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By; Wendy Hirsch
The answer to that question is in your hands. You define balance for yourself. That means you have an opportunity, but also a responsibility when it comes to life balance. You can't look to your boss, friends, gurus, or celebrities to define it for you.
That said, a better understanding of the concept can help support you in the definition process.
A recent study indicates there are over 230 different conceptualizations of balance in the academic research — work-life balance, work-family balance, work-family conflict, work/non-work balance and so on.
Lucky for us, this same research also indicates there are common themes across these conceptualizations. It’s these themes that can be helpful as you aim to better understand and define balance for yourself.
Four factors that influence our sense of balance
You derive a sense of balance based on a few factors related to different domains in your life (e.g., work, relationships, community involvement, personal development, health and well-being, etc.)
These factors are:
Involvement: How much time and energy are you investing in various life roles?
Competence: How effective are you across different life domains? What are you achieving?
Feelings: On the whole, what are your experiences in different domains? Positive or negative?
Alignment: How well your investments in each area align with your values and priorities.
The term involvement suggests balance is not merely about how much time you invest in various areas of your life, but also if you are fully present during that time. It's wholly possible to work out a way to be physically present for many activities, but to be so exhausted that mental or emotional presence is out of reach.
Competence indicates that it's not enough to put time and energy into something — you want to feel as though you are effective at it as well.
Feeling demonstrates that it also matters if your experiences in different domains are positive or negative. If you invest a great deal of yourself in a particular area of your life, achieve a lot in it, but don’t much enjoy the experience, the related negative feelings may have an impact on your sense of balance.
But, involvement, competence, and feelings are not the full story. There's one more element that is key. That is how your "investments" of time, competence, and feeling align with your priorities and values.
Life balance isn’t about equality across life domains. Generally, you are not looking for the same returns in all areas of life. Instead, balance involves making more substantial investments, and having more positive experiences, in the areas that are most important to you.
For that reason, if you feel your career is the most important thing to you, it might make sense that you invest a lot in your work, and feel a bit out-of-balance if you are asked to make trade-offs that diminish the energy you put into your work. However, others may feel community and family are most important, and work is a lesser priority. Thus, long hours at the office that keep them from volunteering and spending time with family may leave them feeling off-kilter.
Identifying what’s most important to you
A pre-requisite for balance is clarity about your priorities and values.
There are many ways to build your awareness of your priorities and values, such as:
Reflecting on experiences of flow — when you feel completely engaged in what you are doing, lose a sense of time. What were you doing, who was there, where you, etc. From your reflection, what have you learned about the aspects of your life that bring you the most fulfillment and in which you want to invest more?
Identifying your strengths — Having a nuanced sense of your strengths and how to use them well is linked with greater well-being and performance. A strengths assessment can help you in better understanding the strengths you want to leverage and things that you may wish to dial down or avoid as you recalibrate your balance.
What does life balance have to do with organizational change?
Although our values often remain fairly stable throughout our life, our priorities or how we express those values may evolve over time. Shifts, such as those experienced during significant organizational changes, may spur you to reevaluate the balance you strike and renegotiate the investments you make in different aspects of your life.
Additionally, if you are in a leadership role during organizational transitions, you should anticipate that some of your colleagues may be spurred by the change to evaluate their balance and make adjustments that may have implications for how they wish to show up in the organization.
Why should you bother with crafting balance?
Balance is something you must tend to continuously — sound like a lot of effort?
While auto-pilot may be tempting, studies indicate that intentionally crafting balance in your life is worth the effort. A greater sense of balance is related to a variety of work outcomes — such as job satisfaction, performance, and career development. However, there are even more substantial links with "life outcomes" such as life satisfaction, and physical and emotional well-being. For instance, some researchers have found significant links between a greater sense of life balance, and reduced stress, anxiety, and irritability.
This evidence suggests that balance is a key ingredient for a satisfying life. Given that, it seems wise to view it more as a basic need, than a luxury good. “Perfect balance” may be an ideal that is out-of-reach, however, small steps that positively impact well-being are within everyone’s grasp.
References
Casper, W. J., Vaziri, H., Wayne, J. H., DeHauw, S., & Greenhaus, J. (2018). The jingle-jangle of work–nonwork balance: A comprehensive and meta-analytic review of its meaning and measurement. Journal of Applied Psychology, 103(2), 182.
Haar, J. M., Russo, M., Suñe, A., & Ollier-Malaterre, A. (2014). Outcomes of work–life balance on job satisfaction, life satisfaction and mental health: A study across seven cultures. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 85(3), 361-373.
Sirgy, M. J., & Lee, D. J. (2018). Work-life balance: An integrative review. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 13(1), 229-254.
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