A growing number of people are consumed by the idea of “work-life balance.” I hear things like, “That’s a great company – all their employees leave the office at 5:30pm every day.” Or I hear, “It’s super important to me that work ends at the office and I can do things that I want to do on evenings and weekends.” As this growing number of people seeks to protect its personal time from the trappings of professional time, the coveted idea of “work-life balance” is actually being transformed into “work-life separation.” As in, “work needs to start and end at allotted times so I can start living once the day’s work ends.”
Separating work from personal life creates rifts within you. Trying to find a balance between work and life implies that these are competing priorities that, again, create rifts within you. To rectify these rifts, I’d like to propose one simple solution …
Gain clarity in your life’s mission, and align ALL your goals and disciplined efforts with that mission.
Once you have clarity in what you want to accomplish with your life, you will transform the way you view your vocation (work), your avocation (personal time), and relationships (your interactions within and between your vocational and avocational ambitions). You will prioritize your days based not on your work and your leisure, but rather, on the activities that fulfill your life’s mission.
This approach to prioritization, in which you align your daily, disciplined efforts with your mission, holds you accountable to your highest level of existence, as identified by your mission and corresponding goals. Therefore, you are compelled to utilize all aspects of your life, whether vocational or avocational, to achieve your mission. You are empowered to synergistically combine the power of your work, your personal life, and your relationships to realize your mission and goals far more quickly and profoundly than by separating your “work” from your “life.” How much value-add are you missing out on by isolating your work from your leisure, and your leisure from your work? Think about how much power and impact you can drive from integrating and synergizing all parts of your life – your work, your leisure, and your relationships!
Synergy! When you leverage the fruits of both your “WORK” and your “LIFE,” you can pursue and accomplish significantly more goals, via disciplined efforts, that enrich your overarching mission.
Framing “work-life balance” as a means of prioritizing your life from your work does not allow you to connect your work with the big picture of your “life.” Your vocation and your avocation support your overall life, which requires your full engagement and culmination of your vocation, avocation, and relationships.
Don’t balance your life with your work. You have one life, and you have one mission for your life. Balance your goals with your mission, and prioritize your daily disciplined efforts to achieve your goals that support your mission. This way, you are truly balancing all parts of your life in order to holistically fulfill your life. Life is so much more than your work and your leisure – it’s about fulfilling your mission, adding value to others, and being both present and engaged in every moment. Don’t submit your life to the limits of “work-life balance” philosophy, to arbitrarily designating required hours for your work and for your leisure. Take the time to clarify your life’s mission, align your goals with your mission, and exercise discipline and discretion in the daily efforts you utilize to fulfill your mission.
Don’t discriminate between work, leisure, and relationships; rather, cherish them all as equally important and necessary stepping stones you must allocate to cross the river of your life’s mission.
Once you bring a joyful death to your notions of work-life balance, you can bring life to your mission and add more value to others than you ever thought possible. Let the ashes of work-life balance give way to the renewed fire of your mission, goals, and disciplined efforts.
