“Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” — Theodore Roosevelt
Work life balance is hot. In fact, I almost called this post Work-Life Balance Revisited, or Work-Life Balance 2.0, or The New Work-Life Balance.
As I’ve been training more people and teams in Agile Results, one thing I’ve learned is that work-life balance is a bigger deal than I originally thought.
Specifically, it is top of mind for many executives as well as employees at all levels.
Work-Life Balance Gives You An Edge
Employers want happy, engaged workers, and people are being asked to do more with less, and their life is changing under their feet. And, when work-life balance is out of whack, your personal life suffers, your work suffers, you suffer.
On the flip side …
When you align your work with your life, a lot of things fall into place.
When you achieve work-life balance, you hit your high notes. You operate at another level.
You make your soul sing.
And the good news is, this post will really give you an instant way to improve your engagement at work, find your flow, drive more impact, expand your capabilities, and grow in new ways that give you the edge in work and life.
The Beauty of Work-Life Balance
When you have work-life balance, you are engaged. You are engaged in work, and you are engaged in life.
You grow stronger in your strengths, while expanding yourself as a person.
You grow your greatness by expanding your capabilities and learning how to take on new challenges, while learning new skills and abilities.
Best of all, you create compelling experiences for life, and you lift those around you, by sharing your gifts with the world … doing what you do best.
And that, my friends, is being uniquely you (nobody does a better job of that, than you.)
Work-Life Balance is the Art of Blending
It’s blending over forking.
The key to work-life balance is that rather than forking your focus, or having a conflict of values, you blend. You bake your values into why you do things, and how you do things. It’s passion and purpose in action.
Before we get into how to master work-life balance, let’s first take a deeper look at what work-life balance really is…
What is work-life balance really all about?
It’s about investing your time, energy, and focus in the important things in your life, and not letting one aspect of your life, dominate you.
You know what they say, “all work and no play …”
The problem is just spending more or less time in work, doesn’t create work-life balance. It can help. But it’s not the real secret.
The real secret is breathing more life into work.
So how do you breathe more life into work?
Breathing More “Life” into Work
You need a new lens. You need to make your work, your personal dojo for personal growth. When you do this, you transform your work arena into an entirely different experience.
Work becomes your place of ultimate self-expression, and your ultimate dojo of personal growth.
Imagine what happens when every day is a new chance to master your craft. Imagine what happens when you start to learn from everyone all around you. Imagine what happens when every situation is either a learning opportunity, or a leadership moment.
First and foremost, every opportunity becomes a chance for you to shine from the inside out, when you demonstrate your ability to rise above any situatio
n, or lean in, dig your heels in, and push to find your breakthroughs.
Each day takes on new meaning, when it’s a new opportunity to serve the people around you, your clients, or your customers in new and fulfilling ways.
It doesn’t matter whether you work for yourself or others. I’m referring to work as whatever it is that you do for a living.
But how else do we transform the work experience and find work-life balance?
How else do we align work with life to enjoy the journey and the destination?
When I teach Agile Results, I don’t reveal tricks, I reveal truths … time-tested principles and patterns that work.
So what works? Living your values, driving from your lifestyle, and giving your best where you have your best to give.
When you know your values, you can connect your work to your values.
For example, I don’t drive projects. I lead epic adventures. I don’t call back a customer. I win a raving fan. I don’t crank out a vision scope. I learn new and better ways to master my craft. I don’t solve problems. I take on challenges and expand what I’m capable of.
Yeah, O.K. But is there a better way to use our time, energy, and focus at work, so we can do more at work in less time, and actually have more time for the rest of our life?
Yes. Let’s take a look …
The Secret of Work-Life Balance
It’s about flowing value and focusing on the essential things that matter, using the 80/20 rule. It’s about playing to your strengths, teaming up to achieve more, and hitting more windows of opportunity.
It’s about lighting a fire so you can blaze a trail through your workload, break through barriers, and jump any hurdles that stand before you.
It’s about thinking in threes: three wins for the day, three wins for the week, three wins for the month, three wins for the year.
It’s about adding Power Hours to your week so you can whip out more achievements in less time, with greater ease.
It’s about adding more Creative Hours to your week so you can find and flow more creative solutions, invent your next best thing, and unleash the productive artist in you.
It’s about recharging and renewing with skill. It’s about putting science on your side, including the best learnings from positive psychology and sports psychology to unleash your best performance.
It’s about using proven practices for motivation, directing your focus with skill, prioritizing with decisive action, and making your moments count.
And, for the softer side, it’s an East meets West blend, where you will do less, achieve more, and enjoy more effortless ways of producing outstanding results.
Find Your Mojo, and Get Your Groove On
If you want to master work-life balance…
- explore 30 Days of Getting Results (free self-paced work-life balance training)
- get You 2.0 (A free-guide on a quick way to build a firm foundation from your purpose, passion, and strengths)
- get the book, Getting Results the Agile Way (the book that introduces the Agile Results system for work-life balance)
You will gain your edge the moment you realize that every chore at work is a chance to explore what you are capable of.
Nothing is a match for your sustained focus on continuous improvement in an arena where it counts.
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