How to Achieve a Work/Life Balance

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One of the greatest pressures of the 21st century is trying to be busier and more active than everyone else you know. In conversations, the person who spends 12 hours a day at work 6 days a week and still manages to get a workout in every day is often seen as a sort of ‘winner’.

Aside from the obvious point that this sort of behavior will inevitably cause a breakdown and exhaustion pretty quickly, the greater issue is that we simply don’t know how to live balanced lives anymore. When your smartphone could ping at any moment, can you really switch off from work and start living your life?

Avoid Getting Into Bad Habits

When you are feeling overwhelmed by life it is easy to slip into bad habits. From the glass of wine each night that turns into a bottle to checking your phone right before you go to sleep, we are full of self-sabotaging habits that we don’t even see coming.

Checking your behavior – especially when you are feeling stressed and exhausted – is really important. Think about what you are doing and why. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a beer with the football game but if you start to feel like you need that beer, you may need to consider taking action such as alcohol detox treatment.

There is no shame in realizing that you are self-sabotaging. In fact, you should be proud to recognize the problem and seek help before your work and your life are affected. Finding ways to relax and making time for healthy decisions will have a big impact on your whole life.

Do the Things You Like (Not Things You Think You SHOULD Like)

Just as everyone is working harder, there is a lot of peer pressure to do particular activities and enjoy them. But instead of following the crowd, if you want to feel a true balance between work and life, you should pursue the things that interest you. This way you will feel a sense of fulfillment outside work and discover new things about yourself.

Discovering your passion is a brilliant ambition to have and doing lots of different activities is the only real way to figure out what pushes your buttons. In fact, even when you have your passion, you should continue to experiment. The more interests you pursue, the more like-minded people you are likely to meet and the more fulfilling your social life will become. It really is a win-win scenario!

Work Smart, Not Long

When people tell you that they work crazy long weeks, it’s easy to assume that they are putting loads of effort into their work and achieving a lot. But this isn’t necessarily true. The reality is that these people are probably putting a lot of undue overtime simply because they aren’t working smartly.

Instead of measuring an achievement by the time you have put in, you will get a much better work/ life balance simply by measuring the results of your efforts. If you can achieve the same results in half the time, you are the true winner.