Get Some Work Life Balance
Some people find balancing work and other life commitments is like walking on a tightrope over the raging Niagara Falls – one false move and you drown. For others work life balance is easy, they are satisfied with their commitments and feel they have control over their lives. It is a fact though, that there has been a shift over the last 20 years with Australians now working longer hours, more women joining the workforce and on average, we are working 350 more hours per year than our peers in the Netherlands! No doubt other countries have seen similar shifts.
Although many women now work more than 45 hours per week, men continue to shoulder the largest burden of very long work hours.
Often with longer and longer working hours people become absent from relationships either with their partners, their children or other family members to whom they have loving obligations. Friendships, a great source of debriefing, can be diminished or lost altogether and people who experience a life imbalance are also often lonely and isolated. While relationships can and do breakdown, there is also the risk of waking up one day and realising that there is no-one with whom you have shared the recent trials and tribulations of life. No-one to whom you are genuinely connected. Relationships of all kinds may have become surface and business-like leaving only loneliness and emptiness.
There is no doubt that joy in life can be found in relationships and connection with others. Material possessions obtained through the high incomes associated with gruelling hours may bring only temporary pleasure and happiness – even though they are fun at the time. In fact, studies have shown that fathers’ relationships’ with their children is directly related to the hours that they work – more hours equals poorer relationships.
A work life imbalance occurs when one is overtaking the other to the extent that it is impossible to meet the time and energy demands in all of your life roles. It may be that you simply have too much to do; either at work or at home or both. Commonly work gets in the way of family and at other times, family gets in the way of work. Many people who are caring for children, particularly children with special needs or those who are caring for elders often find that those family needs make it very difficult to fulfil their work demands.
Additionally, there are people in our communities who play a number of significant roles that make life for the whole community what it is. These are the volunteers with clubs, service organisations and charities who often rack up many hours per week. Usually very busy people with a multitude of other caring roles, sometimes they burn out due to their multiple commitments and inability to achieve that balance within their lives and they are lost to this special work forever.
So take charge of your life and relationships and see if the following three tips help get your work life balance back:-
1. All Australian Governments have policies that support workers to achieve balance. Check out your employers policies and try to negotiate reasonable work hours.
2. Ask for help, even of you find that difficult to do. There are always people who want to help – give it a go.
3. Take care of yourself. It all starts and ends with you. If you are strong and looking after yourself, you have more energy available to help and support others. Do something nice for yourself every day.
Exhausted and Too Busy?
I can not count the number of times that I hear that in a day. As individuals and society, we seem to be activity rich and time poor and more and more people are tired all the time. That even has an acronym – TATT. Well hold everything boys and girls, women and me, because this situation can not go on forever. Oh it can, but maybe you will not. So what to do, what to do?
Since I have been there and done that, I am well qualified to offer up solutions so I will start with the most basic:
- Get a good nights sleep, take your work breaks, refresh yourself away from your work station for a few minutes every couple of hours, stretch your muscles and limbs regularly throughout the day and generally take care of yourself.
- Start your day off with some good food, eat and drink regularly throughout the day.
- Points one and two will ensure that you have the energy to process your work requirements as quickly as possible; you will not lose time because of a sluggish mind and body.
- Contract with yourself and your boss in necessary, to start and finish on time, cut out the starting early and finishing late. Be sure to stick to this plan because it is very easy to say – I will just finish this or do that and then I will go.
- Try to bundle up some jobs and do them all at once. We do that at work but often not at home. Prepare two meals at one time so that you can have some free time another night. Things like that. Think about what else you can do that will free some time.
- Create a short time each day that belongs solely to you to do just as you please and spoil yourself for that time.
- Check the time that you spend on television, social networking sites and so on and see if you can use that time differently and for your own benefit. You might find quite a bit of time is taken up with those things.
- And have a check up with your doctor.
Of all of those points though, the two that were most successful were taking good care of myself so that I had physical and mental energy and controlling my work hours. Both required discipline and the forming of good habits but in the end saved my sanity. So go ahead, see what you can do to claw back some time for yourself and have a great time doing it. Move on from being exhausted and too busy.
Boost Your Happiness Level With These 7 Tips
What if you woke up one morning and saw a sign above you that said “happiness bus – jump on here for the ride of your life”? Would you excitedly jump on or would you pass, get up and just face your day? Happiness is within the reach of any person who desires it. It truly is there for you to just reach out and grab hold of and here are seven tips to boost your happiness level, whatever that may be.
But why would you bother? Surely it is enough to just cruise along with life, taking it as it comes and if you are unhappy, that is just your fate in life. You may be surprised to know that there are happiness experts who study and teach happiness, sometimes known as positive psychology. These experts hold the view that happiness is a choice; you can choose positive emotions, you can choose to let go of fear, anxiety and sadness and you can choose to pursue happiness. According to the studies, most people believe that happiness is important and is worth having not just for the individual but for society as a whole.
Happy people earn higher incomes and are more productive, they have longer and more satisfying relationships and more friends, more energy, better health and even longer life. There is evidence that individual happiness is a key factor in organisational performance so any employers reading this might want to explore happiness further. The best possible news is that you can train your brain for greater happiness. Read on to find out how.
1. Create the habit of keeping a daily journal. This might take a while and some discipline and every day that you do it will make it easier to continue. When you get to 90 days it is very likely that it will have become a habit. Your daily journal should be primarily about the positive things that occur in your life and that you appreciate about yourself.
2. Develop gratitude by adding to your daily journal a minimum of three notes about things for which you are grateful that day. Write down the things that people did that you appreciated, anything that made you smile or that you felt thankful for. Talk to others about what happened and reinforce gratitude in your life.
