In today’s read, we will discuss the importance of work-life balance, how to achieve work-life balance in 5 steps, and how to improve work-life balance in your business or at your job as well as how to manage stress or be less stressed at work using basic fundamentals for a healthy holistic lifestyle. I know for a fact that this read today will help you separate yourself from your work or business just for a minute, to increase your holistic health. It is critical if you plan to succeed that is. Shall we?
Did you know?
77% of Americans who work full time have experienced burnout at their jobs? Out of 10,000 respondents on a work-life balance survey, 77% said they experienced some kind of burnout at their current jobs at least once. Also, 48% of Americans believe that they are workaholics. That is at least half of the people in the United States. A crazy addition to that, thousands of workers in the U.S will spend over four hours working for free because they are workaholics.
Also, another alarming fact is, that 94% of workers spend over 50+ hours a week working and most of them work on the weekends, and/ or also take their work home with them according to apollotechnical.com. Often times, people do not want to work this much however, it is now part of the norm and part of the normal flow of our society. They put in the hours because of one main reason, money. This is why it is extremely important to have a work-life balance. Wouldn’t you agree? Ask yourself, which would you rather have a completely balanced joyous lifestyle, or work for the sole purpose of money?
This is why we have created goodselfhealinghabits.com. To create good habits that increase your overall health meter. One of the greatest habits of all time is creating a healthy, and stress free, work-life balance. Now let’s break it down. First, what is work-life balance?
What is work life balance?
Work life balance is the equal effort in distribution of energy and focus between work or a job, and their life that provides happiness, freedom, and joy. The balance does not necessarily have to be equal to 50%, it is equal in the sense of the direct weight applied on each side. Work could be demanding, or life can be demanding, depending on the individual.
Oftentimes, people have a workload that could be causing fear, stress, anxiety, and depression. Work could also bring joy, satisfaction, progress in life, and financial freedom. The same goes true for life at home or out of work. The key here is to have healthy working habits that balance out the negative stressors to your mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health. Learn to raise your vibration using the key fundamentals for a healthy work-life balance.
What is a healthy work life balance
A balanced lifestyle means thinking about all the areas that contribute to your peace, happiness, and sense of success: God, relationships, family, work, fitness and health, and emotional well-being. The idea behind healthy, is positive. Often times we may feel as though we may have a “work-life balance” where we believe that a 9-5 work schedule is enough time to complete work deadlines and go home to the family and do whatever it is that makes us happy, however that is simply not the case.
In fact, schedules that offer 8+ hour working days, whether it is 4 am -12 pm, 7 am – 2 pm, 9 am – 5 pm, or overnight, leave very little room to work on yourself, enjoy any kind of freedom adequately, work on your business or hobbies, play with the kids, hang out with friends, or spend alone time doing whatever makes you happy. Have you ever felt this way? What do you do to regulate your schedule in accordance with your peace and happiness? Don’t have a bulletproof plan? Let me help you understand more clearly how to achieve a work-life balance.
How to achieve work life balance
First, you must understand what can you do during your downtimes that will bring you happiness in all 5 most important areas of your healthy life. Your spiritual, mental, emotional, physical, and social health. Then you can lay out a blueprint to help you achieve your goals that satisfy each category. Within your schedule, you can block out time periods that target each specific task that fills up your work-life balance meter. Here’s how to achieve work life balance in 5 steps.
What are the five steps to working life balance
- 1. Understand your 5 Health Areas. By understanding the 5 most important health areas to you, you will gain clarity and vision on why work life balance is important and what you need to focus on that will make you happy and mentally healthy, because your success depends on it.
- 2. Create a Schedule built around the 5 Essential Life Areas. By creating a detailed schedule and orchestrating a routine, you will be able to pinpoint the exact times your brain needs balance. Putting it down on paper will also allow you to see how you can create the healthy lifestyle you need to be in sync with so you can be the best you can be at your work. No schedule, no improvement.
