The achievement of the optimal mindset for work-life balance depends on your ability to view work as much a part of your life as any other aspect. While we all have to work somewhere, a lot us feel like our work life is separate from our personal life. It is like we are leading two distinct lives. Our work life is spent trying to achieve as much as we can within the organization we work for. There is no real sense of self while we work.
If your work and life aren’t aligned, you need to try and find the right balance. The reason they aren’t balanced is that your work mindset is fixated on either the money aspect of your job or the career aspect. In the first case, the only reason you work is to pay the bills, and you don’t really have any personal connection to your job. This mostly because you just don’t feel like your objectives and your organization’s objectives are aligned. You might feel disillusioned and view your job as a means to an end. This is incredibly sad, and you need to change your mindset.
The alternative is equally disturbing. If you are focused on the career aspect of your job, then the only reason you work is to climb the corporate ladder. Maybe it’s the bigger office you’re after, or the fancier working title. Maybe even a larger paycheck. Whatever the actual reason, your work life is all about getting to the next possible career goal. You might think there is nothing wrong with this, but having a career mindset means that you don’t really have a real purpose for working, a purpose that connects your person with your job.
The bottom line, if you don’t love your work, all your time will be spent trying to balance your personal life and work life. Your personal life will always seem like it is distracting you from work. While your work life will feel like a necessary pain that you have to endure, something which doesn’t let you lead a good personal life. This, in turn, leads to stress, discontentment, and even anger.
So how can you achieve the optimal mindset for work-life balance?
You need to learn to love your work. Instead of focusing on work-life balance, think about work-life fusion. The optimal mindset for work-life balance is all about striking the perfect balance between how you view work and life.
So before you take a job, try and look for an organization that matches your mindset, matches how you look at the world. If you can find that, it will be easier for you to integrate yourself within your organization’s existence. This will inexplicably lead to you living and working on similar wavelengths.
When work becomes a part of life that you love, it is no longer a burden that you have to endure just for the sake of it. You are invested in it, and your personal goals merge with your work goals. In other words, the ideal work-life balance is achieved naturally. You no longer need to worry about your work taking up your personal time or you not finding enough time off work to focus on yourself. The two things become mutually inclusive i.e. your personal life and work life almost become one and the same.
If you have a good alignment between your personal life and work life, you are bound to feel good about yourself. This will inevitably lead to a happier personal life. In order to achieve the optimal mindset for work-life balance, make sure your job doesn’t feel like a job. Make sure it is a part of your life!
