Finding Balance: Work and Life

“The goal is to balance a life that works with a life that counts.” – Peter Block, The Answer to How is Yes.

If you want to live a healthy life that benefits your mind, body, and spirit, then it’s important to be intentional about incorporating balance in all areas of your life. Balancing your responsibilities and roles as an individual can feel especially overwhelming when there’s little to no time to put aside during your daily routine.

Workplace stress is rampant, so it’s vital to monitor our mental health to effectively represent ourselves to our co-workers, our employers, and ourselves. Research from the World Health Organization states that 83% of US workers suffer from work-related stress, and 54% of workers report that work stress affects their home life.

Many of us prioritize competing deadlines, attending meetings, and working overtime to feel accomplished in the workplace. It feels rewarding to put all our energies into our careers so we may thrive and advance in our respected companies, but this comes with a cost. If your work-life balance is off-kilter, your mental health will start to decline, and inevitable stress will ensue.

The first step to feeling more fulfilled and at peace is knowing whether your work-life balance is healthy or unhealthy. You may think that overtime and endless hours of work are normal. However, if they’re becoming an issue for your health, it’s vital to address them. The Mental Health Foundation suggests five steps for addressing your work-life balance situation.

How to Find Balance:

1. First, ask yourself what is causing your stress and how it affects your work and personal life.
2. After addressing the cause, sit with those feelings. Are you angry with your situation now? Confused?
3. Next, you’ll become more proactive by brainstorming ways to reduce your stress. Could you come home early one night a week to spend time with your family? Reprioritizing what’s important to you in the current moment will leave you feeling more at peace.
4. After considering a few alternatives, consider how your work could accommodate these priorities. Then, you should speak up about these concerns and ideas for change with your employers.
5. The last step is to follow through with making these changes. When talking with your boss, try asking for more flexible hours, remote work, or adjusting your designated days off. Contract on what you want or don’t, and work to reach an agreement that works for all.

“Choosing to act on what matters is the choice to live a passionate existence, which is anything but controlled and predictable,” says Peter Block in The Answer to How is Yes. “It is the challenge to acknowledge that just because something works, it doesn’t mean that it matters.” He asserts that a “life that matters is captured in the word yes,” where yes expresses our willingness to claim our freedom and use it to be a “player instead of a spectator to our own experience.”

Our mental health is indispensable; living a life that counts means prioritizing it effectively. It is “being a player in our own experience,” dedicating time towards our relationships with family and friends, leisure activities, and spaces outside of the workplace to reduce the burden that work may bring where winning back the practical balance of our life allows us to say yes to being more present and finding joy during our busy routines.

Article by Rebecca Crowell

Rebecca Crowell is a Designed Learning intern and graduate of Social Sciences at the University of Central Florida. She is currently pursuing her graduate degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Stetson University in Deland, FL.