Know why I am doing a series on this?
What Psychologists Don’t Talk About Work-Life Balance?
CONTENTS
Introduction
The
question of work-life balance is a strange one. You can choose either work or
life. However, if you choose work, what is the use of working without a life?
If you choose life, what is life without work?
So,
work and life, both have to come together, and balancing between them can give
you advantages of both worlds.
The Nature of Work
But
before we get into the work-life aspect, let us learn something about
work. Work here refers to only those engagements that happen because of a
salary or compensation. The other things
are not considered work, so the question of balancing does not arise. For
example, the activities of a homemaker, farmer, petty shop owner, street
vendor, goldsmith, blacksmith, carpenter, potter, etc. These people work for
themselves and hence cannot be considered under the category of work.
In
an agrarian society, the question of work does not come into the picture. The
concept of work is a contribution of the Industrial Revolution and modernization.
As countries moved from traditional systems to modern ways of living, the
so-called “work culture” began to emerge.
You Work for Somebody!
The
downside of this was there was a feeling that you were always working for
somebody! This has become very strong to the extent now that people always
design ways to pilfer work. Work is considered separate from life and many
even go to the extent of complaining that work is coming in the way of their
life.
This
negative attitude towards work is the major hindrance to work-life balance.
People should first realize that their quality of life has changed because of
work. They can just compare themselves without work, or compare themselves with
unemployed people and they can see the difference.
I
am sorry to start with this negative note but I have heard a lot of people say
very bad things about work. They just want salary and perks but not any
responsibility or accountability.
Advancing Career
However,
not everyone is like that. A majority of people take work seriously and aim for
the advancement of their career through work. It is for those people that
balance between work and life becomes very crucial because they would not
like their personal or family life to suffer because of their work.
Unfortunately,
winning is so glorified within society that we rarely have the tools to understand
and empower the losers. There are hundreds or thousands of losers behind every
success. We drive everyone to be a winner, knowing very well that all cannot
win. We rarely address the question of how to cope with loss.
My
articles like ‘Converting
Weakness to Strength’, ‘Changing
Failure to Success’, and ‘Transforming
Difficulty to Ease’, have very few takers because each person
is made to believe that they ought to win to be successful.
We
fail to realize that even winners will have to eventually lose and we rarely
equip them to deal with the situation. As the proverb goes, “The higher you
climb, the harder you fall”.
Toxic Work Culture
According
to me, the problem of “toxic work culture” can be addressed if people learn to
understand how to recognize distress in themselves and others. Distress is more
contagious than the virus.
We
talk about air, water, noise, and other pollution, but as trainers and
psychologists, we need to emphasize “Consciousness Pollution”. This toxicity is
not restricted to the work environment alone but affects family life and
relationships, curtailing both psychosocial and spiritual development. More
about it when I present my treatise on ‘What Psychologists Don’t Talk About
Consciousness? Pollution’.
The Four-Pronged Approach
Work-life
balance can be tackled under a collective four-pronged approach.
The
following figure summarizes it.
Let
us consider each one in detail.
1.
Juggling Priorities
One
source of consciousness pollution happens because we consider work against life
as if they are two poles apart. In reality, they are so interspersed that it is
impossible to balance them as one unit against the other. Let us say, we
consider Personal Life as one chunk and Professional Life as another.
The Figure below summarizes the dimensions
that need to be considered.
Most
approaches tend to put personal life against professional life and ask a person
to juggle between the two, as indicated in the diagram below. This is
ineffective and becomes difficult in reality
The
most effective approach is to strategize a balance between each of the
dimensions, as indicated in the diagram below
If
you look at the diagram above, you will find that those containers that are
marked ‘A to H’ are not fixed. ‘A’ could be self, career, family, or duty. Each
container keeps changing positions, depending on the circumstance. As life is
dynamic, what is important and urgent may change within just a few minutes to
something else.
The
person needs to evaluate the situation, think critically about future
consequences, and then make a jugglery of containers.
Note
that container ‘A’, though it occupies the highest position, is catered to
later. The first preference goes to ‘E’. If you have observed carefully, you
will have seen that, after ‘E’ gets unloaded, they immediately do not unload ‘F’
or ‘D’. This will tilt the balance and the whole giant wheel may come crumbling
down.
Hence,
you have to choose judiciously which container to attend to, so that you
maintain the balance. This may look too complicated and difficult, but this is
what we have been doing all along if we have come this far. Now that we know
what to do, we can do it even better, without the consequent distress.
We
have seen earlier in ‘What
Psychologists Don’t Talk About Choices?’, how to choose
appropriately.