- 3. Make them a Priority. In priorizing your needs and wants, your life will be that much clearer, and so will your path to success. Commitment and priority go hand in hand. What you don’t make priority, is not that much important to you in the first place. Make it a priority to identify and adhere to the first two points and the fourth step will be that much easier.
- 4. Work on Goal Setting. Goal setting, as we all know it to be, is an extremely vital process in which we can clearly identify what exactly needs to get done. With the number of distractions and tasks that there are at work, goal setting needs to be a main focus for you. You must set your goals to accomplish all tasks of your “Life” balance that will sprinkle peace and happiness in your days. Without this ingredient, you cannot have your cake nor eat it.
- 5. Have Deadlines and Time Frames. Everything in life has an expiration date, this includes you. Didnt know I was going to go there? Yes. I did. Therefore, if you know you have a time where you will leave this earth at some point, make an urgent importance of the need to create faster deadlines and times frames in which you can get all tasks completed that focus and pertain only to your health areas. This includes setting boundaries and parameters in which you can satisfy everything and everyone.
If your work-life balance, similar to mine, is to juggle being a parent, a business owner, a spouse, a mentor among many other things; you must be able to still accomplish handling all of your child’s needs and projects. Also, you must ensure all moving parts of the business are functioning properly by wearing multiple hats as well as dedicating alone and special time with your spouse and catering to every single need of theirs without question. Simultaneously, you must also handle all clients that need your attention and help, all equally and fairly. At the same time, you must be practicing what you preach while being the perfect role model that everyone thinks you are.
Now by no means, I am not perfect, nor do I claim myself to be. I still have issues and problems too. I still break good habits, I still like not working out over eating ice cream, watching movies instead of working, or scrolling through social media laughing at silly little things, instead of reading. All the things that you struggle with are also part of my regime. Now, I may have more discipline, however perfection, does not exist, and neither does a perfect work-life balance. The best thing that you can do is try. The second best thing that you can do is write out what a work-life balance looks like to you as we just described above.
Work on little things that can improve your work-life balance and you will notice happiness coming into your life. What are the little things you can do to improve your work-life balance? Here are a few things you can work on.
How to improve work life balance
Improve work-life balance by adjusting your schedule using a self-care checklist. In fact, create a self-care checklist of all the important things that matter most to you. Here’s an example.
- make a to-do list for the week
- check and organize the finances
- pay all the bills
- read a book one chapter at a time
- make a new friend this week
- call mom and dad
- hug a stranger
- buy someone lunch or coffee
- feed the homeless
- volunteer
- read the bible
- make a grocery list
- do my laundry
- fold the clothes
- clean the house
- make all my important phone calls, appointments, family, clients, etc
- plan activities for the family for the entire month
- schedule your workload for work on a planner
- study
- work on what is needed to get promoted and recognized at work
Now, these all sound like ideas and duties that you may already do however, oftentimes we fail to complete them all in a time frame which causes us to be behind or stressed because we simply did not create a checklist. The point of the checklist is to have a clear picture written down, of what needs to get done for a work-life balance. It’s a lot simpler than you think. Once you have all of your amazing ideas written down, I can assure you that you will be less stressed, and you will manage all of the stressful things that may come your way.
Easier said than done I know. Let me give you an idea that helps me to be less stressed at work and manage my stress.
How to Be Less Stressed
How to be less stressed? Easy, I tend to have a technique that I use, that helps me calm down when I get so worked up, that is, I get high. Did you just read that correctly? Yes, I am afraid you did. Now wait a minute, hear me out for one second. It is not “high” in the sense of what you may be associating highness with. It is not with drugs. No, not at all. I am talking, high off life. Now I was going to keep this a secret and put it in one of my programs but, I’ll just give you the secret tip today as a golden nugget for making it this far. You must really want to figure this thing out.
