How’s your balance?

I often hear people talk about their wellbeing in terms of their ‘work-life’ balance and it’s spoken about as something to be achieved. I recently realised that it’s not something that happens once in your life but rather something you work on every day based on what you observe and adjust accordingly.

I believe that you shouldn’t separate who you are outside of work and who you are at work. But at the same time, you need to be able to read the room and respond in a manner that’s helpful to you and the people around you. A few years ago, I chatting to my manager about my performance review and some of the feedback that I had received and one person had said that I was “too jovial” and I laughed! I thought about how absurd it was at the fact that my having fun at work is seen as negative until I asked myself a deeper question about time, place and the effect I was having by being too jovial. Now I’m quite conscious about how I intend to show up in any situation that will remove any barriers from people being able to listen and engage.

I’ve been learning more about how to be a better coach and one of the principles that I heard was that we don’t only coach one aspect of a person’s life but their whole life — think about it from the perspective that what happens in other areas of our lives has an affect on the other ones. Imagine a wheel and the sections that make up that wheel are different aspects of your life, relationships, personal growth, career, finances, faith and spirituality, health… things that are important to you. If any of those areas are suffering, that part of the wheel is not in line with every other section and you will have a bumpier ride. That’s how it is with our lives, it’s a journey that we are on and the state of our wheel will determine how bumpy it’s going to be going forward.

One time I remember I had a really strange muscle injury which was causing me pain down my left leg from my hip. Whenever I sat down or even when I was walking, there would be pain or discomfort until I saw an Osteopath who informed me that parts of my body were suffering as a result of another area that’s the real problem and my body was compensating for the part that wasn’t functioning well. After going a few times and following the instruction of the Osteopath, I was able to recover.

Don’t get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life — Dolly Parton

After reflecting upon my own ‘wheel’, I realised that I have been feeling the bumps in other areas of my life because I was spending so much effort in one area and not enough in another and as a result, things like my relationships would suffer even though I’d rate that rather well.

To help me better my daily balance, it’s something I have decided to visualise and reflect on daily and take a moment to consider, what small adjustments can I make to make it a less bumpier ride for the day ahead.

I hope that this article has helped you reflect a little more about your own balance in life and not feel too overwhelmed by the inner need to achieve 100% balance through intensive change.

James Zhang

My why is to help and inspire others to live a full life through unconditional love