Blending our Work and our Life

Written By Leona Banfield

I think we’ve all heard the saying “we need a healthy work life balance” and in 1970s that was relevant when we worked in the office 9-5, Monday to Friday. It worked when we could close our office door behind us as we headed home for the day. Back then, as the pace of technology and ultimately society began to increase, there was the tendency to bring work home and let it take over our personal and family lives, and so the call for work-life balance was necessary. The physical spaces of our work and life environments were more clearly defined which allowed us to leverage the behaviours associated with ‘balance’. The desktop computer we used wasn’t coming home with us at the end of the day, but perhaps the file folder of papers was tempting to pop into our bag for an evening read. It was easier to compartmentalize the various elements of our lives: personal, work, and family and use our physical spaces to help create balance; for example, I’m not going to bring that file folder home. But times have changed, especially in a pandemic.

Today, with the advance of technology, our world and work are in our pockets. We have easy access to our work all of the time, anywhere we are. With the “on 24/7” nature of our society, organizations and companies may be required to respond to customers and clients and various times throughout the day and week. And if we’re in leadership positions, we likely have people reporting to us who need our support, feedback, insights in the same manner. Today we don’t have balance and I would assert we shouldn’t be striving for it. Our world and society as it is now, does not support the notion of a work/life ‘balance’, so I would suggest we refrain from beating our heads against that wall.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Instead, let’s talk about a ‘blend’. How can we bring our work and life together as a blend, yet hold clear, distinct boundaries as our work, personal and family live come together? Let’s do a visualization for a moment. Picture a bike wheel and imagine that each “v” between the spokes represents an area of your life: career, family, health, spiritual, leisure, money etc. Give each area a satisfaction score out of 10 (with 1 - low satisfaction - as the centre of the wheel and 10 - high satisfaction - the outer edge) and then colour each section in accordingly. What do you noticed when you step back and take a look at the shape of your wheel? Are the various sections aligned? The shape of your wheel indicates if your ride in life is bumpy or smooth.

If you are faced with a bumpy ride then it’s time to take a look at these areas of your life and see how you can be more deliberate in generating a cohesive blend. Choose one area, either with the lowest score or the area that matters the most to you and let’s talk about identifying one thing you could do to start creating a shift. And I emphasize start. We are a lot more likely to achieve success when we focus on the process rather than the mountain top.

As you look at this area of your life, what boundaries do hold and honour here? Brene Brown says boundaries are articulating “what’s OK and what’s not OK.” Boundaries can be physical or emotional and range from loose to rigid; and healthy boundaries often fall somewhere in between. That being said, they aren’t always obvious - they’re more like invisible bubbles than a large “No Trespassing” sign on a fence. Because of this it is imperative that we are able to label and describe them for ourselves. Otherwise we might find that the lack of clear boundaries leads to breaches either by others or ourselves. And when this happens, we’re left with feelings of resentment, guilt, shame, frustration, anger, overwhelm (to name a few), and confusion because we’re not entirely sure what all these emotions and feelings are stemming from.

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Think about it this way: imagine a set of gears for a moment. From a distance the many gears working together look like one unit. They’re all working together to create motion. But when we zoom in we can see that each gear is its own unit. We see the clearly defined teeth, perhaps some are bigger or smaller, others are different shapes and colours. Now, if one of those gear’s teeth suddenly became fused with another gear, the whole mechanism would come to a grinding halt. In order for gears to work effectively, they must hold their own shape and maintain their distinct edges. Our boundaries are similar in nature. When the various facets of our lives begin to bleed into each other in a way that one area takes over another, the mechanism of life, shall we say, starts to unhinge. Perhaps life doesn’t come to a grinding halt, but I would assert that we shift out of thrive mode, into survival and our emotional, mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing begin to suffer. When work starts to take over family time or our personal time, we begin to burnout.

The reality is these various aspects of our lives co-exist - that’s nothing new to any of us. Perhaps our time and resources are divided up among them, but we’re mentally and emotionally connect to them all the time at various points throughout our day. While at work you get a text from your spouse, while at home a work email comes through. So how do we hold them together in a manageable way? Tim Arnold, author of The Power of Healthy Tension, would say they need to exist in a sort of tension. When I say ‘tension’ what comes to mind? Probably not much that is positive, but Tim Arnold argues that there is such a thing as healthy tension. We actually deal with tensions everyday of our lives, we just might not have a label for it. It’s simply the co-existence of the different elements of our lives and roles. Think about a day at work. Have you ever had to focus on long term and short term goals when planning? If you’re in a leadership role, I’m sure you have had to be truthful and tactful at the same time, provide freedom, yet hold team members to account, manage cost and expenses while maintaining the quality of the services you deliver. These are all healthy tensions. And in the case of this conversation, perhaps you’re thinking about your home and work. Setting boundaries around these various areas serves to have them co-exist in healthy tension, rather than be divided apart and compartmentalized. It requires a mindset shift away from either/or to both/and.

So let’s go back to that one area of your life that you chose. What clearly defined boundaries do you hold in this area? How loose or rigid are they? Do you need to address a tension that needs be healthier? Perhaps you’re not sure what your boundaries are here. If that’s the case consider this: what do you need to say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to in this area? Are there things you’re saying ‘yes’ to that really warrant a ‘no’? What boundaries do you need to reclaim? Where do you need to stand up for yourself? As you start putting these boundaries into place, don’t be surprised if you get push back from the people in your life - you’re changing the game and we all know how much people love change! Be patient and hold your ground, because this the loving and generous thing to do for both yourself and others.

Here we go, it’s challenge and action time: what is one small, I mean laughably small, step you could take to initiate the change you want to see in this area? How can you elevate this area by one point - if it’s a 3 what would it take to make it a 4? Then choose a step or action you can take that would get you there; one that is easier to justify doing, than not doing. What do you need to do to start take control of your finances? Before opening your email each morning, commit to 5 minutes of Google searching (whether for a reputable advisor or strategies you can implement) each day. Do you need to spend more intentional time with your family? Initiate eating at the table instead in front of the various devices. Do you need to say ‘no’ to back to back zoom meetings? End all your meetings 5 minutes before the hour. Whatever it is, commit to practicing for the next 21 days and notice the difference this one behaviour shift starts to make. Then from there, consider adding another step and another step as you become successful in each. When we shift our default responses through habit building we generate new behaviours that stick and that are long lasting.

For more on boundaries, check out these videos:

Leona Banfield
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