Tips for Achieving and Maintaining a Healthy Work/Life Balance

Tips on How to Maximize the Joy and Contentment in Your Life

By Gary Kunath; author of “Life…Don’t Miss It. I Almost Did: How I Learned To Live Life To The Fullest,” (Life…Don’t Miss It. I Almost Did).

People are overwhelmed with the complexities of their own lives and are desperately looking for a way to maximize the joy and contentment in their home and work lives. Employees’ priorities have shifted and they seek family well-being above all else. Companies must now recognize that it is imperative to be able to positively affect their employees’ lives both inside and outside of the company. They need to show their people that they care as much about them when they leave the building as they do when they arrive. and bring humanity back to the business. As an entrepreneur, speaker and former CEO myself, I’ve worked with some of the world’s top corporations and business schools, and I say it’s time to wake up!

Companies must now recognize that it is imperative to be able to positively affect their employees’ lives both inside and outside of the company. They need to show their people that they care as much about them when they leave the building as they do when they arrive. and bring humanity back to the business.

I know because I was caught up in the spin cycle of thinking that net worth automatically afforded me life worth. I sacrificed important things in my home life and justified it by providing my family the best vacations, schools, clothes. What I learned was that the only thing my family truly wanted was…me. The best things in life are NOT things. One thing I know for sure is that money doesn’t make you rich.

Once you have money, the myth of how your life will be better with it is erased. Money changes nothing about you – it just allows you to buy more things.

Leading corporations are aware that most professionals today – 70 percent – would trade a pay raise or promotion for family well-being. But employers are struggling with that. A new American Psychological Association survey released in March found that 48 percent of employees say their employers don’t value a good work-life balance.

The Answer to Work – Life Balance Lies Within YOU.

I recently was asked about how people can achieve work/life balance. The truth is that we work so that we can provide a better life for ourselves and for our families, but what does that matter if you work so much that you cannot be a part of that life you have created? The answer to work life balance lies within YOU.

Is achieving Life Worth truly a priority for you? Does maximizing the joy and contentment in your life matter to you? OR are you answering emails at 2 a.m.? Traveling extensively for work? Not taking your vacation days? Putting work before your family? Trying to justify your absence by telling yourself that your sacrifice is for the good of the family?

More professionals are trying to find a path to life worth, rather than centering their behavior on net worth. I figured it out before it was too late. My life is now better than your best vacation. There is NO reason everyone should not be able to say the same thing about their own lives.

Here are Some Ways Career-Minded Individuals Can Achieve Both Life Worth and Net Worth:

• Understand that money does not make you rich: I thought that if I had lots of money, my life would be perfect. So I worked hard for it. Justified my absences by telling myself that I am sacrificing myself so that my family won’t have to. Then one day, it was like someone had smacked me on the head, when my son, then 12, walked away in dismay after I said I couldn’t play baseball with him as I was too busy working on a business proposal. The look of disappointment on my sons’ face was something I will never forget. What was I doing? What could be more important than playing with my son on a sunny Saturday? I dropped everything and spent the day with him. I promised myself that would NEVER happen again. Another time, I had a near mental and physical breakdown after pushing myself to make an unnecessary business trip while sick. After a 19-hour travel ordeal, I knew in my bones that if I did not draw the line right there I would ruin every part of my life that mattered to me.
• Don’t be an employee, be employable: Unless you are self-employed, you are always vulnerable to someone else controlling your professional destiny, and therefore, your life worth. But employees can empower themselves by diversifying their skills and experiences so that they have more choices about where and for whom to work. Make being marketable and employable a top priority. Knowing that you have skills that are in demand is liberating and allows you to redefine how you choose to work and gives you the freedom to balance your life in your current job, even if the company you work for won’t.
• Recognize that time is short: We think we have all the time we want and that our world is full of tomorrows. The truth is that every day counts and one day you will turn around and 30 years will have gone by. Time is precious, especially if you know that you don’t have much of it left. Why is it that people who have faced death live the most? Why must it take a close call with tragedy, or tragedy itself, before we realize that it could all be gone in an instant. Start living NOW!!
• Don’t major in the minors: As Henry David Thoreau wrote, “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” For every evening spent late in the office there are moments professionals miss out on – and can never get back. I believe that many of us spend time on things that ultimately don’t matter.

  The three greatest gifts you can give to your family are time, memories and traditions. These are things in life that matter.

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