What is work life balance? Is there such thing? I was approached by ShoutoutSoCal to explore this question. Read the interview below. I want to explore this topic further here. My definition of work life balance has certainly shifted throughout my career. What this balance looks like will differ from person to person.
In the interview I describe what work life balance means to me today. It didn’t always look this way. My career began in higher education and working in that field is a lifestyle. Work can often go into nights and weekends for programming. Your colleagues often become your close friends. You have similar schedules and often spend time off together. It’s not uncommon for work related conversations to happen at nights out. There isn’t always a clear boundary between “work” and “life” because again it is a lifestyle. I loved every second of it (at least the vast majority). There are other fields that I’ve heard have similar lifestyles when work and personal blurs. For me, it was important to have self care like exercise, vacations with friends, and other adventures when we did have time off. People who don’t work in your same field when it’s this type of a lifestyle career, don’t always understand it. Those relationships may have some bumps along the way as a result. They’re important though, because they remind you that there is more to life than your career.
The initial years of working as a therapist I spent working in community mental health. It’s not uncommon for those jobs to have high productivity expectations, not great benefits, and high burnout. It’s also some of the most amazing training you can have in the field. I am so grateful for my years spent there. It helped give me confidence working with a wide range of client presentations, working with managed care, and crisis management. I truly think every therapist should spend time working in this setting. There are those that make an entire career out of it. I give them major props.
I am grateful for every professional experience I have had. They helped get me to where I am today. Now I am a small business owner and self employed. That was a scary and welcomed transition. Now it’s totally up to me to make sure that I have that work life balance. I can’t blame anyone else when I start to feel burnt out. I can be the best boss I’ve ever had, or I can be the worse. Luckily, I connected to business coaches and a community of private practice therapist when starting my practice that helped support me in starting this journey on the right foot. From day one, I planned my schedule with my “perfect day” in mind.
Not everyone can or even wants to become self employed. That’s totally ok. There are certainly pros and cons to it. You don’t need to be self employed to find this balance. I know some people that have found it harder to find the balance now that they’re their own boss. Everyone can make steps towards finding greater work life balance. I want to name some of the challenges that many face when thinking about making adjustments so that they may have greater work life balance: family responsibilities, financial responsibilities, and employer expectations.
How to Begin Taking Steps Towards Greater Work Life Balance:
Write down your top 5 personal values. If you’re having trouble getting started google “personal core values” and you’ll find many lists. Once you identify your top values try to come up with about 3 activities that you enjoy that help you to connect to those values.
Then take out a schedule or calendar. Start by looking at your hourly schedule for a week. Block of the things that are consistent (eg work hours). Then add the other activities you are involved in. Make note of which ones are connected to the values you’ve identified. Then notice if there is free time and think about how you might spend that time. For the record, relaxation can absolutely be a core value or something you schedule on the calendar. We don’t need to over schedule every hour of every day. The purpose of this exercise is to notice how you are incorporating those values into your weekly lives. Then after you look at your average week, look at the month or yearly calendars. How do your values fit in there? There may be certain seasons when we can connect to certain values. Are there any changes that you want to make? What would need to happen for that to be possible?
When we connect to our values regularly it helps to refill our cup. It helps us to achieve greater work life balance. It leads to greater life satisfaction.
What work life balance means to us can change at different stages of our lives. Early in our career it will look very different than later. As changes happen throughout our lives (ie new job, new relationship, new pet, having children), it is important to reassess what work life balance now means to you. Make adjustments when you can to help you connect to those values more.
Work life balance is possible. It’s also not an either you have it or you don’t. There are degrees of work life balance. What this looks like is different from person to person. I am grateful that being in private practice contributed to me finding greater work life balance. I’m also looking towards the future and considering what changes I may want to make as life circumstances change.
How do you feel about your current work life balance? Are there adjustments you want to make? If so, what’s one thing that you can do to bring you closer to that balance?
