Achieving a Good Work-Life Balance

Work-life balance is usually described as prioritizing sensibly between work (your career and ambitions) and the rest of life (health, pleasure, leisure, family, and spiritual practice or meditation). The definition shifts depending on who you ask. For most people it comes down to having the time and energy to meet what the job demands while still showing up for family, friends, and everything else. There's a piece people tend to skip over, though. Real balance also means you can actually enjoy both sides of it, finding some satisfaction in the hours you spend working and the hours you don't.

Trouble usually starts when guilt creeps in, or when you keep dropping the things outside of work that matter to you, whether those are responsibilities or just things you enjoy. Both men and women run into this. The numbers, however, show women struggling with it more. More women are in the workforce than before, often alongside the expectation that they'll have children and be the ones raising them. Cooking, cleaning, and keeping the household running frequently land on them too, on top of the job and the kids. For a woman who works full time and is also the primary caregiver, the feeling of being pulled in two directions runs deeper.

So can you get there? Yes. It won't happen overnight and it takes some practice, but it's a reachable goal. A few things that help:

Flexibility at work. WorkplaceTrends.com and CareerArc ran the 2015 Workplace Flexibility Study, a national survey of 1,087 professionals. One finding stuck out: 67% of HR professionals believed their employees had a balanced work-life, while 45% of employees said they didn't have enough hours in the week. If you're job hunting, aim for employers who take this seriously. Plenty of companies spell out their position on their websites, and many offer things like remote work, additional vacation or sick time, employee assistance programs, and wellness resources. Already employed? Raise it with your manager directly, and come to that conversation with concrete ideas about what the company could do for you and probably for your coworkers too.

Create time. Sit down and take an honest inventory of your responsibilities, and write them out. Then make a second list: the things you wish you could do but can't right now because your plate is full. Look for openings. Could something on that second list fit in daily, weekly, or once a month? And on the first list, is anything taking more effort than it needs to? If you're washing floors by hand, a mop gets the same job done faster. If your kids are old enough, they can load the dishwasher after dinner. Small recovered pockets of time add up, and that alone can make life feel steadier.

Step away from work. If you're reading this, odds are you work too much rather than too little. Some of the most grounded people I know have figured out how to leave work at work. They rarely touch it during off-hours. Work stays out of their personal life and their personal life stays out of work, and they manage to be happy, healthy, and good at what they do on both ends.

Drop the guilt. Wanting personal time is normal, and it's what nearly every hardworking person is after: that point where you're getting things done at work and still enjoying your own time. "Work to live, not live to work" captures the idea pretty well.

Recognize when you've hit your limit. Your body and your brain send clear signals when you're overloaded or heading toward burnout. After a long stretch of heavy work, frustration, anger, anxiety, and low mood are all telling you to rest. Pushing past exhaustion, physical or emotional, carries more than a vague sense of imbalance. It can bring on real medical problems: higher blood pressure, greater heart attack risk, stomach and mouth ulcers, migraines. Depression and anxiety can follow too. Prevention matters here, so lean on the earlier steps before it gets to that point. If the warning signs are already showing up, be honest with your supervisor about what you need, and ask your spouse, family, or friends whether they can pitch in.

Balance is a goal most hardworking people share. If you're looking for work, a company that values it is a reasonable starting point. If you're already in a job, talk to your supervisor about what might help, and pull in the people around you. It's possible. - Kim B.