Work stress is killing us. Our health and family are suffering. We are
becoming workaholics. How can we restore work-life balance in our fast paced
lifestyles? If only there is a way by which we can fulfill all our responsibilities
well while consistently delivering quality work.
There might be several approaches to work-life balance which work for
different people. I would like to outline a generic methodology.
If we have a deep realization that we are not put on this earth
haphazardly, but have a purpose and will be accountable for what we do with the
gift of life, we will become very proactive. We will become program managers -
managing and executing various projects for all aspects of our life. So, we
have projects for our career, family, health, spirituality, education, finances
and social circle. Each of these projects are important and cannot be neglected
to maintain our natural state of happiness. For most people, there exists an
all-encompassing philosophy that covers all the projects. Thus, they are
integrated and lead to the overall vision.
We need to sincerely believe in our philosophy of life, whatever it is. For us it should not just be a philosophy, it should be reality. We must implement it and try to deeply understand it. When we try to understand it, we will start finding deep meaning in all our different responsibilities where everything is related to everything else. Thus, since we are working with a single overall personal vision, we will enjoy doing them all, even if it is something as simple as throwing the garbage out. We will strive to give every responsibility its due right – not neglecting anything.
We will have micro-visions and goals for every aspect of our life that fit with our overall vision based on our personal philosophy. Thus, we plan and track each aspect of our life as we tend to plan and track our professional work.
If we make our personal accountability based on our philosophy to be more important than anything, it will be easy to keep two steps ahead of the game by anticipating things that might happen and deal with them before they happen in all our projects. If we inculcate this proactive inner feeling within us, we will be pulled to do each activity of our life by being sincere to our philosophy rather than being pushed to do them without a vision. Thus, we would do each task with excellence and ease.
Professional work is one of our
important personal projects within the program that an individual can manage well.
If we do not manage other aspects of life well, we would become imbalanced,
overworked and stressed. Our work would lack initiative, creativity, passion
and quality. Our life would become miserable because it would become out of
synch with the natural principles of well being.
Thus, we need to firmly manage
expectations that others might have from us, otherwise we risk being burnt out.
We need to set clear boundaries about what we can and cannot accept, then
consistently deliver quality work based on it. We also tend to suffer most when
our personal philosophy is not compatible with our corporate vision. If we work
in an organization where we can grow our personal philosophy in line with
corporate philosophy we can be more happy and balanced.
To keep ourselves motivated, we need to
keep sharpening our personal vision by studying and reflecting on the sources
of our philosophy of life daily so that we always increase in mindfulness and
improve in all areas. We study the lives of successful role models who were
able to achieve success in very different areas of their lives based on our
philosophy.
If we become selfish and keep our
secrets of success to ourselves, we risk drowning in the negativity of the
people we interact with. Rather, we need to teach our philosophy of life to
others by positively influencing them so that they can be empowered to self
reform. Through this synergy, we become more efficient, balanced and happy as a
society.
In terms of personal routines, we start
the day before dawn, plan and execute each day as if we are strategizing a
project. We just focus of getting one day right, every day until it
becomes a lifestyle. We use the power of habits and scheduling to propel us. By
observing our routine and experimenting with it, we try to find out what
factors make us most productive. Removing distracting activities which do not
add value, such as TV, too much news, social media and useless conversations, makes
us focused. We have time to rest. We go to bed at the same time every night and
get enough sleep. We eat healthy, exercise regularly and practice meditation at
key stages of the day. Finally, it is essential to live with a supportive
family who has imbibed these principles themselves.
