Life Balance What Is It
Life Balance What Is It
So first off, let’s make sure we define our terms. What is life balance?
It’s actually easier to tell you what it is NOT. It isn’t a formula, nor is it an automatic 50/50 equilibrium between work and private life.
You can’t simply define it as spending 8 hours each and every day at work, another 8 hours on personal things, and the remaining 8 on sleep.
Life balance is NOT…
• A perfect target that you hit.
• Something you level off at.
• A static outcome.
Life balance changes over time, depending on external and internal factors, particularly at the different stages in your life. It isn’t constant. It isn’t a destination - it’s a journey.
Life happens. It sometimes swings like a pendulum. If your goal is constant balance and happiness, you’ll be disappointed.
So just what exactly is life balance? Well, it’s personal – you have the chance to define it for yourself, and you should.
'Just to give you some examples, here are some of the ways in which a few other people define life balance. Bear in mind that your definition may vary:
• Many people include flexibility and sustainability in their definitions of life balance.
• Others talk about achievement and enjoyment.
• Others aspire to creating meaningful daily enjoyment and fulfillment in work, family, friends, and self.
• In a 2003 article entitled “A Balanced Worklife: A Matter of Maintenance”, author Jaques Limoges says that work-life balance is “primarily a matter of deciding when to hold on and when to let go.”
The simple fact is this: life balance is whatever you define it to be.
The important thing is that you should realize that you have a choice in the matter. If you’re a 25-year-old software developer and you thrive on 80-hour-weeks and late-night delivered pizza eaten in front of your monitor at work, and you’re happy, then great.
On the other hand, if you’re a 45-year-old married-with-children engineer who’s being forced to work 60 hours a week and you resent it because you’d much rather scale back to 40 hours a week and spend more time with your family, then you need to take steps to change things.
You can choose to be a workaholic or prisoner of success in your career and have little time for your private lives, living in a constantly exhausted state and feeling overburdened at work and at home…
Or you can be satisfied at work and dream of a better career and life. It’s up to you. You can feel guilty about never being able to recapture the time you’re sacrificing today to get ahead, and you can run from this thing to that, coming up for air every so often.
OR…
You can integrate your life. You can create a lifestyle – choose a life – that is balanced – one that you actually want.
• Step back and objectively look at what’s going on in your life.
• Define what a balanced life looks like to you.
• Determine what’s most important to you and find ways to attain those things.
The goal is to create a lifestyle that you want so that it doesn’t require all of your energy and effort to maintain that balance
I truly believe that not only does each of us have the ability to create the lives that we truly desire; everything we need to live that life is already inherent within each of us.
There’s no magic for success in life. No book or column can analyze your life, nor discover what you hope it to be. Only you can.
Copyright 2007 David B. Bohl, REFLECTIONS Coaching LLC. All rights reserved.
Life Balance What Is It - To learn more about this author, visit David Bohl's Website.
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You’ve probably heard the term "life balance”, and maybe you’ve had a nagging feeling about it... like that maybe it applies to you. Perhaps you suspect your life might be out of balance, but you don’t really know for sure.
So first off, let’s make sure we define our terms. What is life balance?
It’s actually easier to tell you what it is NOT. It isn’t a formula, nor is it an automatic 50/50 equilibrium between work and private life.
You can’t simply define it as spending 8 hours each and every day at work, another 8 hours on personal things, and the remaining 8 on sleep.
Life balance is NOT…
• A perfect target that you hit.
• Something you level off at.
• A static outcome.
Life balance changes over time, depending on external and internal factors, particularly at the different stages in your life. It isn’t constant. It isn’t a destination - it’s a journey.
Life happens. It sometimes swings like a pendulum. If your goal is constant balance and happiness, you’ll be disappointed.
So just what exactly is life balance? Well, it’s personal – you have the chance to define it for yourself, and you should.
'Just to give you some examples, here are some of the ways in which a few other people define life balance. Bear in mind that your definition may vary:
• Many people include flexibility and sustainability in their definitions of life balance.
• Others talk about achievement and enjoyment.
• Others aspire to creating meaningful daily enjoyment and fulfillment in work, family, friends, and self.
• In a 2003 article entitled “A Balanced Worklife: A Matter of Maintenance”, author Jaques Limoges says that work-life balance is “primarily a matter of deciding when to hold on and when to let go.”
The simple fact is this: life balance is whatever you define it to be.
The important thing is that you should realize that you have a choice in the matter. If you’re a 25-year-old software developer and you thrive on 80-hour-weeks and late-night delivered pizza eaten in front of your monitor at work, and you’re happy, then great.
On the other hand, if you’re a 45-year-old married-with-children engineer who’s being forced to work 60 hours a week and you resent it because you’d much rather scale back to 40 hours a week and spend more time with your family, then you need to take steps to change things.
You can choose to be a workaholic or prisoner of success in your career and have little time for your private lives, living in a constantly exhausted state and feeling overburdened at work and at home…
Or you can be satisfied at work and dream of a better career and life. It’s up to you. You can feel guilty about never being able to recapture the time you’re sacrificing today to get ahead, and you can run from this thing to that, coming up for air every so often.
OR…
You can integrate your life. You can create a lifestyle – choose a life – that is balanced – one that you actually want.
• Step back and objectively look at what’s going on in your life.
• Define what a balanced life looks like to you.
• Determine what’s most important to you and find ways to attain those things.
The goal is to create a lifestyle that you want so that it doesn’t require all of your energy and effort to maintain that balance
I truly believe that not only does each of us have the ability to create the lives that we truly desire; everything we need to live that life is already inherent within each of us.
There’s no magic for success in life. No book or column can analyze your life, nor discover what you hope it to be. Only you can.
Copyright 2007 David B. Bohl, REFLECTIONS Coaching LLC. All rights reserved.
Life Balance What Is It - To learn more about this author, visit David Bohl's Website.
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Cheryl MatthynssensCheryl is a life skills coach, licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor and a 20 year entrepreneur. Cheryl's dedication to achieving a life of balance led to her expanding her teaching from the simple managing of life's daily challenges to adding financial well being as well. A direct marketer with DrinkACT, she is gaining ground in the online community with her concepts of making sure business owners, entreprenuers and employees have well rounded life styles. She opened up a small affiliate site - The Balance Guide- to help others find resources for mental and emotional well being. Visit Cheryl's blog to see more of the diversity beyond business she has began offering online at www.thebalanceguide.blogspot.com - Visit Cheryl Matthynssens's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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