Work-life balance is challenging to achieve when your routine is off-kilter. However, certain things can limit your options and restrict your ability to level the playing field. You must develop better habits and use time wisely to create a measurable change in your schedule. Here’s how.
A work-life balance is impossible if you’re unwilling to give and take. You must be organized, disciplined, and have your priorities straight. You have to deem it necessary for your mental, emotional, and physical state. Even superheroes get a day off.
Unfortunately, your boss desperately needs you at work. The job you do is essential to the company, and you want to advance in your career. This is not the best time to request a break or start slacking on your responsibilities.
Your family also craves your undivided attention. Children, spouses, relatives, and loved ones don’t want to feel second to your salary. Extra duties now include various hobbies, errands, and unpaid side gigs. How do you find a balance between work and life when there’s always so much to do?
It’s not like you can forget either one since your family inspires you to achieve goals that your job funds. Both aspects of your existence must form a symbiotic relationship to support every objective. It doesn’t matter if you live alone or have a massive tribe. The importance of a work-life balance cannot be overstated. Let’s talk about why and then learn some ways to reach equilibrium.
Table of Contents
What Does Work-Life Balance Mean?
What To Do About an Unbalanced Life
Building Balance: Your Stress-Free Guide to Modern Existence
Predictors of a Work-Life Imbalance
Three Components of Balanced Lifestyles
Seven Ways to Build a Better Work-Life Balance without Conflict
#2. Secure Appropriate Resources
#6. Develop Financial Independence
What Does Work-Life Balance Mean?
The work/life balance definition is simple. It describes the intersection between an individual’s personal life and professional duties. Your equilibrium is skewed if you spend more time working than with family. However, the same can be said if you ignore career objectives to focus solely on your social life. A well-balanced life involves a little bit of everything and never too much of anything.
Here is a terrific example of what “too much” looks like:
Henry has a full-time job at a busy organization. His duties often include being on-call for emergencies. Meanwhile, Henry’s spouse requires help running errands and shuttling the kids. Both aspects of his life need his full attention, but he’s unable to be in two places at once. Poor Henry needs a better work-life balance.
You can’t clone yourself for a double salary, nor can you ignore loved ones’ needs to finish workplace projects. A stable lifestyle means organizing your activities to accommodate hiccups, emergencies, and spontaneity. You can’t predict the future, but you can always prepare for the unexpected. That’s how to avoid feeling pulled in a hundred different directions.
Work-Life Balance Examples
Prepping for potential events is a surefire way to develop anxiety and depression, so take it easy. You can create a work-life balance without worrying yourself sick. Imagine your perfect day, then build healthy habits to support that vision. You’ll most likely enjoy more symmetry between your job and private life.
Not sure what a good work-life balance looks like? That can happen when you teeter-totter on the border of being overwhelmed for too long. Fortunately, it’s never too late to develop a more satisfying routine. Here are some examples to help you meter your approach:
- You meet crucial deadlines without missing essential social functions.
- Your career seldom, if ever, gets in the way of your favorite hobbies.
- You get plenty of sleep at night and rest on your off days.
- Your diet is healthy and energizing despite a hectic schedule.
- You have opportunities to focus on your physical and mental health.
- BONUS: You still have time to learn new skills and pursue your interests.
Those examples might seem like a pipedream, but you can achieve regularity in proportion to your desires. Life is not just about getting what you need. If you cut out the unnecessary and apply efficiency, things tend to level out themselves. However, that doesn’t mean a stable lifestyle is for the passive.
What To Do About an Unbalanced Life
A fair work-life balance isn’t something you imagine and manifest. You must work to create it and spend time managing it. You might even have to rewrite the script to accommodate changes in some cases. The point is to maintain an evenness between what you have to do and what you want to do. However, the trick is to pull it off without driving yourself crazy. Use these tips to stress less in the process:
- Don’t stress about your stress level. Overthinking will have a counterproductive effect.
- Concentrate on the things that align with your morals, values, and ethics. Expect good karma.
- Try to put your fears in the correct place. They don’t belong where you feel competent.
- Discuss problems with loved ones to find a solution. Don’t focus solely on your feelings.
- Find something funny about current events. Not everything is a life or death situation.
Blame it all on your roots, but you have to get over your past at some point. Stake a claim in the future instead. You can’t expect non-stop stability, and specific periods will be more challenging than others. Yet, you can float between paychecks and parties using lightheartedness and pragmatic goal-setting.
NOTE: If you experience extreme anxiety or symptoms of depression because of your demanding lifestyle, seek help from a licensed mental health counselor.
Building Balance: Your Stress-Free Guide to Modern Existence
As much as you’d like to go off the grid and be self-sufficient, that’s not practical. Goals involving complacency, laziness, or admitting defeat are worthless. You’ll never equal out anything in your existence if you don’t try or plan to fail. Modern life requires grit and guts to get the glory.
Your first step should be identifying the barriers that keep toppling your tower of power. Those aspects could prevent you from achieving lofty goals or experiencing specific events. Psychologists call apparent blockages “predictors.” Each one could ruin your plans. No pressure.
This is supposed to be a stress-free guide to balanced living, so let’s discuss the predictors upfront.
Predictors of a Work-Life Imbalance
Did you know that most employed people spend more time at work than with family? The Second European Quality of Life Survey revealed how worse it is abroad. People in Europe often complain about the amount of time spent with loved ones versus at the office. As it turns out, Americans aren’t the only ones experiencing a work-life balance problem. Here’s why:
- Individual Limitations – Despite DEI best practices, evidence shows that some characteristics can impact a person’s career opportunities and social expectations. Examples are race, gender, sexual orientation, age, background, and religion.
