Is Achieving Work-Life Balance Possible?
Let’s talk about 👏 work 👏 life 👏 balance 👏
Too many of us struggle with being insecure overachievers – aka our imposter’s syndrome often gets the best of us so we feel like we constantly need to prove ourselves… and there’s A LOT of pressure to do ALL OF THE THINGS all of the time.
However, in a real world environment, is it actually possible to achieve ALL of the things?
Is it possible to have a-close-to-perfect-work-life balance?
In my opinion, Yes! But that all comes with some concessions, too.
In today’s blog we are going to dive into the specific details of how YOU can achieve as close to perfect work-life balance as possible.
DEFINING WORK-LIFE BALANCE
While a lot of us would love to sit around all day and get paid (YES, me!), chances are that things would get pretty boring after a while.
So, to keep our minds busy and our drive to succeed fulfilled, a lot of us will trade off that free time for fulfillment and a nice paycheck. Whether you think about it or not, that is a cost of the opportunity to work!
To make that cost worthwhile, there’s a thing called work-life balance.
Work-life balance can be defined as: “A state where your personal life, professional life, and family life are equal.”
While it may seem impossible to literally schedule equal time to your personal, professional, and family life, you should still feel like you can live a great private life in spite of your employment situation.
The key is to balance all of these things and stay realistic about what can and can’t be done without sacrificing your mental health and happiness.
WORK-LIFE BALANCE VERSUS WORK-LIFE INTEGRATION
I believe in integrating your life with your career. There’s a debate going on right now about whether “work-life balance” or “work-life integration” is a better state of mind to help you succeed.
Here’s how this all breaks down: “Work-life balance focuses on the separation between your professional and personal life. Work-life integration works to build a connection between work and life.”
So, flip the script. No matter which buzz term you prefer, your work should allow you to have a limitless and empowering life. Work should fuel your life and give you the chance to do the things you love during your free time.
Yes, you heard me right: you should have free time even with a flourishing and growing career!
HOW TO FIND WORK-LIFE INTEGRATION
Here are a few key points to keep in mind while you’re reflecting on your career, your goals, and the life you’d like to have to be happy:
What works best for your life is not the same as your colleagues or your friends, so you have to be clear what exactly you want and what it’ll take to get there.
Different generations define what is important to them differently. Think about what is important to you, what will make you happy, and how work fits into all that! Advice from other people may not always be applicable, but you can always learn from their experiences and learn more about yourself about the same time.
The new sexy keyword right now is FLEXIBILITY. We want employers to know that we WANT to work, we WANT to put in the time and energy, but the majority of job seekers are looking for opportunities to leverage their expertise on a more flexible schedule. Is this something that you will want too?
Create a list of golden ideals. If you could curate a perfect environment, what would you career and life situation look like? While you may not always be able to make all of that happen all at once, having a list of these points will help stay on the path to attaining them.
In the end, if your career is not allowing you to have an empowered and amazing life, you have to ask yourself: What is holding you back from pursuing other roles... if the one you are in is not checking the boxes off for you?
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