3. Use your daily journal to identify the things that you can see are your strengths. You might find that your writings about what you appreciate in yourself show some of your strengths and you can also ask trusted friends and family what they see as your strengths. Use your strengths to make your life more enjoyable, for example, when you must do something that you do not like, approach it from the angle of your strengths. Build on your strengths at every opportunity.
4. Give generously of acts of kindness. Decide every morning how you will give at least five acts of kindness that day and be on the lookout for opportunities. Doing this just feels so good and other’s are very appreciative. It is like giving and receiving gifts all day long!
5. Have fun! I know that sounds a little crazy and looks obvious – happy people have fun right? You know what though? Sometimes we just stop being playful and exercising our sense of humor and again, it is just about practice. So be on the lookout for happy people with whom you can have fun and practice being funny.
6. Be still with yourself – meditation, yoga and such pursuits calm the mind and give you time to see life from a different perspective. Meditation can also help you to release fear, anxiety and sadness giving you room to allow happiness in. Meditation, by the way, can be a lot more simple than you may think. It can be as easy as watching the waves role in and letting all thoughts drift away in the process.
7. And finally, create yourself some habits like meditation, yoga or exercise. The creation of habits reinforces your belief in yourself to be, do or have anything that you want, including happiness.
So now you have the secret formula to happiness, you know why you would bother and you know that it is possible to be happy even if you are usually unhappy. The choice is yours – reach out and grab hold with both hands or let another day pass. Have fun with these seven tips and be happy.
Having Fun and Enjoying Success in Canberra
I am reminded today that life is like a box of chocolates – variations of sweet and fun. And there is nothing sweeter than time with my daughters. This week has been a spectacular catch up with two of my daughters when we met up in Canberra. It has been a time to remember that happiness and success is about many things and for me, it is about holding on to that lovely experience of family connections, friendship connections and the freedom to work and play just as I wish.
What does success mean to you?
10 Of The Best – Top Tips For Happiness and Success
For many people, the combination of success and happiness is elusive; sometimes finding one without the other and sometimes finding neither. It is possible to have both and like many things in life, that will require the burning desire and discipline. The burning desire to be happy and have all that you want and the discipline to stay the course while you achieve that. These 10 of the best tips for happiness and success will point you in the right direction and then it is up to you.
1. Bounce back. When things are not going right or you get knocked down, bounce right back again. Find your resilience factor and make it stronger by bouncing back every time. Allow only half an hour for feeling bad and then shift those thoughts and get on with it. Never give up, persevere no matter what. Some successful people take many years to hit their stride. Success might be just around the corner for you and if you give up, you will never know what you might have done.
2. Have a sense of humor. Whatever is happening in your life, do everything possible to find the funny side. Laugh at yourself first and then at everything else. Keep your funny bone finely tuned; it is a lot more enjoyable to be funny than cross. Laughter also gets your endorphins (feel good hormones) flowing and opens up the mind for creativity.
3. Commit your self 100% to your dreams and goals, read them and work to achieve them every day. If you want a prize winning garden you work in it every day; if you want your own prize you work towards it every day. Hold your commitment even though there might be some dream stealers around, hold onto that dream.
4. Start from where you are at and if you do not like what you are doing then learn to love it or find something to do that you do love. Just do not drive everyone else around you crazy with what you do not like. Love what you do.
5. Look for solutions not problems. When you start with a problem you are starting from the negative; when you start to look for a solution, you immediately come from the positive. From that place you can look for great ideas. People around you will love to work with someone who can see possibilities instead of problems.
6. Get out of your rut, try new ideas, have a go at something new and check to see if you have old, limiting beliefs that are holding you back. When you are trying new things your mind is opening up to possibilities and is moving out of your current way of thinking. This also allows creativity in and it is a lot of fun. What if you try running backwards on the beach instead of forward, would you see a different view of the beach and the people on it?
7. Take care of yourself in three ways; your health, your relationships and your work. You need to make sure that each of those are getting equal attention so that you feel balanced and connected to your friends, family and colleagues. You also must give yourself a healthy dose of inspiration at least once a week. A lot of attention is paid to physical fitness and little to brain fitness. So go ahead and give your brain a workout as well as your body.
8. Be kind and generous to others; look for things that you can do for someone else every day. When you are doing this, you are not only building relationships with those people you know, but opening yourself up to new experiences with people who you do not know. You never know when you will see that person whom you have helped or how a kind action will come back to you. Always be prepared to give someone else a hand up; there is enough to go around.
9. Find your passion and let it grow. If you lack passion it is hard to hold the commitment and action required to succeed. Go in search of your passion, try out lots of different things until you find it. Volunteer your help, try different jobs, mix with a different crowd or go back to your childhood dreams. There are many ways to find your passion and your life will be richer for having it.
10. Build relationships. We are moving into a time when people are increasingly looking for relationships in everything that they do. Web 2 is based largely on that premise; customers want to interact and not just buy, people want to keep in touch through various means and not just social networking sites. So join the crowd and create a network of support and like minded people around you.
Well there you are, 10 of the best tips for happiness and success and a checklist that you can use to get started with your own personal development program. Check in with this list occasionally to see how much progress you are making. Beg, borrow or exchange some inspirational products like the book “Think and Grow Rich” or the video “Know For Yourself” and find a way to inspire yourself every day. And finally, try keeping a journal and write about the progress you are making, then go back every now and then and read it. It is fun to look back and see how much you have changed.
What do you do to inspire yourself?
