Achieving Work-Life Harmony
As another year unfolds, busy professionals everywhere are making renewed commitments to achieve a better work-life balance, myself included. It’s challenging to find enough time for our personal responsibilities when work demands can be overwhelming.
So challenging, in fact, that a colleague recently described this common objective as finding “work-life harmony” because no one can reasonably get work and life to perfectly balance. An enlightening perspective for sure. She added, though, that work-life harmony does take a constant effort to attain, so we need to get comfortable with it always being a work in progress. We must analyze and adjust year-round.
My personal approach to work-life harmony involves using a self-evaluation tool that many people call a “Wheel of Life” or a “Life Balance Wheel.” You will find many versions of the tool through a simple internet search. Mine is specifically labeled as “The Abundance in Life Wheel.” Generally speaking, these wheels encourage you to assess how each area of your life is currently balanced while helping you set personal goals for growth.
On my wheel, I rate the 14 core values provided – which range from “Health and Wellness” to “Career and Business” to “Adventure and Fun” – on a scale of 1 to 10 at the start of the year. Based on my ratings, I challenge myself to think about what will move each of these numbers higher. Maybe a category is already at a comfortable 6 or 7, but can I take steps to increase it to an 8?
I also use my life wheel to determine where I can reasonably be focused. It’s not always on a low number, but sometimes in an area where I know I’ll have the energy to make a difference. There can be other drivers as well that impact your attention. Every approach to improvement is different because each of us is different.
For example, when I think about my goals with a safety lens or leadership lens, it involves self-reflection, and how I specifically do that will affect how I show up for others. If I am worried about money and the cost of aging, then understanding my personal financial position now and in the future is my goal. Next I take steps to map to the goal by determining what I have and what I need to achieve that future life state. Everything becomes clearer, more manageable and more possible when you are focused on the issues and creating paths forward.
With so many self-improvement tools on the market, each of us must explore what best fits our own journey to improvement. Leaders might also find guidance in Gallup’s latest book, titled “Wellbeing at Work: How to Build Resilient and Thriving Teams.”
Work-life harmony is unquestionably a worthwhile endeavor as we embark on our 2023 goals. It just takes a consistent focus on our personal wheel of life.