, so say ‘yes’ to those things and say ‘no’ to those that stress you out, that are not your priority.
5) Evaluate. Make sure you check-in with yourself every so often. Give yourself some recognition for achieving small successes, taking small steps. Slow down if you feel tired - keep your own pace and don’t be in an unhealthy competition with yourself. It will help you regain your energy to face the challenges as they come and have grattitude for all that you have already achieved. There is danger in setting too many targets. There is nothing wrong in planning to do a lot of things, but you also need to understand that there is that much you can do at once. The resources you have many not be enough to support your enthusiasm, the resources being: your health, life and your budget. You must be careful in managing stress and burnout. If you feel like situation gets overwhelming, you need to take a pause and adjust your pace. Listen to yourself and act upon what your body and mind tell you about what you need.
6) Take care of your mind and health. Exercise, meditate, pray, do anything that supports your physical and mental health. We often think that our own time spent on exercising, pursuing our hobbies is not a well spent time since it does not help us get any closer to our career goals. Nothing further from the truth. Our mind is the most relaxed and as a result, the most creative during time spend on sports, mindful exercises so while you are resting and recouping from a busy every day life, you might as well come up with the best and most creative ideas. Those come to us when we are relaxed, not buried in work, so get yourself to the gym or anywhere that will help your mind be set free.
We are constantly in a rush for more but harmony requires from us to notice ourselves first. Be in harmony with your own self and when you achieve that, the rest will fall into place.
If you are willing to explore coaching or mentoring related to work-life harmony, if you struggle with managing stress, feeling burnt out, need some actions in place to help you stabilize - work with me. Please reach out through ‘Contact’ and work together on bringing some harmony to your life and your career.
Happy New Year!
