Work-Life Balance and Why We Won’t Ever Achieve It
Work-life balance is a big buzz term in our—yes, undeniably overworked—society. According to Deloitte’s external marketplace survey of 1,000 full-time US professionals, 77% of us have experienced burnout at our current jobs. And working from home is no recipe for fixing that. In fact, 40% of remote workers say being able to unplug from work is the biggest challenge they face.
Excessive workload is reported to be the #1 cause of burnout, in addition to lack of control, lack of support, and lack of resources. Yes, work seems to be hammering us to our demise, creating a sense of deep imbalance. Renewing our commitment to work-life balance makes sense.
Or does it? What if we’ve got the call to action all wrong? What if work-life balance is a myth and our true task is to create synergy between work and all other aspects of our lives? Instead of allowing the system to define work-life balance for us, what if we decided for ourselves what it means to work and live fully?
What is work-life balance anyway?
I’ve fallen into the work-life balance trap myself. For much of my twenties and thirties, I strived to do everything work-life balance experts recommend: I set boundaries, became a pro at time management, worked in bursts with breaks in between, scheduled social engagements in my calendar, took PTO, shut down my computer before walking out of my office, exercised, changed my eating habits, turned my phone off after 7pm, went to sleep early. You get the picture.
After two decades, I felt like a robot. Work became a separate entity in my mind – one that I treated like the plague, a virus that was constantly eating at my soul. I thought I had to set up defenses against it. Instead of embracing my passion and love for work, I grew to hate my job. I felt guilty when I answered an email at night. And shamed myself when I didn't exercise or showed up late to a family event. I grew to despise my love-hate relationship with work and felt guilty for everything I did outside of "work hours."
How it shifted
It wasn’t until I started aligning with my passions and understood that I couldn’t run away from feelings and emotions, that I realized I had mistakenly made my life into a mechanical masterpiece. It lacked flow and grace and spontaneity. It was, ultimately, devoid of what really mattered to me.
Work wasn't the enemy, I discovered. Work was a foundational piece of my excitement about life. I just hadn’t yet found a role or career path that tapped my creative capacity and spirit. The need wasn’t to find balance between work and life, but to allow a dynamic interchange of all of my life passions to integrate. The challenge was to find and honor the rhythm that was uniquely mine.
Changing our perceptions of work and life
To achieve work-life balance means, first, you have to believe that work and life are separate. But, in actuality, work is simply a part of the whole of our lives.
Think about it: We might spend 40-60 hours at work each week, which leaves us 70% of our time to play with. 25-30% of that might be sleep if you’re a master of recovery, which leaves you 40-45% of your time to spend on the rest of life – be it community service, spiritual practices, travel, self-care, exercise, hobbies, social time with friends, family time, or just plain ol’ you-time.
From balance to synergy
When we are energized about what we do every day, we also feel the other aspects of our lives activate. We make choices to engage with what matters to us. When we know what it feels like to be aligned, our decisions reflect this. When we love our work and everything in between, we give up striving for balance and allow ourselves to dance through life, responding with integrity to everything that comes our way.
Life synergy: The work-life balance alternative
So how can we reframe the conversation and feel more integrated in personal and professional endeavors? Here are five recommendations to get you started.
Determine where you want to spend your energy
Write down all the things you do in your life. Shift your focus to those that you love doing and that bring you joy. Be sure to include your work and other activities such as spending time with your kids, hiking or working out with friends, doing art, making meals, creating for clients, traveling, having a cup of coffee on your porch, going on a date with your partner. Decide how much of your energy you’d like to invest in each of them. Use this list to make adjustments moving forward.
Track your energy allotment across the next month
Enter each of your activities from the above list in this tracker.* This exercise is more of a reflective exercise than a habit tracker as you’re assessing the activities where you spend your energy. Enter your target for each activity and track how often you devote your time and/or energy to each over the next month. The sheet will calculate the percentages for you (and thoughtfully encourage you with an emoji). At the end of the period, compare your target to your actual goal, and make adjustments on how to integrate all parts of your life with more ease and joy.
Create new relationships
New relationships aren’t just limited to people. We also need to evaluate our relationships to philosophies, concepts, beliefs, and aspects of our own minds in every part of our lives. Formulating a fresh perspective helps you reimagine what life and work might be like outside of collective definitions. For example, when we see and let go of how we relate to work currently, we make room for more ease, joy, and flow.
Re-evaluate your work
Take a close look at your job or career and evaluate how much it fulfills you. Awareness is the first step. Aligning with what you're passionate about will largely start to alleviate the need to search for ways to counteract it. If access, support, and resources are limiting factors, speak with someone who can creatively help you find avenues and people to connect with. Align yourself as best as possible with what you love. It may take some time, but it’s worth the effort.
Check-in with your vision
Unless we continuously assess where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going, we’ll always feel like we’re playing the balance game. Evaluate your path and your vision quarterly at the very least. Points of transition between actual fiscal quarters or even the seasons are opportune times to pause, reflect, and make adjustments to where you spend your energy. If you need support making a serious change, ask a friend or family member to give you honest feedback or hire a coach to help you identify the gaps and create fresh attainable goals that you can start moving toward.
At the end of the day, words matter. Work-life balance is a misnomer that holds a stagnant and life-depleting energy. Say it out loud: work-life balance. Does it feel vibrant? Or dull? Similar to experiences, words can either enhance our lives or lead to disenchantment. Let’s shift the conversation and bring more synergy to all the things we do in life, letting ourselves off the hook for the futile search for balance.
If you're looking to find more meaning and joy in your work, transformational coaching could be the answer to achieving a more harmonious and satisfying life.
