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How to use fear and discomfort well

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Hi and welcome to Part 3 of our series on Work-Life Balance

Today’s the day we look at fear – fear and all its relatives like nerves, worry, anxiety, discomfort, and the good old Totally Bricking It. What’s fear doing in a work-life balance series? Well, creating your work-life balance starts with looking at where you really are right now – that in itself can be a shocker if you’ve been studiously ignoring yourself for a while.

It’ll also involve you making changes to your daily life – mostly small, sometimes big. At any point in that process, you may encounter something that causes you some concern, worry, or anxiety. You may even come across something that initially scares the wotsits off you, as well as being something you’d love – things like changing job or career, starting to date again, going self employed etc. are pretty good at that.

All those fearful-type feelings have a purpose. The aim today is to understand their purpose and value to you so that you can use them well in creating your work-life balance.

Fear & Discomfort as a Guide
Fearful feelings are all signals that flag up situations where something potentially (N.B. POTENTIALLY) not OK for you requires action to make it OK. The fearful emotions are largely about the future, which is fab because that means there’s the chance for you to do something about it.

Discomfort may be current – flagging up something you need to change in your current balance – or it may be imagined in the future and flagging something you’ll need to address. Either way, check out what exactly it is that bothers you, and find out what you can do to address it.

Fear as a blocker – and safety net
Unaddressed fear can be what holds you back from considering or making changes that you know could be beneficial: The risks of making the change outweigh the discomfort of your current balance, and it’s a bit of “Better the devil you know.” Good news – There’s a lot of wisdom in not moving forward until you have what you need in place. More good news – the risks do not have to be a show stopper if you take a good look at whatever is scary and find solutions you’re ok with.

Tip #5 Take a good look at any changes that you want but also feel scary. What do you need in order to make it OK for you?

Scary and fun – with proper protection

Fear as a motivator to take action
Fear can also be great at getting you into action. You don’t have to use fear to get into action, but if something has got that bad before you act, you better pay attention! Many people may be using this tactic right now to complete their tax returns online. In work-life balance, fear of damaging your health, your relationships, your career can sometimes be the trigger for taking action.

However, fear is lousy at keeping you moving. Imagine it – you’ve moved away from whatever situation was feeling critical, you start to feel more comfortable, life’s feeling better again and you just kind of hang out there for a bit. So if the full monty work-life balance change you seek is still ahead of you, you’ll need to get your motivation from how much you want what’s ahead, not just getting away from what was unpleasant.

Tip #6 If your motivation is to get away from some imbalance, use that to get you going and be sure you have something so yummy to move towards that it keeps you moving forward.

Fear, anxiety, worry, discomfort etc. may not be nice feelings to experience, but they’re there for such a cool reason. Your job is to pay attention to them, understand what they’re warning you about, and then go and suss out what you need to do.

Next: Inspiration for work-life balance

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More to… work life balance

The Nature of Balance

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Hello and welcome to Part 2 of our series on Work-Life Balance.

Yesterday we explored work… and life and the way that every aspect of life is involved in creating balance. Today we’re taking a look at the nature of balance itself. What might be significant about the fact that work-life is a balance?

When something is perfectly in balance, the dictionary definition is that its weight is completely evenly distributed. So when work and all the other elements of life feel in balance, there’s a sense of the weight or priority you give to each element being even or appropriate. The mix of work, and all the elements of the balance wheel are right for you at that point in time.

The other fundamental of balance is that it is possible for something to affect that balance, making it wobble or unbalance. Unlike a fixed structure, something (or someone) that is in balance is sensitive to shifts in their environment: If something changes internally or externally there’s movement and the balance shifts.

Tip #2 Achieving balance is not a one-off activity. To maintain balance, expect to make adjustments.

Balance: includes abilty to move

So there’s adjustments to be made whenever something changes – usually a small adjustment, sometimes something bigger. Stuff will happen, wobbles are natural, the old balance point was good but might not work any more because you, and the contents of your life, have moved on.

Now to consider what balance is like when there aren’t any obvious changes going on. Yep, balance is just as important when you’re on an even keel too!

Do you remember what it feels like to balance on one leg? Holding that balance involves many different muscles working. It is not a passive balance, you’re actively involved in creating it. You might find it helpful to have some support initially, then the more often you practice, the stronger you get and the balancing gets easier.

The same is true for work-life balance. You create the balance, you maintain it daily, provide nurture and practice so that you build strength in balancing.

Tip #3 Work-life balance is dynamic, requiring you to be alert to what’s going on, develop your balancing strength and be ready to make adjustments

There’s also different ways things can balance. In particular, there’s easy ways to balance, and there’s hard ways. Like attempting to balance a triangle on its pointy tip instead of one of the flat sides, the stability of your balance is also about how you choose to create balance, discovering where the natural balance is. Trying harder to balance on a pointy tip does not make a pointy tip either stable or easy to balance on!

