The work-life balance competency is defined as “Someone who maintains a conscious balance between work and personal life so that one doesn’t dominate the other; is not one-dimensional; knows how to attend to both; gets what they want from both.”
In this work from home age, I’ve been thinking a lot about how this affects us day to day. Our work lives are always in and around our personal lives. When I first heard of this term a few years ago, I thought about this in regard to someone who was a “workaholic” someone who only spends time at their job, or working in some capacity and does little else.
I was speaking to a client yesterday, and she was describing a situation to me about a coworker of hers who she feels is an absentee worker, and is always looking for an out from doing her work. My client laughed and said to me:
“It is not her fault that her job interferes with her life.” This woman who she was describing to me also had no work-life balance, as her personal life disrupted her work one.
This is also applicable to people who have normal hours at their jobs and still do good work. I can think of multiple friends I have who are good at what they do, put in their 8 hours of work a day, and come home to sit on the couch and watch TV. I wouldn’t call that balance either! (No offense, I do love a good Sex and the City rerun after work sometimes).
Balance is not just going to work and coming home in a timely fashion, but doing things that make your heart happy. That could be coming home to cook yourself something, finding time for a workout class, doing some shopping, meeting a friend for dinner, or maybe sometimes…watching Netflix on the couch.
There isn’t a science to this, I don’t think one needs a checklist or a calendar. I do think more people would benefit from setting a small goal to make themselves a bit more balanced. Just give it some thought, and let me know if you need some help setting those small goals.
Career & Goal Setting Coach 