“I’m too busy!”
“There’s not enough time in the day!”
“I can’t seem to balance work and life!”
Do some of these statements resonate? They often resonate with me and I believe many people feel similar. The overarching question is how do I achieve balance?
Once I was working with a group of leaders from a non-profit organization. As we were interacting around the table during a session of The Leadership Game, a team building and leadership assessment tool I use with organizations, a common theme from this group of dedicated leaders arose: work/life balance. To help investigate this issue let me point us to people much further along in this journey than I am.
Leadership expert John C. Maxwell provides in his book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership* a part of the answer in the Law of Priorities. Maxwell helps us understand that priorities force us to evaluate if we are just being active or are we actually being productive. How does this apply to achieving balance? Simple. Look at the calendar and is our time being used in a manner that produces the results we want in our lives or are we running like hamsters on a wheel being active with tasks but getting nowhere?
Once we have established our priorities authors Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend provide an abundance of direction on the concept of boundaries in their book Boundaries which I strongly recommend if this is a challenge for you. Specifically related to work challenges, the authors suggest that if “people took responsibility for their own work and set clear limits,” most of their problems would not exist.** This points us to another principle in work/life balance. Once we know our priorities we do what we need to do and avoid taking on other individual’s responsibilities.
To illustrate, I once heard Collin Powell discussing how he was in President Reagan’s office discussing all the challenges he was facing with the military at the time. He continued to expound for a period of time and I would guess he may have hoped for some answer to all his problems. The response he got from the President was an observation about a squirrel outside the oval office in the grass. In the moment Mr. Powell must have been dumbfounded. After further reflection he realized the President was indirectly saying: “that’s not my problem.” So if it is truly not your problem whether at work or home, set an appropriate boundary and let them struggle, figure it out, and grow.
Author Richard Swenson, M.D. in his book Margin provides the observation that the “tendency of our culture is to inexorably add detail to our lives . . . . Yet one can comfortably handle only so many details in his or her life. Exceeding this threshold will result in disorganization or frustration.”*** We have many options, needs, wants, and desires vying for our attention. In his book he provides practical solutions for improving margin in many areas. To add practical steps to this part of achieving balance with time I will highlight a few of his suggestions (some are slightly modified) related to time.
- Learn to say no. It may mean saying no to a good thing for something that is greater and more in line with your priorities.
- Unplug. Do we need to be on that device or should we just sit and talk with the people around us?
- Practice simplicity and contentment. It seems the more stuff I have the more time it takes from me.
- Create “buffer zones.” Is there margin in your calendar or is everything stacked right on top of one another?
These are only four of sixteen suggestions he provides on this topic alone. I do not have this all figured out because I am on the journey of balance as well, but hopefully these principles will help move us in the right direction toward work/life balance. What is one action step you need to take today to move you toward greater balance in life? Maybe you need someone to coach you through the process. If that is the case, contact me today for a free coaching session.
©2017 Wheeler Coaching Systems, All Rights Reserved
*Maxwell, John. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. Nashville, Thomas Nelson, 2007.
**Cloud, Henry and Townsend, John. Boundaries. Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 1992.
***Swenson, Richard. Margin. Colorado Springs, NavPress, 1992.
