How is Your Work Life Balance?

Do you have real work life balance in your life? Do you wake up each day filled with energy and excited to face a new day? Do you feel you have enough time and physical energy to give to your career, your spouse, your children, your friends, and yourself? If you are like most people, you are probably reading this article for one or more of the following reasons:

• You’ve come to a point where your job is taking over every other aspect of your life.
• Your emotional or physical health is suffering because of the amount of stress you are under.
• Your relationships with your children, spouse, and friends could stand to be better.
• You can’t remember when the last time was that you were able to spend time with your friends.
• You are having trouble leaving thoughts about work at the door.
• You have trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep through the night.
• You know that you are not living your life to the fullest and want to create change.
• You’ve lost the sense of fulfillment and personal satisfaction in your life and want it back.

What is work life balance? Do you know what work life balance is? Do you have it in your own life or do you see it as a mere myth meant for others to obtain? Work life balance is the separation between your work life and your personal life. It is the boundary that you create between your profession, career, or business and every other segment that makes up your life. Aside from your career, these segments include your family, personal growth, spirituality, fitness and health, and community and friendships. Once you begin to establish healthy boundaries between your work life and your personal life, you begin to feel more fulfillment and personal satisfaction. This happens as a result of your own state of wellness. Your mental state becomes much more confident, clear, and decisive because you are well-rounded and balanced. By having a clear and consistent separation between your job and the other segments of your life, you enable yourself to truly be present in each realm of your life. You no longer worry about work projects while at home and don’t worry about things you need to do at home while at the office. This allows you to be sharper, more efficient, and better-focused. It also enables you to use your time more efficiently, be more effective with your communication, task completion, and decision making, and to enjoy your time at work much more than ever before. Work life balance plays a huge role in determining whether a person will reach career advancement. This has been proven by studies and statistics which you will read about later in this book. The studies on work life balance are truly impressive and have been eye-opening to many employers. “Work-life balance is now the second most important driver of employee attraction and commitment”, says Corporate Executive Board (CEB) research. Studies done by CEB research also show that employees work much harder for companies that offer better work life balance. In the current economic environment, work life balance now ranks as one of the most important workplace attributes—second only to compensation, according to research conducted by the Corporate Executive Board among more than 50,000 global workers. Did you know that employees who feel they have a better work-life balance tend to work 21% harder than those that don't?(CEB Research). According to the research done by CEB in 2006, 53% of employees felt they had a good work-life balance. Yet, that number plummeted to 30% in the first quarter of 2009. Right now, the most successful organizations recognize that the most appreciated service they can provide to their employees is the "gift of time." This is a very valuable nugget of information. It’s a great leverage tool for companies to use when hiring talent and for individuals looking for employment. Time can be a factor included in your compensation negotiations. In fact, the study done by CEB showed that more than 60% of the employees polled identified flexible schedules as the most important work-life practice their employer could provide. In essence, time is of incredible value to both employers and the employees today. Savvy employers are realizing this and using work life balance programs and perks to attract talent they may otherwise not afford. These days, many talented workers are not looking for more money. They are instead looking for better quality of life…that which you get through work life balance. So, even if you are not able to negotiate a higher salary, you can use work life balance as a leveraging tool to create the lifestyle that you desire.