Work Life Balance Tips

It is time to address the elephant in the room and ask ourselves have we got a work life balance?

This concept has been around for years and is a familiar part of everyone’s vocabulary, but how many of us are paying anything more than lip service when it comes to addressing it?

Stress and burn out are now at record levels. Reading the November issue of Mens Health, I discovered some very alarming statistics, some of which I highlight below:

64% of you agree that work has had, or currently has, a damaging effect on your personal life - Mens Health

6/10 of you have at times allowed your health to suffer as a result of work pressures

59% of you say that long hours and unpaid overtime have had a detrimental effect on your well being

14% of you believe that you have experienced negative consequences as a result of discussing your mental health problems at work

These statistics bring into focus a macho (you could say masochistic) mind set that permeates working culture that I have personal experience of. During my tenure as a CEO I developed an unsustainable philosophy that meant as the pressures of my role intensified, I would meet those pressures by intensifying my work ethic. In a vicious spiral, my norm became working fifteen hour days.

I lost sight of personal relationships with family and friends as well as my health, and work became all consuming. At the time I didn’t see anything wrong with what I was doing. I just saw it as my duty to work that hard. As a previously fit and healthy 38 year old, I collapsed in my bathroom one morning (ironically with phone in hand) which was, as I subsequently discovered, as a consequence of developing a severe dose of pneumonia. I had literally run myself into the ground.

Having recovered from this illness, I made a number of changes to how I operated. It wasn’t an overnight fix. Old habits die hard after all. I now present to businesses and work with individuals in a mentoring capacity about steps that can be taken to address work life imbalance, while sharing my experiences of the consequences of failing to take action. I touch on some of the areas that we work on below.

Work ethic should be applied to your personal life as well as your profession.

One of the areas we focus on is how we perceive work ethic. Work ethic, for most people by definition, is only something that applies to your work. However, I believe it applies equally to your personal and professional life. Too often at times of work-related stress we go into a bunker mentality, intensifying our work ethic and focus solely on the work issue at hand. Meanwhile we give little or no attention to important aspects in our personal life.

We need to ensure that we have the self discipline to prevent our personal life interactions from grinding to a halt - regular calls to friends, a date with your partner, time spent with your children. These simple pleasures have to remain a priority and in reality are essential to dealing with your work-related challenges. They shift your focus from work, and help you recharge so that when you revisit those challenges, you have renewed energy and a clearer head with which to find a solution to the latest problem.

Digital detox

Ask yourself this question, when is your phone not with you? It is safe to assume that for most people their phone goes to bed with them and it is the last thing they look at at night and the first thing they look at in the morning. It travels to the bathroom with them, it goes to the gym with them and is even present at bedtime stories with their children!

We are in affect always on. Ariana Huffington referenced ‘email apnoea’ in her book Thrive. This is the situation where you stop breathing during a moment of tension when you see an email from a certain sender.

You only draw breath again once you have opened the email and digested the content. I am sure many people have experienced that sensation without necessarily having a name for it. By always being accessible to these email intrusions we are flooding our bodies with the stress hormone cortisol, which in turn has associated health implications.

Time must be carved out of your day for a digital detox and to allow us down time when we in affect ‘switch off'. A simple first step would be to ban your phone from the bedroom. How can you expect to sleep peacefully if the last thing you read before putting your head on the pillow is an email which infuriates you and injects another dose of cortisol into your system?

Non negotiable

To restore and indeed maintain balance, there are a number of non-negotiable elements that need to remain in your schedule, and one is physical exercise. I appreciate everyone has different physical capabilities, but this can be as simple as going for a walk or a gentle swim.

The key point is the fact that you are making a choice to do something for your own mental and physical well being. In times of work stress you often feel buffeted by a raft of events that are frequently beyond your control. That sense of a lack of control in itself is a root cause of stress and anxiety. Finding the time on a daily basis to exercise restores that sense of control. Then of course we have the obvious health benefits of countering the stress hormone cortisol, reducing blood pressure etc. When we fixate on a problem we can often arrive at an impasse.

The more we strive to find a solution, the less progress we seem to make. By shifting your focus and clearing your head during a period of exercise, you will often find the solution presents itself when you return to the task. I frequently hear the phrase ‘I haven’t got time with family and work commitments to fit in exercise’. I empathise with that statement, and for a long period I had drifted into that mindset. However, I always rationalise a response which is that you can’t afford not to.

A leaders duty of care

First and foremost, we have a duty of care to ourselves to maintain an appropriate work life balance. If we cannot function optimally then we are compromising our ability to lead our organisation or department effectively. Beyond that we have a duty of care to look after our staff and help them restore their work life balance. In my opinion, not only is this a moral obligation but it is also a business imperative. Healthy, happy staff that feel valued will make a far more positive impact on the bottom line of your organisation than stressed, frustrated and under appreciated ones.

Having spent over twenty years working in elite sport, initially as a player and latterly as a CEO, I have seen the level of detailed work that goes into ensuring the players can function optimally. Before players arrive at the training ground they complete wellbeing surveys which require them to grade the quality of their sleep and their overall mood. Upon arriving at the training ground they are required to provide a urine sample which helps assess levels of hydration. The coaching staff and medical team assess all of this data and cross reference it with the previous day’s GPS data. The players now wear GPS units, and this monitors the volume and intensity of their training. Finally, the club’s welfare manager is consulted who provides (confidential) feedback on any personal issues that may be affecting players. The purpose of this process is to look after the players. Individuals may be instructed to have a lower intensity day of training, whilst some players may be given a day off. In extreme cases, specialist support may be sought should a specific issue beyond the skillset of the staff be identified.

I appreciate that many reading this will not be elite athletes. However, it is the principle that I want to raise. When you consider this attention to detail to help safeguard the health and wellbeing of staff who in this example happen to be players, then reflect and compare it to what happens in industry, the differences are stark.

I think it is in our interest to develop systems and processes to help leaders and senior management better understand the mental health and wellbeing of their staff. With better insights we can, if required, temporarily reduce someone’s workload or indeed give a much needed day off to deal with a personal issue. This concept may sound alien, but the alternative to this is that staff bottle up issues which could potentially damage them and your business.

To work with the team at The Lonely Leader contact us at hello@thelonelyleader.co.uk