You may have noticed that this week, I have tweaked Daily Inspiration Board. It’s a natural progression – I write primarily about lifestyle and career, and realised that the biggest challenge that I experience and write about at this stage of my life is finding a balance in which I remain fulfilled, happy, healthy, positive, and that I have enough time for my friends, family and to do the things that I love to do.
Often when we get busy with our careers, we end up letting some – or all – of these things slip. It becomes difficult to spend time cooking and preparing meals, exercising, spending time with friends, and doing things such as meditation to improve your wellbeing and calm your mind. This is particularly true when you have large projects to manage and multiple clients demanding you to stretch to your limits in a multitude of areas.
Generally when I get really busy, everything else – including my health and wellbeing – goes out the window. I wish I could say that I was one of those people who could just get up at 4am and go to bed at midnight to compensate, but really I would just run out of motivation and energy if I did that.
A friend of mine brought up an interesting subject a while back. That our working life is based on the premise that you have someone at home taking care of everything for you (a husband or traditionally, a wife) – the cooking, cleaning, kids, ironing your shirts, doing your laundry, arranging your social schedule. The working day was originally a product of the industrial revolution, when schedules were as long as 12-16 hours per day. Then car maker Henry Ford introduced the eight-hour day, giving people more time to want and consume goods (for the economy!).
Of course, most of us these days don’t have someone at home doing the ‘life admin’ stuff. If we’re in a relationship at all, we’re usually dual income because modern life is expensive – childcare, rent, mortgages. Even when we don’t have kids, it’s hugely expensive to live in capital cities such as Sydney. We can’t afford to stay at home, and what’s more – we don’t want to. (Let’s be frank: not unless we had lots of money, anyway! That would equal freedom, and who wouldn’t want to spend their time indulging in leisure pursuits, doing more things out of pure interest, traveling and socialising?).
The point is, we have to not only work but also do everything else ourselves. Why wouldn’t we try to take shortcuts? I’ve tried every shortcut in the book when it comes to health and wellbeing. It never works, because you get out what you put in. I take every ‘life admin’ shortcut possible, but it’s still a massive workload on top of my workload. If you know what I mean.
A while back, I thought the best way forward when busy at work was to simply produce more. I thought this would happen by spending more time at work, giving more energy, focusing more, not talking to anyone, not taking breaks, not thinking about anything but work.
You can imagine how I was left feeling after a little while of this. I certainly lost all of my sense of joy in life. I was also losing my focus on my wellbeing.
I’ve since realised that the best way to achieve optimum levels of productivity (which you need to achieve your goals!) is to ensure you maintain a balance with your wellbeing. It’s about ensuring that your lifestyle and your career both have their appropriate places in your life, according to how much you want and need of each.
This is why it’s so important to pause, assess and tweak the various facets of your life to make sure they’re working for you. What worked two years or six months ago may not work for you today. Similarly, what you want for your future may not be what you are experiencing today – but how will you know what you do want unless you have time to step back and assess the bigger picture?
Pause, assess and tweak is exactly what I’ve done with Daily Inspiration Board. Previously, my description of it was ‘in pursuit of inspired living.’ It’s still that, but that’s not all. It’s about finding a balance with lifestyle and career – and not letting it become overwhelming or draining. It’s about staying happy, healthy, fulfilled and on a path to success – regardless of how busy life and career can get.
What do you think of the new Daily Inspiration Board description? Where can you find something to tweak in your life?
