Over the years people have been chasing the idea of a work-life balance and have been trying their best to achieve it; little did they know is that this myth of Work-life balance, doesn’t exist and they have been chasing a mirage!
There are some myths that you need to know about work-life balance to avoid any kind of failure.
1- Balancing Between work and Life Is Possible
No, it’s not! People have been trying to find a work-life balance but it simply doesn’t exist or at least you can’t have a permanent balance.
You will find that most of the time, work will always interfere with your personal life or vice versa; there will be days where your work consumes more time and you won’t have any time left for your personal or social life.
If you are an entrepreneur, work will probably consume most of your time, even if you are on a break, you will find yourself checking your schedule or replying to emails.
Accepting that there is no balance will put you at the beginning of the road to be more productive.
2- Compartmentalize Your Time
Some people think that compartmentalizing their time equally will help them achieve balance but this is not true. You can’t always stick to the fixed hours that you dedicated to your job or social life, there will be days when you have to dedicate more hours to work to get your tasks done.
Instead of compartmentalizing your time, you can devote a certain amount of hours to work or to your life but put in mind that sometimes one of them might need more time than the other, which is totally ok.
3- Can You Actually Manage Your Time?
Let’s admit that sometimes we can pull off time management and achieve all the tasks but other times, this can’t happen and it’s ok! None of us can always manage time; you have to put in mind that some tasks take longer than others.
So you only need to prioritize your work instead of stressing yourself out over getting everything done at the right time!
4- Employees Are not All The Same
You don’t have to adopt a fellow employee’s work attitude, you have to accept the fact that not all employees are the same; not all employees get up in the morning all active and ready for work and not all employees are available 24/7
If you’re not an early bird, then don’t force yourself to be one, some people function better at night so you have to pick a job that will fit your attitude as an employee and no, you don’t have to be available 24/7, you still have to have some time for yourself because you owe yourself that.
5- If You Schedule, You’ll Have It All
You can’t have everything! You can’t have a job, personal life, social life, and family time all at once every day. It’s not possible. Even if you scheduled your time and tasks, you would still find that you are obligated to sacrifice something on account of something else.
You have to face the truth that you will have to make sacrifices in order to achieve a certain goal in your career.
6- All Employees Seek Balance
Not true! Not all employees are looking for balance; some are actually aware that there’s no such thing as work-life balance.
These employees are the ones to make it big, they know how the work system goes and they are aware that sometimes, work will consume most of their time, which can be a reason why their career path is successful.
7- Separating Personal Life from Work
Not everyone can pull that off, in fact, personal life has a major effect on your work life and it’s ok to feel bummed out about something personal and talk about it with your colleagues at work.
Both lives are not separate, in fact, if you were to look at the times your performance was at its best, you might find that your personal life was a factor. Happy situations can boost your energy and put you in a good mood so you’ll end up performing better. However, don’t let the negativity in your personal life affect your performance.
What Does Work-Life Balance Actually Mean?
Achieving balance doesn’t mean that every activity or work you do has to have a certain time, it means that you give your work the time it needs, and you give your personal life and social life the time they need and being overall satisfied with what you are achieving on the long term in life and work.
So, it’s not about literal balance, it’s more about accepting your job with all its circumstances so that you can lead a successful career.
