5 ways to make this year the year of Work Life Balance is a guest post by Lucy Allen, a certified Confidence and Career Coach who is pursuing her passion and purpose by empowering women to step up, say yes, embrace change and live their best damn life possible.
With the new year just around the corner, many of us are already making our intentions known that this will be the year we get our sh*t together.
We’re going to be better friends, partners and parents, we’ll be more mindful and ‘in the moment’, we’ll regularly exercise and maybe even take up a new hobby or two.
Ultimately, we’ll once again strive for greater work / life balance and with too many people enduring longer working days and slower commutes in jobs they don’t even like, the need to achieve this has never been greater.
Here are my top tips for taking control of work and home in 2018 and making yourself deliriously happy through your healthiest and most harmonious life.
5 ways to make this your year of Work Life Balance
Take responsibility.
It’s time for us to take control and responsibility for the lives we want to lead.
If we don’t take the reigns and design our life the we want it, someone else will design it for us through their beliefs, values and expectations.
Someone else will decide what’s an acceptable number of hours to work, how often we see our family and friends, how well we nourish our mind, body + soul and whether or not we make that gym class.
The only way to create meaningful change is to take responsibility, so grab your life by the balls and own it.
Know and set your boundaries.
Your idea of a dreamy balanced life might be totally different to mine.
Get crystal clear on what balance looks like to you and then be resolute in creating the boundaries you need to make this a reality.
Need to leave work on time each night? Do it! There are many different ways you can make time to finish what you need to.
Want to avoid early morning meetings so that you can squeeze in the gym sesh you need to be focused? Block out your calendar, others can work around this.
Craving no screen time after hours? Turn that phone off and know that people will find you if absolutely necessary.
Whatever it is you need, recognise it, practice it and be brave in making it known to others that this is the way you roll. Intention without action means nothing. Make it happen!
Get clear on your priorities.
The smallest investment of your time and energy in the right places can make a world of difference.
Reflect on what is most important to you right now and what needs your loving attention. Consider your physical, mental and emotional health – what’s working really well for you and what’s not so hot? What’s the most important thing for you right now and how much do you want it?
Remember, we can have it all but we can’t have it all at once. Prioritise baby!
Practice progress, not perfection.
As a recovering perfectionist, this is a hard one for me but here goes – let’s stop investing time and energy into the small details that don’t matter.
Perfectionism slows us down, hinders new ways of thinking, fosters self-doubt and criticism and gives our motivation one hell of a knock.
In work and in play consider whether ‘done’ is good enough. Chances are it will be and it will free you up for the next bigger and better thing.
Learn to say No.
Too much of our energy is invested into the wrong people, doing the things we don’t want to do, at a time that doesn’t suit us. Let’s stop saying yes to stuff we hate and instead allow ourselves the time and space to do whatever it is that makes us happy.
Every time we say no to someone else we say a big YES to us, and ‘two thousand and yay-teen’ is the perfect year to do just that.
All makes sense on paper but you’re still struggling to put this into practice? You’re sick of living for the weekends and thinking that there’s got to be more to life than the daily grind?
Lucy Allen, Founder of The Graceful Collective, is a Life + Career Coach who can help you get clear on what it is you truly want in 2018 and how to make this a reality!
Other posts selected for you:
3 healthy tips on how to make lemonade when life gives you lemons…
SaveSave
