Is there such a thing as work-life balance?
If you do a search online, there’s no shortage of books, articles, posts and stories about work-life balance. Is there such a thing? Can anyone else really tell you what’s the right balance for your work and life outside work. I recorded this after hearing yet another pundit opine about this. So, now it’s my turn 🙂
Listen to this new 7-minute episode for my take on this topic.
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– Is there such a thing as work-life balance? I’m not sure. I’d take a listen to this episode. Work-life balance. We hear people talking about this all the time. There are articles written about it every year, probably every month, probably every week, somebody is talking about work-life balance. So ironically, it’s a Sunday afternoon at almost four o’clock when I’m recording this, and I’m talking about work-life balance. But see, for me, that works. For my wife, that works. Now at this point in our lives, this works for us. What might not have worked, I don’t know, 10, 20 years ago, we had little kids. Would it have worked? I had a different work-life balance then. And the thing is, I’m not trying to compare my work-life balance to anybody else’s work-life balance, because I just need the one that works for us. And that’s the key. I have my priorities straight. Health is first. I’m no good to anybody if my health isn’t there. Family comes second and then pretty much anything else comes after that. That’s the way our priorities go. So it’s okay.
My wife is doing something right now and I’m recording podcast episodes. That’s work-life balance for us. We’ve already done our running around, done our errands. We did some cleaning up and paint touch-ups and stuff, because we have people coming for the holidays. We’ve done all of that yesterday and on Friday evening. So, that’s work-life balance for us. The key is, what works for you, and do you talk about it? Do you discuss it with the people that are involved when your work-life balance affects them as well? So the key for me is, am I feeding my needs for my family? Yes. Am I feeding my needs for my business? Yes. Am I doing things personally for me? So, for me right now is still on my journey for learning French. By the time this releases, I will have done a presentation for the Canadian Professional Disc Jockey Association, en français. That is a personal challenge. And that’s something that I do that’s part of my work-life balance, is how do I push myself to do something that is hard? That was another episode I did. Try it because it’s hard. That’s important for me. I love doing crossword puzzles. Apparently I may cruciverbalist, somebody told me one time, because there’s a word for that. People that like to solve or like to make crossword puzzles are cruciverbalists. That’s important to me. That’s a pastime. I don’t play video games. You won’t seem to be playing games on my phone. That’s not important to me. If I’m on my phone if I’m not working, I’m probably doing French lessons. That’s probably what I’m doing on my phone. Other than that, I like doing crosswords by hand, in pen. Yeah, I have White Out. But I liked doing them in pen.
So what’s work-life balance? Work-life balance means that you’re figuring out your priorities first. You’re making sure that you’re taking care of those priorities in the order that they are, and it’s okay that certain things don’t get done, as long as you’re taking care of the major priorities there. And again, I know mine. Health first, family second. Pretty much everything else comes after that. So work-life balance for me means a 9:00 to 5:00 doesn’t work for me. I’m self-employed. I have that privilege. Many of you, if not, most of you, are also self-employed or can control your hours to a certain extent. That type of schedule doesn’t work for me. Even when I was working for a big company, I was still working from a home office. I had the flexibility that if I didn’t have a meeting, I could go out and run to the store or just go out just to get out. And I do that now, too. I’m sitting here with my large Diet Coke from McDonald’s because sometimes that’s all I need to do to get out of the house is just go there. And then on the way there, I’m probably doing some, listening to some French lessons or something, because it’s also part of my doing what’s important for me.
So what’s work-life balance? I think you have to decide, yes, there’s sometimes where work takes the priority. You’re in season, you have three weddings coming up this week, and those things have to get done. I think, I would hope, that the other people in your life would understand that that is a priority then. It’s not necessarily a priority on Tuesday morning when you might have the flexibility to do something else. And I also remember earlier in my life, there were times where I would say things were more important when if I stepped back, they really weren’t the most important things, but sometimes we need to see it from the way other people see it to realize that yeah, you know what? You did have more control over that than you thought. And maybe it’s just a maturing thing. You know, getting older, getting wiser. Or maybe just, you know, what is it? Don’t sweat the small stuff, and then realize it’s all small stuff, or mostly small stuff.
So work-life balance is different for everybody. And I think what really, really important is don’t compare your work-life balance to somebody else’s. Somebody who appears to be getting more done than you. Somebody who appears to be doing things that you just feel you don’t have the time to do. Remember the old analogy about the swan swimming, you know, just gliding gracefully along across the water, but underneath, it’s paddling like mad. And a lot of people that you’re looking at on their Instagram or on their Facebook or on TikToK or whatever, and seeing things that they’re doing, that’s a moment in time. That’s not everything else that goes into that. And you don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes, behind the green curtain or under the water. So what is work-life balance? It means that you are feeling like you’re accomplishing things personally, professionally, and you’re finding happiness in doing that. I think if you’re doing that, then don’t worry about analyzing it. Just keep living that good life. I look forward to hearing your stories of success. Thanks.
I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is [email protected]. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.
Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:
- Apple Podcast:
- YouTube: www.WeddingBusinessSolutionsPodcast.tv
- Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3sGsuB8
- Stitcher:
- Google Podcast:
- iHeart Radio: https://ihr.fm/31C9Mic
- Pandora:
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