Understanding the Key to Work-Life Balance

By Amy House

As a business coach and consultant, I often warn my clients that I make direct statements. I don’t do this to offend anyone; I do it to provide awareness as I believe that honesty is the best policy. After all, awareness is that moment when we experience a breakthrough. A needed breakthrough that will totally change our mindset, our businesses, our lives, and our ability to achieve results.

I believe the perspective I am about to share could be one of those moments for you. Sidenote: I also tell my clients that what I say may tick them off. However, take 24 hours to really think about it. (Wink!)

The discussion of work-life balance basically goes like this: You can achieve balance if you just try hard enough. Really? Out of every 24 hours, 12 are work and 12 are life? Or is balance more like 16 hours on work and 8 on life? What if I have a day that is 20 hours work but the next day is 20 hours life? Who tracks this? Should I be tracking this?

And, is this a good use of my time and mental energy? And what is “enough”? How hard is “enough”? Why should this be hard anyway? Shouldn’t my work and life have flow and not be hard?

I have worked with hundreds of clients, business owners, business leaders, and companies. At some point, a version of this question pops up in a session or meeting. It may not be the direct focus of our conversation, but it comes from this source: How can I achieve a better work-life balance?

Here is what I have come to believe and what I share with my clients.

3 things to know about work-life balance

1. There is no such thing as work-life balance

It is about flow. Just like a wave will flow back and forth from the shore, there will be times in business or life where we will be in a forward direction, and at other times the opposite.

2. Sometimes your work and your life are merged

There isn’t a time of day that suddenly your mind just switches off. I recognize that solutions for my life and home sometimes show up at a lunch meeting with a client; sometimes, that situation is reversed. Our lives and work are merged. They aren’t separated.

3. The seasons of life are a reality, too

When I was first married, that was a season. Every time I was promoted in my former career, my work landscape took front stage. Other seasons have included graduate school, children, caring for a parent, starting my business, growing my business, and transitioning to an empty nest. I don’t make excuses for seasons. They just are. Sometimes recognizing what is helps us understand and accept seasonal flow.

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What decisions are you putting off?

When the work-life discussion comes up with my clients, I ask one question: What decisions are you putting off? When we aren’t making critical decisions, we stall or stop forward movement. Instead of recognizing the overwhelm from our indecisiveness, we start thinking we are out of balance.

We all intuitively know that balance in our work and lives is not truly achievable. However, we experience imbalance because we aren’t making key decisions. Once we decide important issues, our work and lives organize around those decisions.

A great example is my client “Joan.” Joan has a marriage that is shaky and some health issues that she needs to face. She is also expanding her work team by two people. Joan comes to our session wanting to talk onboarding strategies for her new work team, but keeps diverting the conversation back to her health and marriage. She keeps referring to the “need to balance.” But ultimately, these were the decisions and questions she was avoiding:

Should she get up 30 minutes earlier to walk? Does she even want to? What else could she do in those 30 minutes while walking that would add enjoyment? Does she believe that walking will improve her health?

Should she hire someone to prepare food for her? Would having healthful meals ready to take to work or eat at home help her eat better? Would she still snack? Can they make snacks? Is this a waste of money? Should she just suck it up and do it herself on Sunday?

Does her husband feel the same disconnect? Why don’t I just plan a monthly lunch or dinner date with him? Why doesn’t he?! Maybe we should do an activity? Is fun missing from our lives? Is this a relationship issue or a quality time issue?

Once Joan talked through all the questions she had been asking herself, she started answered them.

It wasn’t about balance. Walking wasn’t the issue; it was making the decision to make the time and use it wisely. It wasn’t about eating more healthfully; it was about deciding on the mechanism to eat healthfully. It wasn’t about staying married or not; it was about setting aside time to really connect instead of just passing briefly with quick bullet point conversations.

Understanding the key to work-life balance

As an entrepreneur myself, I also experience overwhelm and feel like my life is “out of balance.” However, when I really sit with my thoughts and feelings, I discover it is because I have decisions that need to be made.

Most of us realize that our lives are imbalanced toward work. We also know that our time limits mean that we must make decisions.

Usually, those decisions do not mean that you need to quit your job or close your business to reduce stress. It just may mean that you must decide if you need to get up at 5 a.m. to go to the gym if your health is a priority. It may mean that your children can only participate in one after-school activity unless you hire a nanny. It may mean that you must purposefully schedule time with your spouse because you are both busy and “organic” relationship building just doesn’t happen.

Consider making decisions the next time you feel the “scales” of work and life imbalance.

About the Author

Post by: Amy House

Amy House, M.Ed., is a business success coach, vlogger, blogger, and speaker.
Connect with me on LinkedIn.