On Balance

We've all heard that it's important to have a work/life balance. What this usually means, is that you aren't supposed to become so emotionally wrapped up in work that your mood is entirely reflective of how work is going at that particular point in time.

Are there other ways that a "life" imbalance rears it's ugly head? When you have one part of your life that is going particularly well (let's say your social life), it will often make the other parts of your life seem less important and/or stimulating. This can easily lead to the dreaded U word: unhappiness.

So what's a person to do when suddenly aspects of your life that were once fulfilling seem to have become a chore? The answer might be to find the balance within that imbalanced part of your life. Confused?

The part of your life that is going really well is doing so because it is balanced. Relationships, for example, are at their finest when both people feel the same way about each other, and have the same amount of "need" for one another.

You can imagine that work might not be going so well if you were pouring your heart and soul into it, but you felt under utilized and under appreciated. By the same token, it would be just as imbalanced if your company was counting on you but you had lost your motivation to perform well.

You can see that there would be lots of different ways to go about correcting the problem. It might be that you need to change your attitude, or change your work ethic, or work on making sure that other people change to see your value and potential. This isn't to say that it will be easy, but the first step of course is to recognize what's actually going on.

So instead of thinking about "how" are certain aspect of your life might not be so great, think about "why". Balancing it out against another part of your life might be unrealistic (at least in the short term), but balancing it out within itself is a much more manageable task. After you've thought about "why" it's unbalanced, think about "what" you need to do to get rid of the unbalance. (For those of you holding your breath for the "who" and "where" in my explanation, prepare to be disappointed).

Remember, you need to compare apples to apples here. Balance your work life within itself. Balance your social life within itself. But don't forget where this post started either, you can't become so wrapped up in the unhappiness of one that it automatically carries over into everything else.

(I think I just motivated myself into working on balancing out the blogging component of my life. Unfortunately for you, that means I'm going to start asking you to leave more comments and to share relevant posts with your friends! Remember, comments can be anonymous.)