Work Life Balance Strategies

Like most things in life the best strategies are simple yet highly effective. The strategies we outline below have been researched and found by scientists to be highly effective; we have personally used these strategies for over 30 years and found them to be very effective in our life. So not only does the research say they are effective, our personal experience confirms what the researchers say.
The techniques we have personally used are:
• Gratitude
• Avoiding social comparison
• Nurturing relationships
• Savouring life
• Living in the present
• Goal setting

Gratitude

Whether we are talking about wOrk LiFe bAlaNcE or living the good life, the one thing that we have always found rewarding is to use gratitude. The essence of gratitude is to have a thankful spirit.
For those who are religious you can give thanks to God; however if you are not religious, you can give thanks to the universe or a higher power. The important thing is to have a grateful heart and find things in your life to be thankful for.
As an exercise, for a period of 21 days keep a gratitude journal. In your journal record three to five things that you are thankful for daily. Remember in our life we have a lot of negative self talk; look for positive things in your life. For some this can be a difficult exercise for the first few days, but stick with it. We have between 12,000 and 60,000 thoughts per day. 98% of these thoughts are the same thoughts that we had the day before. 80% of our thoughts are negative. If we are to change, it takes 21 days to create or change a habit.  
By becoming open to gratitude and looking for the positive in your life; you will begin to see more positive in your life. As they say “seek and yee shall find”. Find three to five positive things per day and savour those events.

Avoiding social comparison

If you want to avoid the green eyed monster called envy, the trick is to avoid social comparison. If you insist on social comparison, you will usually end up with one of two results:
1. You will feel inferior because you may look at someone else and feel you have not achieved what they have.
2. You will feel superior because you may look at someone else and feel you have achieved more than they have.
In both cases, neither of these ends up benefitting you; you must live your own life not the life of others.
We chose the life that we wanted and then proceeded to go about getting it and living it.  
Twenty five years ago we learned an important lesson while purchasing our first house. The couple that we bought the house from had a profound impact on us. In passing when we purchased the house, Keith told us that on this block they did not keep up with the Joneses, they were the Joneses! While this statement may have seemed arrogant, he was not bragging, just pointing out that they did not have to keep up with other people’s expectations. They did the things that brought them satisfaction without worrying about what others thought. To this day we still strive to be the Joneses, not in the traditional sense but in the way that Keith & Noreen were the Joneses.  
We avoid social comparison, we do the things that bring us happiness and satisfaction and do not compare ourselves to others, we live our life! We learned this lesson over 25 years ago and still try to follow this principle.

Nurturing relationships

One of the keys to wOrk LiFe bAlaNcE or living the good life is relationships. Look at the four elements that make up wOrk LiFe bAlaNcE :
• Work
• Social
• Body
• Purpose
Notice that “Social” is one of the elements, and the key to any social situation is relationships. To maintain a good social life will require that you nurture your relationships.
Growing up I took for granted that one day I would get married and have kids, this is the one thing in my life that I am most proud of. While I may have taken for granted that I would be married and have a family; I never take my marriage or kids for granted.
One of the techniques you can use to have a wOrk LiFe bAlaNcE or living the good life is to nurture the relationships in your life. Take care of those in your life and life will find a way to take care of you.
Research has found that to be happy you need at least three friends that you can count on. Relationships do not just happen, they are made; it will be up to you to find, create and then nurture those relationships.

Savouring life / Living in the present

Thirty-two years ago we discovered the importance of savouring life and living in the present. At that time we were newly married and had just moved across the country to start a new job. But life can change in an instant. Ours changed with a knock on the door.
When we opened the door we were greeted with a police officer telling us that we needed to call home. Upon calling home we discovered that my father had died of a massive heart attack at the age of 55.
I was raised to believe that you worked hard and you would be rewarded. One of the rewards that you would have would be that at some point you could retire and enjoy all that life had to offer.
The sudden passing of my father helped us to realize that life offers no guarantee other than the present. We felt that it was still important to work hard and look forward to the future; but it was just as important to make sure that every day we “stop and smell the roses”. Eleanor Roosevelt said it best when she said “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift – that is why it is called the present”.
Find ways everyday to enjoy life everyday even if it is just some small way. Watch kids play, laugh, enjoy a meal, spend time with a friend or a loved one. You may need to work every day to make a living, but you need to find a way every day to make a life; and life is more than the destination, it is about the journey. Take time to stop and smell the roses!

Goal setting

In the previous section we spoke of living in the present and savouring life, and we believe that is one of the key factors to achieving a good wOrk LiFe bAlaNcE or living the good life. Most creatures in nature can only think of the present and that is something that most of us need to work on, being present in the moment.
A key thing that separates us from the animal kingdom is the concept of a future. One technique we can use to deal with the future is to plan or have goals. What is a goal? It is nothing more than a dream with a deadline. 
Goals give us a direction or focus for the future, and like living in the present often the important part of goal setting is not always the end destination, but the journey. Goals give us a direction to aim for, they give us a focus.
If you look at your life and where you want to be ask yourself the following question:

…. Imagine you are in your twilight years sitting in a rocking chair on the porch reflecting on your life, ask yourself this question –

I wish I had …

What are the things you wish you had done – you will probably be the happiest with the fewest regrets in your life if you have had satisfying relationships, interesting experiences, and challenges you had to strive to overcome.
If there are things that you have not achieved, you have to ask yourself – If not, why not! It is your life, what it is you want from life – if you want it, go and get it.

Recently our life has gotten very busy and we were finding we were not spending the quality time with our friends and family. We decided that we needed to nurture these relationships so we set a goal of having at least 12 meals this year with friends and family. With this goal we cannot force people to invite us over for dinner, but we can invite them over, so our goal is to invite friends over for supper a minimum of 12 times over the next year. In the last four months we have had a meal with friends & family at least 12 times!