Balancing your work life and your home life can be a challenge sometimes. But does balance always have to mean 50:50?
How do you measure "work" and "life" balance?
Some people are willing to pay the price of career success - whatever that means to each individual - by putting in the hours.
They may not seem to have the balance to you, but that is the price they are willing to pay.
To accuse your boss of not providing you a work and life balance is highly unfair. Bosses are not here to provide a balance. For one simple reason: bosses do not know what your balance is, and your balance may not be the same as the other colleagues in your department.
Imagine the laziest colleague you know at work. Now imagine, what would work and life balance be for him/her?
So, what does it mean? Your boss has to customize a balance for everyone?
Don’t get me wrong. Do I believe in work-life balance? Of course I do. I know my balance. I know when I tip to spending more time at work and what are the hours I would like to spend with my family.
But that’s me. Not you. What is balance to you may be different from everyone else.
If you feel you are overworked for long periods of time, quit. But don’t blame your boss for the lack of work-life balance. In the corporate world, the first priority of the boss is to deliver profit to the shareholders.
If you decide to talk about this balance, you must know what your ratio is. Find work that fits that ratio.
If you're not willing to sacrifice your weekends for your company, and you know only the people who spend their weekends at work get promoted, perhaps you should think again about your future there.
Let’s face it – work-life balance is an on going challenge because the nature of your job changes and the nature of your personal life changes as well.
So, you need to constantly adjust it. Instead of blaming the nature of your work and your boss, or the company’s culture, I feel it is better to manage your own time and expectations.
Meaning, keeping track of how you spend your time. If you like to procrastinate and get distracted at work, perhaps your long hours are due to your bad habits?
Review what are your priorities and your work habits. Of course, your company’s work culture is important too. But I would start with you. Review your own work ethics if you are looking at a ratio of work-life balance that suits you.
Once you have done that you can see if your company’s work culture and your workload and assignments fit with your expectations. Then do the hard decisions if both do not meet.
When you talk about work-life balance, do you really know your own ratio that you would like to live with? What's the price you are willing to pay and the effort you are willing to put in?
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