Developing & maintaining a healthy work-life balance is more pivotal than ever. Check out our top points as to how this is defined and the steps you can implement.
Often, our desire to succeed in our professional life can take over the other essential aspects of our lives.
However, establishing a healthy work-life balance is vital to enhancing not only our physical and mental health, but also, it allows us to excel further in our career.
In a nutshell, work-life balance is the optimal point when a person prioritizes their personal and professional obligations equally.
Firstly, we can outline the various points that sum up what exactly is having a work-life balance:
- Establishing boundaries (when to say ‘no’)
- Prioritizing your mental and physical health
- Having a positive impact in your work environment
- Fulfilling your optimal potential career-wise
- Being able to manage your personal and professional time
Detailed below are some of our top tips, as to why redefining your work-life balance is so important and how it can help you become more successful.
It helps improve your mental wellbeing
In life, your primary concern should be your general physical, emotional and mental wellbeing.
By prioritizing your mental and physical health with small daily tasks (meditating, exercise, taking a little break) you are allowing your thoughts to slow down for a second and can in the long run, make you a better employee.
Pro tip: Try making a list of 3 simple things that make you happy and integrate this to your next work week.
Allows you to be more engaged and creative at work
When you’re overworked and stressed out about all the unread emails and uncompleted tasks you must do, your brain’s ability to think creatively is hindered.
As humans, we need space to breathe to be able to fully reach our potential and stay 100% mindful and engaged in what we are doing.
By managing your time and energy into professional and personal obligations, you can think much more clearly and freely.
Pro tip: Creating a weekly planner and schedule will help you manage your time throughout the day to avoid burnout.
Improves the relationships around you
If you tend to get stuck in the negative cycle of working too much, you find yourself slowly losing grip with the ones you love. Whether it be physically spending time together or allocating a few hours during the day to catch-up with your close friends and family, you can find it to be rather difficult to do so when you’re over-exerting yourself at work.
However, having a structured and balanced lifestyle allows you to have more time to spend with those you care about and ultimately, it positively impacts all other facets of your life, as you will feel more fulfilled.
Pro tip: High quality relationships make life worth living, invest into healthy friendships and surround yourself with like-minded people.
Makes you more productive & successful
Think about it, the more you begin to adopt a balanced lifestyle and can manage your time, your productivity as a whole increases.
Your ability to cognitively and physical produce higher standards of work will become much easier and therefore, will also lead to greater levels of motivation.
It is important to remember, there is no such thing as the ‘perfect’ work-life balance. It is about consistently assessing your schedule and keeping it fluid with what should be prioritized.
Pro tip: Set yourself monthly personal and professional targets and celebrate the little wins.
Takeaways
Although having a successful career is what most people strive for, it shouldn’t be restraining and negatively impacting other aspects of your life.
Setting proper boundaries with work, whether it be not checking emails after-hours or learning not to take on too much, can assist others to respect your limits in the workplace.
Sometimes, the best thing you can do is simply switch-off. Spend a weekend without your phone, surrounded by loved ones and realize that although work may be demanding, you shouldn’t neglect everything else. Remember, balance takes time.
