Summertime sunshine brings both excitement and overstretching for many of us. As an entrepreneur and busy mom of twin girls there are a few lessons about the work-life balancing act I have learned along the way. One of the most critical is that achieving a work-life balance does not mean my work and my personal life each get 50% of my time and attention at all times. I realized quickly that giving equally at all times is impossible, anyone who tells you “they are doing it all perfectly” as the great Ms. Shonda Rhymes brilliantly writes “is a liar.”
“ANYONE WHO TELLS YOU THEY ARE DOING IT ALL PERFECTLY IS A LIAR.” -Shonda Rhymes
The 50-50 myth
Some days we will have school talent shows to attend and other days we have board meetings to run. Depending on what is going on, my job may get 80% and other times my personal life gets the majority of my attention. The constant shifting of time and energy can amount to an overall work-life balance, but no one day will ever be 50-50. Once I accepted this reality, I was able to develop some go-to strategies to help me have an overall feeling of work-life balance.
Tonya’s 5 work-life balance strategies you can try this summer
Strategy 1: Build downtime into your schedule
This strategy may feel strange at first. But trust me when I tell you it is a must if you want to be able to stay productive. Science backs me up on this one too. Research shows that even brief breaks from tasks help our brains better focus over long periods of time. Daily, I plan to take breaks from work no matter what. I will take a short walk, grab a cup of coffee or just read the news. If you are someone that has trouble with this, there are many online resources that can force you to take a moment to re-center yourself during your work day. Some online resources include: Calm.com, Workrave, and RestTimer.com.
On top of mini breaks from work, it is also important to schedule (and take) vacation. With the all-go-no-stop approach many of us have to work these days, we have forgotten how to truly take time off. However, science reminds us that constantly working is having a negative impact on our families. Prior to the year 2000 vacation time taken was steady. After that, things dropped off and as of 2014 42% of Americans say they have not taken a single day off in the past year. Guess who is noticing? Our kids. Our kids know that we work from home after hours, they see us on our phones answering emails and telling them again: “Just one second, mommy is working.” The term Google uses for people that are plugged into work all the time is “Integrator”. An Integrator is someone who cannot draw a psychological line between work and their personal life. Google’s gDNA study found about 69% of people can’t help but blur the lines of work and home. In an effort to help employees better segment work and home life, the Google Dublin office actually had employees drop off their devices at the front desk before heading home. Guess what happened? Employees actually relaxed.
My tendency is go, go, go but I have personally experienced how much better I am at both my work and my home life when I take time away and just go sit by my favorite lake for an hour.
Strategy 2: Keep moving – Get Physical
I know, I know, you try and make it to the gym but you are just too busy. Well guess what, me too! The good news for us non-gym rats is that we’re in this together. Even very moderate exercise can have impact on our cognition, mood, and ability to handle stress. With all the fancy wearable fitness trackers available these days we should able be able to work up to 10,000 steps. Set your goal and take a few minutes to get moving!
Strategy 3: Treat yourself
This strategy is by far my favorite! If you are your own boss, chances are good there is no one above you reinforcing your success. Since no one else is there to do it, I do it myself.Positive reinforcement is a tried and true method to influence good behavior. In a nutshell, when a positive behavior is displayed it is rewarded tangibly or intangibly in order to reinforce the behavior. Say you have an employee who isn’t good at turning in their timecard, when they do turn it in you reward the behavior with words of affirmation or a physical object like a gift card to their favorite coffee shop. Over time, the individual is more motivated to exhibit the behavior and boom; you get the timecard on time.
If I have a particularly productive week or really nail a meeting, you bet your briefcase I will treat myself to a spa day or one of my girl’s homemade chocolate cupcakes. Little treats help keep me motivated to get through the especially stressful times.
Strategy 4: Prioritize
While strategy #3 is my favorite (for all of the obvious reasons), #4 is the most difficult on my list; primarily because prioritizing requires me to say no. Saying no is uncomfortable and hard, but necessary if you want to achieve a balanced life. We are all pretty darn good at prioritizing our daily to-do lists (return client call, meeting with marketing team, file reports). We are also good at prioritizing our home to-do lists (groceries, soccer practice, pay the water bill, feed the dog). We know what needs to be done and our stress level decreases with each check off the list. But what happens when you plan to attend your daughter’s first t-ball game and as you are walking out the door your phone rings and it is the CEO of a huge account? In that moment you need to be able to prioritize. In moments like this my go-to is asking myself which decision leads to the least amount of stress. If I take the call will I miss the majority of the game, or just the warm up—and am I ok with the level of guilt associated with that? If I don’t take the call, does it mean I will lose the account and the company millions of dollars—what does that stress feel like? Or, what typically happens is something in-between. If I promised my daughter I would be there to see her warm up, I will say no to the call and prioritize that promise. If, I know my husband is already at the game and I can get on the phone to set up a proper meeting with the client, then I will say yes to the call. Prioritizing is tricky, it isn’t just about making a to-do list, it is about self-awareness; knowing your boundaries and what you value most in each moment, and being able to say no when you need to.
Strategy 5: Be present
Finally, in order for me to truly achieve any semblance of balance in my life I have committed to the practice of being present. After all, what is the point of a ‘work life’ or a ‘home life’ if you aren’t paying attention? There are many wonderful tips and tricks for helping us slow down and appreciate our lives, but my personal practices include:
·Asking myself if I am awake periodically throughout my day
Of course, this isn’t literal ‘are my eyes open and have I had my coffee’ but am I truly paying attention. Am I distracted by my phone, am I looking at my daughter when she speaks, is my mind here and not on the next task?
· Noticing the details
After I ask myself if I am awake to the moment, I then try and pay attention to specific sensory details in that place in time. What does it smell like? What do the voices of my girls sound like right now? What is the light doing at this time of day?
·Breathe in, breathe out gratitude
Finally, after I have taken in the details, I take a deep breath in and then exhale. When I exhale I offer a quick, often silent bit of gratitude for the moment.
Being present allows me to really feel the goodness of life. To remember that things are finite and I am incredibly lucky to be here right now in this very moment.
It is not easy, but we can do it
Finding balance isn’t an exact science. It will look differently for everyone. The final word of advice I will leave here is to always forgive yourself. If you have a day, a week, a month where you give way more to work than you do to your family, instead of wallowing in guilt, forgive yourself and try again tomorrow. Life isn’t easy, and finding balance isn’t easy, but if you are mindful and want to try to find more balance my experience and 5 strategies can help get you started.
About Tonya Lanthier
Tonya Lanthier started DentalPost.net in 2005. Since then, DentalPost has grown into a networking platform for over 400,000 dental professionals and over 25,000 dental offices and growing. Tonya continues to work as a Registered Dental Hygienist; she believes that staying active in the field provides her with new insights and knowledge every day.