Recently a friend of mine travelled home after such a long time of being away from friends and family and while she didn’t exactly expect everyone to drop their work and sit, chatting with her, she totally expected a more elaborate welcome and plenty of time spent catching up. Sadly enough all she heard were lamentations about how tired everyone was and how work wasn’t allowing them to have time for anything else. Her aunt hadn’t even had the time to see a doctor despite consistently experiencing severe headaches. This left her wondering how exactly the 21st-century worker was expected to balance work and life?
Following a little bit of research and from our work with clients over the years, we’ve come to understand that despite the fact that work-life balance has gained a lot of attention over the years, very few people really understand or implement it in their daily lives, making us conclude that it is a pressing topic to evaluate over the next few weeks.
Complete Human Functioning
It is almost nearly impossible to consider the complete human functioning without looking at the interaction between key facets of life; family life, social life and work/vocational/educational (as it so applies to the particular stage of life an individual is) aspects of functioning.
Some professionals especially psychologists categorically state that these facets are no doubt the most important ones.
Over the years, in a field of psychology known today as Industrial-Organizational (I/O) Psychology, the topic of balancing the more important facets of functioning; work, social, family, educational has been greatly researched and discussed. I/O psychology has made its business to study and understand these areas of life thrive efficiently or otherwise when the interactions are a little more rusty and strained. Simply put, how does your career or academic affect your personal life and mental health.
Clinical psychology also takes an interest in this topic, stating that “when work or family demands conflict with each other, negative effects may include psychological distress, physiological concerns, decreased work performance and decreased job and life satisfaction” (www.apaservices.org).
How Do I Balance Work and Life?
Now, while there are different views on how individuals can successfully create a seamless co-habitual relationship between these facets of our life, all views merge at the singular point of asserting that this topic is not gender-specific entirely or less demonstrative in certain economic classes, not plays favourably to career levels.
Ponder on these two statements until we get another chance to talk more on this topic in our next post.
By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day
-Robert Frost
You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball (if you drop it, it will bounce back), but the other four balls; family, health, friends and spirit are made of glass
-Brian Dyson
Your Role in a Balanced Work and Life Interaction
Work-life balance as much as it affects the individual, it also affects society. We can categorically say that organizational structure and even those of the family as we have now are a lot different from how they operated decades ago, as such, you would expect that the way these structures interact and are balanced by an individual should follow the paces of change observed.
These expectations of change and evolution are likely causing more problems for people but remain the sole responsibility of every one of us to always remember that the balance begins from within us. We ourselves alone hold the capacity to initiate the process of balancing that will translate into all affected aspects of our lives.
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Like this post, share and drop your question, comments and views and do well to share your stories of balancing with us today in the comment section. Till next time, remember, the balance begins with you!