 Firstly I would like to thank the people who shared with me, how helpful they found last month's topic on "Expectations." And thank you too, to those who passed the newsletter on to others, who have since contacted me to go on my mailing list. Most appreciated.
Now moving on to this month's topic - 'Work/Life Balance'. A few years ago I ran presentations for corporate organisations on this topic & how important it is to create a balance in our lives in 6 key areas :- work, others in our life/social, leisure, finance, health, goals/purpose. Not always easy!
In my book I have a whole chapter on the 'Life Wheel' which is very similar to the W/L/B key areas, if you are going to make the most of the rest of your life. I now believe even more strongly, from the experiences people have shared with me over the past few years at seminars, that developing a healthy work/life balance needs to start early in our working lives. When the time does come to transition into retirement, the fear of - "What will I do?" will be reduced significantly & the possibility of depression diminished because work hasn't been your main focus.
It is so easy for work to take over our lives, especially when workplaces cut back on staff & then expect the other employees to carry the extra load. Over time, this kind of pressure can affect the other areas of the 'life wheel' and cause imbalance in our lives. You have to ask yourself - Am I living to work or working to live? I urge you to take stock of the 6 key areas in your own life at this point of time & give yourself a rating for each one: A-very good, B-okay, C-not too good.
What is one key area you could make changes in, to start improving the balance? If you work in a sedentary job - perhaps spending a large part of the day on the computer, do you have a physical activity, eg. walking, that you could do a few times a week, before or after work, perhaps with your partner or a friend, to enhance the areas of health & social. One of my daughters, who is a midwife, started doing tango classes a few months ago & loves it. She finds that her job can get quite intense & going to these dance classes brings her into contact with a different group of people & she loves the fun, social atmosphere & also the physical outlet of tango dancing. Might try it myself!
Just as we often hear that we need to have a balanced food diet to stay healthy, we also need a balanced lifestyle to stay mentally & physically fit. If we put all our energy into one or two areas, eg. work & finance, then we are depriving ourselves of the other vital areas that add substance to our lives. If your main social networking comes from work colleagues & your family connections are not strong, you can feel 'lost' when you stop working. Depression can set in, particularly with men whose work has been their life. In an article I read a while back about Peter Brock, when he retired from professional car racing in his 50's, he fell into periods of depression, as his motor racing career had been his life, which he had lived in the public eye for many years. His relationship of 28yrs broke up in 2005 & then a year later in 2006, aged 61, he was killed in a car accident.
A well-balanced social network includes family, friends,work colleagues, neighbours, community involvement & people you share interests with. Research has found that having regular social interaction throughout our life is as important for our overall health, as a good diet & regular physical exercise. I can really relate to this, as in my lifetime, I've had a few moves, each time having to settle in a new community, make new friends, start all over again. Our grown family are scattered around the country so we don't see them as much as I'd like to. One thing that has really helped us settle into new communities at different stages of our life, is joining service clubs like Apex, Toastmasters, Rotary, Lions. You meet some great people & get involved in the community more easily.
You can have all the money in the world, but if you don't have good health & positive relationships in your life, your Life Wheel will be out of balance. Next time you catch yourself saying,eg. - "I don't have enough time to go for a daily walk or spend more time with my family", tell yourself that you can make the time. One day you could regret that you spent too much time on work & not enough on the other key areas of your life. Life goes so quickly - make the most of it, before it's too late.
What can you let go of that, in the big picture, is really not that important, to give you more time for what is? What responsibilities can you share with others to lighten your load? It is okay to say "No" sometimes, so that you can say "Yes" to make time for creating a better balance in your life.
"You will never find the time for anything. If you want the time, you must make it." - Charles Buxton, author.
Please feel welcome to send this newletter on, to any person or business you think could be interested.
Enjoy your life,
Eva
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