The Essential Steps to Achieving a Healthy Work-Life Balance
If you want to avoid burnout and optimize your health, having balance between your work and your personal life is so important.
Why the work week seems longer now than ever before.
Our lives are becoming increasingly busy, and for many of us, finding a healthy balance between our work schedules and our social lives/”me time” is difficult. The elusive “work-life” balance is something we all know and would like to say we have mastered, but for the vast majority of us, it’s tricky to balance the two and we may not know how or believe it’s possible.
No matter what field of work you’re in, life can demand a lot from you, particularly if you’re someone who is highly driven to be successful. Even if you’re someone who loves their day-to-day work in the office or as a parent (or both), and can spend most of your time doing this, there still needs to be a balance in the activities you partake in to nurture your mental health and relationships.
Work-Life Balance Tips:
Healthy work-life balance is something we all strive for. It is a state of achieving harmony between work and other aspects of life, such as personal relationships spanning family and friends, caring for others, self-nurturing healthy habits such as good nutrition and regular exercise, spiritual needs, and more. This balance is the key to achieving a happy and healthy life.
- Learn to say “no”
One of the most important strategies I recommend to my patients is to learn to say “no.” This takes practice, as many of us have been brought up to be people pleasers. The discomfort of saying “no” eases over time, and that it is an essential skill we all need to master to take care of ourselves. - Focus on time management
Revaluate and prioritize the importance/urgency of the work you have taken on. More often than not we put everything in the “to do now” pile, become overwhelmed, and then procrastinate doing anything at all which makes us more stressed. - Plan your leave
Assign yourself time off in advance, ensuring you have allocated time to look forward to. - Build a healthy routine
Build routine and structure in your life to ensure you are placing high importance on things for your mental health such as exercise, meditation, journaling, therapy, eating, staying hydrated, and sleeping well.
At the end of the day, take a step back.
Another strategy we recommend to everyone is to take a step back every once in a while. This may mean a big step back, such as taking a sabbatical or a long annual leave break, but smaller step backs make a big difference as well.
This may mean negotiating to work remotely, therefore cutting your commute and giving you more time to yourself. I see this as one major perk of the pandemic, making flexible work arrangements widely acceptable.
Going part time and reducing your hours at work may be another option – and no, I don’t see this as only an option for parents – but for non-parents too.
The difference between making these changes and staying on the course you’re currently on, take one step at a time. Don’t try to change too many things at once or else it will become overwhelming and have a higher rate of failure.
Set yourself up for success–if you need more than a blog to take action, contact one of our coaches today and see which program can help you achieve balance once again.
If you are concerned about your health, wellbeing or sleep, you can also speak to your General Practitioner, who will advise a correct treatment plan.
Looking for a guide to help you get unstuck and move forward in your life or career?
Schedule a call with Gabby at Morning Tea Coach today and transform your life.
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meet the blogger
I'm Gabby
Business & Career Expert, Mentor and Creative Entrepreneur
Instead of prescribing what I think you should do, I help you find what works for you.