Most of us feel time poor. In fact, according to 2011 figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), of full-time working women in this country, just 45% of those aged 25 to 34, and 38% of those aged 35 to 44, felt that they had work-life balance. That means at best, 1 in 2 of women between the ages of 25 and 44 working full-time in this country feel like we have balance.
With this kind of mindset, adding in non-essential activities seems like an impossible task. We are consistently listening to messages that reinforce this way of thinking – no one has any time, and it can almost be like a competition between friends sometimes as to who works the longest hours.
There’s a contradiction here, because working long hours seems like a measure of success – it’s like a badge of honor and worthiness for the money you’re earning. Yet equally, not having work-life balance is perceived as an extremely negative concept in our society. Are you confused yet? I know I have been. When I started in my career, I really thought I needed to work long hours to prove myself. Sometimes, you do need to work long hours. But it shouldn’t be the mission.
The mission should be to have a fulfilling career and work hard, yes, but also to be a well-rounded and happy person. Who, starting out in their careers, wants their work to be the only thing they have in their lives? No one, yet that’s what tends to happen to many of us. We start to become consumed by it and we kid ourselves that all we have time for is work and life admin.
I’m here to say, that’s not the case and it never will be. No matter how little time you have spare, you can still schedule in one hour a week to learn a new language, or write some things down, or play a guitar, or draw some artwork. The only thing getting in our way is the constant manufactured perception that we have no time. It’s almost as though, if we’re to be deemed successful, we shouldn’t have any spare time because wouldn’t that be wasting time?
The benefits of having a well-rounded life are numerous in every aspect of our wellbeing – health, emotions, relationships, spirituality, finances. Yet it seems to be the biggest thing that we’re constantly grappling with. Let me remind you – it’s not how much time you have, it’s how you use that time.
I’ve discussed the myths around having no time, and the benefits of having a well-rounded life. Now, I’d like to share with you some of the ways I create passion in multiple areas of my life to benefit my wellbeing and just in general, happiness and excitement levels.
How I create passion in multiple areas of my life – and how you can, too.
- Figure out what you’re interested in, outside of work. This can be a tricky one, because most of us have forgotten our long-time discarded hobbies and pursuits. These are the ones that we did just for fun, because we had the time and the energy to do so. (Perhaps it was something you loved when you were a teenager or even a small child. I, for example, loved dance – jazz, tap, ballet – and also gymnastics. It follows that now one of my main passions is yoga.) It can also be a new pursuit – something that you’ve never attempted before but have always wanted to try. Take that new language, or the book you wanted to write, or the blog you wanted to start, or the jumper you wanted to knit, or the painting you wanted to paint. Whatever it is…
- Make it a priority to find time to do it. Your work and admin tasks in your life are priorities, right? How about your happiness? How about your sense of fulfillment? Without these things, nothing will ever make enough sense. You may start to doubt all of the major areas of your life because you don’t feel fulfilled in your creativity, or your personal pursuits. Schedule in time by…
- Planning your diary in advance. This may seem boring and like more needless ‘life admin’, but I can assure you, from a busy person to a busy person, there’s no way that something not scheduled into your diary is going to happen. It fills up fast and you have to be ruthless, cutting down on things here, eliminating things there… Your time is your most precious commodity, so spend it doing the essentials but also lock in time to do the things you want to do.
- Know that even if you’re not sure if your extracurricular pursuits will fulfill you, have faith that taking short cuts won’t. If you limit your life to the stuff you ‘have’ to do, you will soon feel at best cut-off, limited and hard done by, and at worst depressed, used up and burnt out. Take a leap of faith and schedule in what you love to do, or even what you think you might like to do. You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain by feeling brighter, more fulfilled and like life is infinitely more exciting. Which it is!
Tell us your experiences of your passions in life – and how they benefited you!