Tip #4 Look out for what feels easy to do and check whether that could help your balance

Pointy tips: Rubbish to balance on

Balance is a skill. It becomes easier with practice. It becomes easier when you are alert for changes and take responsible action when needed. It becomes easier when you do a greater proportion of “what comes naturally.”

For today, I challenge you to do one little thing that helps your sense of balance. It can be as small as you like… what will you do?

Next: How to use fear well : what to do if you know the step you want to take but it scares the wotsits off you.

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More to… work life balance

No metaphors were harmed in the writing of this post

Some might have got a bit mixed up

Work … and Life

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Welcome to Part 1 of our series on Work-Life Balance

Let’s start by taking a look at the “Work-Life” bit of this phrase. “Work-Life Balance” picks out one bit of your life (work) and looks at how that balances with the rest of your life.

For most of us, work occupies a big proportion of the hours in our week, second only to the number of hours we sleep. What’s more (with the exception of the Very Rich), most of us need to earn an income, making work the biggest “Got to do” aspect of life.

But how about this… If you look at life as being made up of “work” and “everything else,” couldn’t that emphasis – that very way of thinking about it – be a part of what creates imbalance?

There are rather a lot of important elements all lumped together in that word “life”! Work gets highlighted all on its own, but the rest of your life – your children, partner, friends, family, health, financial security, home, faith, leisure time and relaxation etc. are all in one amorphous mass. Don’t all these other parts of your life deserve consideration individually?

Work Life Balance – whatever works for you

The source of your work-life balance is likely to involve most if not all of these different parts of your life, in different ways. Here’s just a few of the possible examples:

  • Quality leisure time which recharges your batteries can help you think more clearly and easily when you’re at work, potentially shortening your working day and/or leaving you with more energy.
  • A new uber-supportive relationship in your life can help you finally go for that job you’ve always wanted – and vice versa.
  • Addressing your financial situation could reduce the need to work so many hours.

So it’s really more a case of work-finances-health-leisure-family-home-relationships-etc. balance. OK, it’s not such a snappy title! But it opens up a more potential solutions, which is why our first tip is:

Tip #1 If you’re looking at work-life balance make sure you review all aspects of your life

Next step and our practical tool for today – how do you review all aspects of your life? Here’s a simple reflective exercise that quickly helps you visualise what kind of balance you’ve got right now, and spot ways to improve the balance. It’s a “get you thinking” type of exercise called the Balance Wheel. You should be able to download this Word document by clicking on the link.

How to complete your Balance Wheel

  1. First off, identify the 8 aspects of life which are most important to you. Typical examples are:Career, Money, Health, Fun & Relaxation, Family, Friends, Love & romance, Personal Development, Spirituality, Physical Environment – and you can select others if you prefer.Mark these up on on your Balance Wheel template.
  2. Ask yourself how satisfied you are today with each of these areas, on a scale of 0 (utterly dissatisfied) to 10 (satisfied). Mark these up on the template too.
  3. Take a look at the shape you’ve drawn:
  • What do you notice?
  • How satisfied are you with how it looks at the moment?
  • What do you most want to change?
  • Which segment(s) might help you with that change?
  • Which segment would you start with?
  • What level do you want to get that first segment to?
  • What would that look like?

Your answers are unique to you. Whatever feels like it makes sense to you is worth exploring.

Next: The Nature of Balance

 

Welsh Mountain Retreat Holidays to help you recharge, refocus & relax

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More to… work life balance

Work Life Balance

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“Work-Life Balance” … it’s a very familiar phrase, often talked about, frequently identified as something to “sort out.” But what does it actually mean?

This week we’ll be exploring work-life balance from lots of different angles –  clarifying what it means for you, introducing ways that you can create and maintain a better balance for yourself, and exploring perspectives that increase the choices open to you.

So what is it that draws you to work-life balance?

It often becomes a hot topic when work feels like it’s taking over, occupying more time and/or energy than you’d like. You may also be seeking more flexibility in your working hours to accomodate time with your children, space for professional development or to focus on your health. You may be seeking promotion, considering going self-employed, or wanting to discover how you can earn your living doing something that you love.

Work-life balance will change if you are starting  a family, extending your family or entering retirement. You may seek to adjust the balance if you want to take up a new hobby, meet the partner of your dreams, care for a loved one or are handling an illness. You may want to be able to give more to your community, friends or family. Or you may just have some general internal feeling that “something’s off kilter.”

Work-life balance succeeds when you cover the elements that are relevant for you in a way that feels good to you. There is no standard answer, no “bish-bash-bosh” pre-determined balance formula. But there are tools, techniques and questions that make it easier for you to find out what will work for you and your balance. That’s what the More to… Work-life balance week is about.

My hope is that these blogs provide you with some clarity about your current balance, how you can create or re-establish a balance that works for you, and how you can maintain that balance. Sound good? First step coming right up.

Step 1: More to life in Work-Life balance

 

Welsh Mountain Retreat Holidays to help you recharge, refocus & relax