Here is the secret. Whenever I get stressed for whatever reason, I go somewhere quiet, alone. I close my eyes, and I hold my breath. I hold it for as long as I can. My time is about one minute and thirty seconds. instead of beating my self up, and negative talking my self into shame, I hold the crap out of my breath until I cant breathe. Here is the shocking thing, according to medium.com holding your breath has many benefits. Hmm, who knew? I surely didn’t, not until doing research on it as I was writing this post. I just did what my brain wanted to do at the time. I’ve been doing this for 13 years and it has been my destressor.
If you like little secrets like this that truly help with managing stress, keeping happy while everyone is pissed off, not losing your S*%^ when someone cuts you off in traffic or when you lose your keys to your car or even better, your purse/ wallet; then read our book Awaken Your Zen. It is full of nuggets of wisdom that I know you can use right now to handle those issues.
Benefits of Holding Your Breath
- brain cell protection
- a calm of the nerves
- anti inflammatory effects
- bone mineralization
- decongestant
- improved digestion
- cancer prevention
- energy
- healthy skin
…and so much more. These are just a few of the benefits of holding your breath for long periods due to the carbon monoxide exposure from your air that you manipulated for your lungs. I don’t want to get into the science of it, but just trust me when I tell you, it is one of my secrets and it keeps me peaceful everyday of my life. Just take a deep breathe and hold. If you cant hold your breath for long, here’s a trick that helps with holding your breath longer.
How to hold your breath longer. Inhale completely taking in all the air you can take. Hold for 30 seconds or as long as you can. I normally hold for 1 minute and 30 seconds+, but that is because I have been doing this for years safely. Once you take in the air, the most important part is this, gently release the air by exhaling slowly until you have no air in your lungs. Nice and controlled. Here, take a minute and try it.
Do this twice as soon as you start feeling angry or stressed and it will remove that feeling. Why? Because no matter how stressed or angry you are at something, there is nothing more important to the mind and human body than breathing. Your problems are minuscule.
How important is work life balance
How important is work life balance? Well, there are 2 things that are important in life. Water, and Air. However, having a work life balance is a competing contender. Since the most common daily task that we do is work, drinking water, breathing in air, and gulping down coffee may not stand a chance in the near future. Truthfully speaking, we have got to set a priority in attaining the complete and total balance that we need, in order to keep stress levels down, maintain an authentic happy lifestyle and positive health meter. It is an extremely crucial part to our success, without a shadow of a doubt.
Final Thoughts and a Challenge
What are your thoughts on work-life balance. A well balanced life is the core mission to a health vida. We realize that the majority of people do not focus on themselves, and if they do, it is certainly not more than they do at their job. It shows that we have a lot to learn about what it means to live healthy. We also have to be shown the proper training and guidance to achieve a healthy lifestyle. We need help as people. This is why we have created goodselfhealinghabits.com as an approach to living a healthy holistic lifestyle. Helping you focus on what matters most, YOU. You are our back bone to our happiness. This is how important living a health work life balance is to us.
Here is the challenge for you, are you ready? Set a day this week, let’s say Monday, everyone loves Mondays right? Create a desireable schedule that enables you to get everything that will make you happy done, one that helps you attain a healthy work balance. Using our self care checklist as a starting point within this blog, add to your list of things that you can manage in your day to day, and check them off as you go along, kinda like a to-do list. Start for 7 days, Monday to Monday.
Once you have completed the 7 day trial, write in your journal some things that you took note of along the way, then go for 21 days. We use 21 days as our stepping stone to creating any good habit. It works wonders.
Once you have completed 7 days in a row of working hard on yourself, comment down below or shoot us an email on what you gained, or lost whether good or bad, we want to hear it! I’ll tell you my gain or loss too, wouldn’t that be interesting to know?
Part 2 of your challenge…
If you got any value from what we spoke about today, let’s make the world a better place by starting at the office. Make peace in the office by sharing this post anywhere you spend time on social media so that others can learn how to calm their nerves and take a chill pill. A better world always starts with YOU. Let’s do it together! In advance, thank you so much you beautiful soul.
Until Next Time,
Keep Self Healing
C.J. Perry