- Family Roles – Familial responsibilities play a significant role in a person’s life. Countless variables could restrict someone’s bandwidth for career advancement, social involvement, or self-care.
- Job Requirements – Work-related pressures can take a toll on anybody. Long hours, office drama, heavy workloads, and tight deadlines only make things more challenging.
- Education and Training – Poor training and a lack of skills can negatively impact a person’s view of work and life. An unfinished education also restricts salaries in many industries.
Recognize which factors pertain to you, then work on erasing them from your story. You can begin by applying the three primary components of a balanced life.
Three Components of Balanced Lifestyles
According to the Journal of Vocational Behavior, most people can avoid work-life conflicts with these three interconnected components:
- Time Balancing – Splitting your schedule evenly between vocational and personal activities
- Involvement Balancing – Breaking up your time to include equal parts of work and play
- Satisfaction Balancing – Deriving similar satisfaction levels from all your pursuits
Building a conflict-free work-life balance isn’t always easy, but it’s possible with an intuitive approach. Learn about relevant predictors, then weed out the roadblocks to ensure efficiency and increase productivity without stress. Also, enjoy some of the sights along the way.
Seven Ways to Build a Better Work-Life Balance without Conflict
Employers and employees must come together for the best results. Both sides will benefit from a work-life balance. Teams function at higher levels with more energy and zeal when they enjoy activities outside the office. Give your staff a chance to enrich themselves, and your company wins. This is personal, however.
Family-friendly policies and employee-focused programs speak volumes about an organization’s commitment to corporate excellence. However, not every business can offer comprehensive bonus packages and paid-time-off (PTO). Start-ups and nonprofits often require tremendous efforts with little return. How do you balance a meaningful private life with that? Here are seven straightforward answers:
#1. Seek Flexible Employment
Gain a sense of control over your income and schedule. Only take jobs or assignments that align with your personal agenda. Or look for work in businesses with a freedom-loving culture. Test positions that give you more autonomy and authority, such as entrepreneurial pursuits, remote work, side gigs, and lateral industries.
TIP: Get involved with in-office politics to drive change where you need it the most.
#2. Secure Appropriate Resources
Cover the essentials, and the rest will most likely fall into place. For example, secure childcare if you have a family to raise. Find reliable people to handle vehicle repairs and home renovations. Look for holistic health practitioners, learn wellness strategies, and gather emergency contacts. Then grow your savings for a rainy day.
TIP: Pay for high-quality goods and services to help support small businesses in your community.
#3. Create a Support Network
Contact the people you know and trust to discuss your work and life challenges. Find out whom you can call in certain circumstances. Ask about everyone’s network to gather more resources for future endeavors. Then offer your services in return to enrich experiences and increase knowledge.
TIP: Keep favors to a minimum and maintain a sense of equality through shared accountability.
#4. Use Time Gaps Wisely
Don’t let your spare time go to waste. Audit yourself to determine when punctual pockets disappear. Then calculate how long it would take to learn a new skill or continue your education. Parcel your day to include training, work on critical projects, or pursue new interests. You can also catch up with loved ones if you use your time wisely.
TIP: Better skills usually mean a better salary, which could equal more time doing the things you love.
#5. Take Care of Yourself
Fewer trips to the doctor’s office mean more trips with family and friends. You’re also more productive at work, which helps you finish projects faster and without error. Experience less downtime because of illness, injury, or exhaustion. Then take that extra energy and use it for exciting or relaxing activities.
TIP: Know when to rest versus when to focus on personal development.
#6. Develop Financial Independence
Life is much better when you don’t live paycheck to paycheck. Erase your debts and find extra cash in your pocket. Start with the minor obligations to get rid of pesky recurring bills. Meanwhile, chip away at enormous debts and keep credit card use to a minimum. Then stop impulse buying and learn wise money management skills instead.
TIP: Plan for significant purchases by opening a designated savings account.
#7. Get Rid of Bad Habits
You won’t make it very far if your habits don’t match your habitat. In other words, poor execution and inconsistent behaviors can undo your work and complicate your life. Procrastination, blame-shifting, and damaging self-talk lead to unhealthy thoughts and compulsions. Plus, negative things have untold consequences on your duties and capacity to handle them.
TIP: Replace unhealthy tendencies with creative pastimes to avoid cravings.
The world can be your oyster if you know how to manage tasks without losing your cool. Meanwhile, staying organized and holding yourself accountable also help.
Conclusion
Work-life balance is challenging to achieve when your routine is off-kilter. However, certain things can limit your options and restrict your ability to level the playing field. Family responsibilities often conflict with professional duties, and it’s impossible to please everybody. Learn how to divide your time evenly to avoid unnecessary stress.
You must develop better habits and use time wisely. Efficiency produces a measurable change in your schedule and can help reduce tension. Determine what makes sense for you. Then use what you know to create a better work-life flow.
About the Author
Sibongile Ngako believes that multifaceted women can accomplish tremendous things with compassionate support. As the VP of Consumer Compliance and Head of Global Compliance at Affirm, Inc., she leverages her expertise and authenticity to empower women in all aspects of life. Sibongile focuses on promoting inclusivity in the workplace as an ally and advocate of female perspectives. Her dedication to professional equity earned her the GRCB Spectrum Award in 2017.
Harvard-educated and family-oriented, Sibongile maintains a grounded and balanced approach to social justice reform. Her team strives to make a positive impression despite popular opinion. Her motto: “If you focus on making a meaningful impact, your reputation will follow.” Ngako fortifies her zeal for women’s empowerment through mentorship and company-sponsored URG and DEI programs.
