Work-Life Balance - Define what you want

I'm asked all the time about Work-Life balance and so I've started this series of hubs to address some of the challenges and give tips and advice for getting back the control.

This is the second hub in the Work-Life Balance series and I'm going to discuss a process that can help you define and determine what work-life balance means for you. If you don't define it, it can never happen.

As always, please feel free to make comments or suggest links to articles and resources related to this hub.

Thanks,

Dan O'Neil

Life Coach

1. Establish what you Do Not Want

The main challenge that faces is anyone who wants more work-life balance is to define what that means to them. It's really quite a simple task to say what you don't want or don't like about your current situation. In fact, that's the best place to start.

Grab a piece of paper and a pen and begin to list down all the things you don't like, don't want, don't have time for etc. For most people this is a really easy process and ideas will flow very freely. Some examples to help you start are given below:

• I don't want to feel tired all the time
• I haven't got time for my children and partner
• I don't want to focus on work in my free time
• I don't like feeling de-motivated all the time

2. Define What You Do Want

Next, get a fresh piece of paper and begin to list down things that you want - you can use your list of negative don't wants to help you. This part is key to the whole process and I've given examples to match the ones above:

• I want to feel energetic and alive
• I want cleary defined time that is exclusive to my family
• I want to be able to focus on what I am doing
• I want to feel motivated and happy

The important part to this is to focus on what you want - for example feeling "less tired" is not focusing on what you want, it focuses on being tired which is what you do not want; what you want is to feel full of energy and awake. You may have come across this principle of focusing on the positive before and to help you I'd like you to imagine for a moment that you are going on a journey...

If you leave with the thought "I don't want to be here", then it doesn't matter where you go as long as you are moving away from here - you could end up somewhere worse than here. If you leave with the thought "I want to go there", then you'll set off in that direction and move towards what you want. It's the same with goals, dreams and many aspects of life.

Once you've completed your list, the next thing to do is to dispose of your first list - the list of all the things you do not want. It serves no purpose to have or focus on these things, so put them in the bin.

3. Identify the Steps Towards Your Goals

Lastly you can begin to identify steps you can take to begin to achieve each of your goals. Ask yourself questions around each one of them, for example:

• How can I feel more energetic and alive?
• How can I define my time so that I am clear with my family time and work time and can keep them seperate?
• How can I gain more focus on what I am doing?
• How can I feel more motivated and happier?

"How can I... " and "What Can I do to..." questions are very powerful here and help you to construct the steps towards getting the work-life balance you want.

4. Final Thoughts

Now, I'm not saying that all this is easy and you are going to get a work-life balance in a weeks time. This process is certainly simple, yet it is an on-going process that you will need to revise and refine as time passes. Sometimes things will go incredibly well and then you might find that you need to do the whole thing again (maybe due to a new job or a baby or change of circumstance). The good news is that it's neither time consuming nor complicated to do this process, as long as you are prepared to define what you want and take steps towards that, then success is yours for the taking.