Blog 28:  Work-life balance:  Who else is finding the struggle between professional and personal life difficult to balance? 

balancing work and family
©LinkedIn

Maintaining work-life balance is difficult.  We tend to think about it when it’s out or when work and personal feel like they are competing.  As with most Your life caddy blogs, we seek to gain a healthy perspective, then embed good rhythms and habits.  So let’s get a healthy perspective on work-life balance.

breaking news:  there is no perfect work life balance

Sorry guys, but the bad news is that you’ll never get this right, there is no perfect work-life balance.  Accepting that is a good first step.  It will help you lean into a paradigm shift and seek to make small adjustments as life shifts on you.

. . . because life isn’t static, but rather dynamic.  Life keeps changing – kids come along, responsibilities increase, bosses change, longer hours are required at work, parents age and you end up parenting them . . . we grow.  The world changes.  Others around us change.  The only thing that doesn’t change is change. 

So we need a perspective to see work-life balance as a dynamic model that requires adjustments.  A model that helps us see adjustments as a normal part of life.  To do this, perhaps the model shouldn’t be a balance but rather a tension.  A tension where you are pulling hard on a ‘personal-life’ rope on the one hand and ‘work-life’ rope on the other hand.  Both require effort (pull).  Sometimes the effort is required to pull on the personal-life rope more in a season where your family needs increase.  In another season it’s the work-life rope as work demands requires a greater pull.  We need to manage the tension.  It’ll never be consistent weight, it is constantly shifting and you’re constantly adjusting.    

So i find it helpful to see the work-life balance model not like this . . .
. . . but more like this

Atwood Machine
©Study Pug ©Small Business Trends

What is an Atwood Machine?

In 1784, George Atwood created a device to calculate force and tension and to verify the laws of motion of objects under constant acceleration. His device, now known as an Atwood’s Machine, consisted of two masses, connected by a tight string that passes over a pulley.

Illinois Institute of Technology

That sounds like maintaining work-life balance to me . . . . two objects under constant acceleration.  Now i am no physics expert but at a very basic level it appears the Atwood Machine helps us to understand the impact of mass on acceleration – and things are constantly changing and shifting – we want to keep the tension manageable and workable. 

Which brings us to the question – how do we manage that?  What are the helpful rhythms and habits to manage the tension between my work-life and personal-life?  Next week we will unpack a range of habits that will help but for now here are two tips to keep at the forefront.

1. On the days you don’t know what to choose, choose mental health

Make that your default setting.  If you are struggling with your mental health, neither your work nor your family nor friends will be getting the best version of you.  So protect your mental health. 

2. Maintain your growth mindset

Your growth mindset will keep you in a healthy, positive space while you sort through how to maintain the work-life tension.  A growth mindset has been mentioned in many of the blogs, but blog 6 introduces it.  Essentially a growth mindset is a belief that most things can be worked through with effort:  dedicated focus, hard work and resilience.

If you can maintain a perspective that holds work-life balance as a tension that needs constant adjustment while being cogniscant of your mental health and maintaining a growth mindset . . . you’ve got the foundations for improving your work-life balance.  We’ll get to some habits and rhythms that may prove helpful next week.  Until then, take some time to reflect on how you manage your work-life tension.

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