Previously, we talked about the impossibilities of maintaining a work-life balance when you’re a parent and a successful business person. Now what about the people who aren’t parents? Are they better off?
It’s sad to say that research shows: not so much. Uh oh… That’s not good news.
According to research done by organizations such as Simply Business, in the UK, and Harvard, the reasons are complex. Striving for success in the workplace by climbing the organizational ladder requires employees working more hours than they should and having to deal with complex issues that garner unnecessary stress on the body and the mind.
This work overload results in your work-life overlap with you personal life.
Because of this issue, a lot of companies have been raving about the concept of “work-life balance.”
However, we are here to say this is perhaps a misnomer, since this suggests dividing time equally between work and life, which we all know is practically impossible.
A better phrase to revolve around, suggested by Harvard, is “work-life effectiveness.”
This means instead of separating work and personal life, find a way to merge them into a larger container.
This will avoid any over-spill from each container, metaphorically speaking. Making your work and personal life become allies, according to research done by Jeffrey Greenhaus and Gary Powell, can in fact enhance physical and psychological well-being.
To many of you this might sound like a crazy idea.
However, many influential people such as Marissa Mayer of Yahoo and Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines, take work as an integral part of their life.
In fact, Branson once stated that some of best ideas comes when engaging with children about work.
Well for starters when you feel stressed and exhausted all the time, it may be worth to evaluate your current situation.
Other signifiers include disruption of relationships between friends and family and loss of enjoyment.
When you notice this is happening, instead of constantly trying to separating work and personal life into two distinct agendas, trying shifting your perspective in order to see them as a uniform entity that can be managed with high effectiveness and quality.
