3 Ways To Establish And Maintain Healthy Work-Life Balance

I feel like my family gets the short end of the stick. I never have time to do the things I love to do. Work is always calling me and I have to answer.

These are things I hear regularly from leaders around the world. There’s never enough time to get work and life done. One or the other gets neglected.

What if I told you it didn’t have to be this way? What if you could accomplish everything you needed at work and still spend time with loved ones doing what you love?

It’s possible. Not only is it possible but it’s something you need to do.

Man walking across a chasm. Walking a tightrope.

Photo by Loic Leray on Unsplash

3 Ways To Establish And Maintain Healthy Work-Life Balance

In this article, we will look at 3 ways you can establish and maintain a healthy work-life balance. You may be shocked at one or two of the suggestions. You may wonder why you didn’t think of these ideas before. 

The Importance Of Work-Life Balance For Leaders

You may have heard from others that there’s no such thing as work-life balance. They will tell you that we don’t have separate work and personal lives. It’s a good argument. But it’s flawed.

True, we live and work at the same time, but we’re not necessarily doing what we want when we’re working. We report to others, supervise others, and have our day directed.

With a proper work-life balance, there is a separation between the two.

Man walking on a tightrope over a large gap.

Photo by Loic Leray on Unsplash

The Importance Of Work-Life Balance For Leaders

Work-life balance is important not because working is bad. Nor is play bad. But when we can’t find time for either one, trouble arises.

Think of the business executive who can’t shut off at the end of the workday. He finds himself mired in work. His phone is in his hand while he’s checking emails when he should be focused on his wife and children at home. Years later, after neglecting his personal responsibility, he finds himself divorced, lonely, and considered a bad father.

What If Work-Life Balance Was Actually This?

Through my writing on work-life balance, I’ve come to ponder something about this sought-after concept. Balancing your work life and your personal life sounds amazing.

You have all the time you need to work. To play. To spend time with your family.

Could happiness be what work-life balance is all about?

But is this truly possible? Can we balance everything we want with everything we must do? And, if we can’t, is there something more than work-life balance?

I think I’ve come to a new conclusion. Work-life balance isn’t about having a perfect life. Instead, it’s more about doing the things you need to do.

This leads to something else. This leads to happiness.

Could Work-Life Balance Be Happiness?

Yes, you have to find a semblance of balance in your life. You can’t be all work and no play. You also can’t be all play and no work.

The Best Work-Life Balance Tips

While you can’t completely balance your work and outside life, you can do many things to make them more balanced. You can find more time to spend with your wife and children. You can find ways to go to the concerts and movies you so enjoyed going to before the weight of leadership took over. And you can find more margin in your life to do more work.

Tips to balance your life

Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen

The choices you’ll have to make will tip the teeter-totter of balance one way or the other. Yet you can figure out the balance that works for your life.

By using the work-life balance tips below, you’ll discover the extra margin for family, friends, and even business!

The Best Work-Life Balance Tips

1. Choose your priorities:

Do you know what truly matters in your life? If you don’t know what matters to you, you can’t create balance in those areas.

The Tightrope Walk Of Work-Life Balance

The Work-Life Balance Series

Everyone wants more time to spend with their wife, their children, or their friends. Work seems to get in the way of this quite often. Even more so, work tends to consume other parts of our lives.

work and life are like a tightrope walk

Many people have their work-life balance out of whack. It’s one of the easiest things to do. Whether this is due to issues at home (an angry wife) or challenges at work, we tend to mess up one or the other.

The Tightrope Walk Of Work-Life Balance

For years, the work-life balance looked like:

  • Office hours of 9-5
  • No outside communication after office hours
  • Paid vacation with little to no interruptions

Things have changed. The advent of the cell phone has made separating your home life from your work life incredibly difficult.