2.
Reducing Burdens
Another
greatest hindrance to work-life balance comes from “additional burden”. Somehow
we are not contended with what we already have. You must have realized this in
‘What
Psychologists Don’t Talk About Happiness?’
The
burden could be in some of the following ways.
Additional income –
“Let me start working on weekends, too”.
Additional
expenditure – “Let’s admit the child to a better school”
Additional
investment – “It seems putting money into mutual fund will double your income.”
Additional duties – Let’s
us have a dog or cat to give us company”.
Additional hobbies –
“Every morning I can make some time for gym”.
Additional
attachments – “My close relative is unemployed and needs my help”.
Additional desires –
“I always wanted that leather jacket”.
Additional
addictions – “I am so tired at work and just a couple of drinks won’t hurt me”.
Additional afflictions – “I cannot
sleep at night at all”.
The
following sheet is provided to help you to reduce burdens.
DOWNLOAD Worksheet for Reducing Burdens
Download the sheet above in “PDF” form and print as many
copies as you want.
Check the first column and wherever you see that there
is a burden, place an “X” mark.
If you want you can note down what is the kind of burden
on a separate sheet of paper.
See if you can eliminate it completely.
If that is not possible, then see if you can reduce the
burden to some extent.
If that is also not possible, then see if you can manage
the burden so that it does not come in the way of your work-life balance.
In the remarks column, keep noting down what you should
do, or what you have already done to reduce your burden.
3.
Redefining Success
Similar
to hundreds of words used in psychology that are misinterpreted and misunderstood,
success is also one of them. Somehow they show the winners as successful, which
is not true. They catch hold of one great story of a person who has climbed
from rags to riches and try to sell you the idea that anyone can make it. This
is also not true.
Everyone
cannot and should not dream big! Dreaming big has dangerous consequences. Those
who achieved big didn’t plan so. They climbed one step after another
meticulously, working hard, and contributing to society. To say that if you do
any of these you will also achieve what they have achieved is just a
concoction.
But
psychologists rarely tell you that. They tend to side with public speakers who
are just out there to please the audience.
No
achievement should be valued less. Every one of them, whether big or small, is
indicative of your success. For example, hundreds of people plan meticulously
to climb Mount Everest. However, all of them don’t reach the peak. We don’t
regard any less of those who were able to reach even the base camp. That, in
itself, is no mean achievement. (See ‘Aspiration
and Achievement’)
The
following mantra summarizes what success is all about.
So, success does not mean that you have to be on top always. Success should be redefined to make it amenable to us. Success is achievable if you can plan for it systematically. I have outlined the steps to plan your success (See ‘Planning Success’).
Let me just summarize the points here in the
figure below.
I shall explain it in greater detail in a later treatise, ‘What Psychologists Don’t Talk About Success?’
4.
Managing Distress
The
last in the four-pronged approach is to manage your “Stress”. Stress is
unfortunately considered an enemy. We can’t kill the enemy as it is part of us.
Most people try to kill their stresses by killing themselves and this is the
reason why there is a spurt in suicide cases. I have written and published an
e-book on ‘Befriending Stress – To Neutralize it Danger’. The details of the
book are given below.
Stress
comes within us for a purpose. However, it is unused, underused, misused, or
abused. If we know how to use stress to benefit us, it works as a great asset
in our lives. As long as we do not understand Stress and Anxiety
properly, we will have very few solutions to offer.
The
following figure summarizes the eight strategies needed for stress intervention.
We
just have to learn to distinguish between Stress
and Distress. If we overcome distress, we can convert
our stress fruitfully to ensure work-life balance.
Summary & Conclusion
Formal
work culture becomes part of life and we are forced to balance between work and
life. There is a significant difference between working for oneself and for
someone else. Salary and perquisites become an integral part of our career
growth. An increase in competition and rivalry results in a toxic work culture.
A four-pronged approach is necessary to maintain a work-life balance. They are
Juggling Priorities, Reducing Burdens, Redefining Success, and Managing
Distress. Not maintaining balance may lead to dangerous consequences including
negative effects on health and hygiene.
Know why I am doing a series on this?
Let me know if I am wrong. I have started this series because there
are hundreds of things psychologists don’t talk about. I feel that it would
benefit everyone if they did so. I hope at least now, they will make a
beginning.
This is
an attempt to bring to the fore what has been hidden for a very long time.
Next:
What Psychologists Don’t Talk AboutTime Management?
The following e-book
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Befriending Stress to Neutralize its Danger
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