Oftentimes, we find ourselves so engrossed in the daily grind to get a higher paycheck, a promotion, or a raise that we begin making compromises that decrease the quality of our life.
When work begins to take over a significant chunk of your time, it’s time to hit the brakes and think a little. Do you really need to maintain a 16-hour per day workload for years on end? Wouldn’t you rather have more time for yourself, your family, or something more relaxing? The answer to these two questions and more can be hard to figure out.
That’s where the concept of work-life balance comes in. Over the past few decades, labourers, employees, and many dissatisfied workaholics have understood that humans need time to recharge and time away from work.
And that’s the gist of our topic today. The importance of work-life balance. Read on to learn more about that!
1. Improved Well-being:
It’s a bit of an all-around phrase, but there’s a lot to unpack here. Depending on what job you have, you might be forced to stand on your feet all the time. Other times, the work might require that you sit in a cubicle and stare at your work computer for 8 hours straight or more.
No matter what your job is, the physical demands are real. People who work in the trades experience back and neck problems more than people in any other occupation. The side effects are compounded when you work more than 8 hours a day and don’t allow your body to rest properly.
On the other side of the spectrum, you have the mentally draining work that needs a lot of concentration and brain power to complete. These include jobs such as programming, scientific research, and creative professions.
While people might be passionate about all of these, there’s still a limit to what our bodies can handle, both mentally and physically.
Taking time off from work or maintaining a work schedule that doesn’t consume all your waking hours means you stay healthy for longer. You become more energized and productive. When you come back to work, you’ll surprise yourself by accomplishing more with better quality too.
2. Allows Room for Self-development:
Work is only one part of a healthy life. You need to take care of other things as well. These things might be your family, your hobbies, the other skills that you like to develop, or simply doing something to change things up a bit.
If you work all the time, it’s impossible to do any of these things. You’ll find yourself becoming distant from your family and friends. You’ll hate the fact that while you do have a lot of money, there’s little room for using it to improve your quality of life.
To get started with self-development, cut down on any extra hours that you dedicate to work. Make it a priority to do something you’ve always wanted to do, free from the constraints of deadlines and the headache of doing something in a specific way.
3. Forces You to Introspect More:
This is the crux of the work-life balance concept. The popular phrase “work to live, not live to work” can be challenging when you’re trying to figure out what it means.
The truth is, this phrase means different things to different people. It’s all about deciding what your goals in life are and working a job that allows you to achieve them.
This is where introspection comes in handy.
Work should become a means to an end. The goal is to improve your quality of life while allowing room for doing what you want. To do that, you should be clear on several things:
- What is the purpose behind your work?
- What are your short- and long-term goals?
- Are you passionate about your job?
- Do you think about retiring early?
- Do you want to stay an employee?
- Do you want to start a business?
- The answer to all these questions doesn’t come from anywhere. It requires you to dig deep and understand what your ideal job should be like.
You really need to understand yourself well to avoid falling into destructive work habits and ending up as a workaholic.
Trust me. Being a workaholic is hell.
For some people, it’s working in the healthcare industry and saving lives. For others, it’s freelancing and achieving financial independence.
Whatever your mission in life is, your job should complement it, not become it.
4. Allows You to Deal with Toxicity:
Your daily interactions with people around you can brighten your day or leave you broken and disappointed in humanity.
This holds doubly true when we’re talking about the workplace. If you’re around toxic people, the first thing you’ll notice is the excessive competition. Everyone seems out to get you. They’ll try to backstab you, do something to make you look bad, or sabotage you in different ways.
If you’re the type of person who never backs down, you might fall into this trap, competing with these toxic individuals to come out on top and prove that you’re better than them.
Don’t.
It’s a losing bet, and the biggest loser is you because you’re sacrificing valuable time and wasting effort in the wrong place.
You’re also surrendering yourself entirely to your job, destroying your work-life balance in the process.
Stand your ground and be the bigger person. Leave the toxic workplace behind and go somewhere where people appreciate what you do. You’ll be surprised at how easy your job becomes, and how much your work-life balance improves.
5. Better Relationships:
It’s time we delved into this more. Working all the time cuts into the precious hours you can spend with your loved ones or with your friends. Sure, work colleagues are nice and all, but even if you try and do more stuff with them, extra work hours won’t allow it.
Focusing on having a flexible work schedule where it’s possible to spend more time with the people in your life will tremendously improve the quality of the relationships you have with them.
You can focus on developing deeper bonds, doing more activities, getting to know yourself and others better, and just enjoying a more well-rounded social life.
We all know how difficult it can be when people advance through their careers and find themselves having regressed socially.
This might not seem obvious when you’re working in your 20s, but it hits hard in your mid-30s when you realise the great memories and adventures you missed out on with others.
Remember that investing your time in building solid relationships can last a lifetime. Jobs come and go, but wonderful relationships are forever.
Take this into consideration when figuring out your ideal work-life balance.
In Conclusion:
The daily grind can be intoxicating for many of us. It’s hard to break out of the habit of working all the time and making more money. It is, however, not healthy at all and quite unsustainable over a long period of time.
You need to have a work-life balance as your first and final goal when entering the workforce. Remember that life is short, and you have a limited number of hours you can dedicate to the things you care about.
If you sink all your time into working a job, your life will feel hollow and empty in other areas.
Do yourself a favour and begin taking steps to change that. You are more than what your job is.
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