Spoiler alert: there is no escaping the 9-5 lifestyle! And that’s a good thing, trust me.
Every day, you are allotted eight hours between 9:00am and 5:00pm. With these eight hours, you can do anything you want, and embrace any lifestyle you want to embrace within these hours.
The reason the “9-5 lifestyle” gets a bad rap is because many people associate their work with obligation and limitations, and juxtapose their work with the opportunities and freedoms they can leverage from 5:01pm-8:59am.
You ultimately choose how you want to live your life, which means that you, and only you, dictate your lifestyle and how you spend every hour of every day. If you want to view the 9-5 lifestyle as something to be dreaded, go ahead. You’ll most likely view the 5:01pm-8:59am lifestyle with some semblance of how you appreciate the 9-5 lifestyle.
There is no such thing as “work-life” balance. Rather, we are all living, and therefore have life every hour of every day. Work is one thing, amongst many other things, that we pursue in our lives. Everything we do in our lives is a component of our lives … not an equal counterpart to be balanced with our overall life and chosen lifestyle.
Therefore, the only way to escape the dreaded 9-5 lifestyle mentality is to embrace the 9-5 as an opportunity to pursue your purpose and passions. Don’t leave your purpose and passions at the office door – carry them with you and engage in meaningful work that serves as a medium for your creativity, imagination, and value-add to others.
If your current work environment doesn’t align with your purpose or passions, you must do one of two things: 1) recalibrate your work to better align with your purpose and passions, or 2) engage a different 9-5 pursuit that is more aligned with your mission and goals! As you engage your 9-5 lifestyle with intent and purpose, you can better engage your 5:01pm-8:59am lifestyle as well.
Don’t differentiate your 9-5 from your 5:01pm-8:59am. Align every hour of your day with your mission, goals, and persistence. As you establish this alignment, you can better engage your purpose and passions with every activity you pursue in a given day. You will be more productive, more engaged, and more fulfilled in all walks of your life as you embrace all parts of your life as meaningful endeavors that deserve your thoughtfulness and positive state of mind.
How can you avoid differentiating between your 9-5 and your 5:01pm-8:59am? Simple! Apply your 5:01pm-8:59am mentality to your 9-5 lifestyle, and you’ll achieve congruency, alignment, and engagement! View your 9-5 just like you do your 5:01pm-8:59am – with wonderment, and joy, and opportunity for intentional impact on others!
You can’t escape the 9-5 lifestyle – you must embrace it, engage it, and empower it, which will provide more meaning to your 9-5 and your 5:01pm-8:59am. How wonderful is that? It definitely is a good thing. Trust me now? I hope so. Go out and treat every moment with opportunity, enthusiasm, and diligence … you never know what moment will change your life forever.
Thanks to Richard Gomez for the great idea to write about the 9-5 lifestyle! Check out Richard on LinkedIn and connect with him – he’s also in the content game and may be able to help you with your digital media and content creation needs.
