15 Jun When it comes to happiness, forget “work life balance” and go for “work life alignment” instead
via Forbes by Todd Emaus
It’s time to call out what has become one of the most harmful myths that has been told in modern society: the importance of work-life balance. The concept has been drilled into our heads by so-called experts for years now. Yes, balance sounds good. Making sure that your work doesn’t take over your life (or vice versa) also makes sense.
What do you picture when you think about balance? Probably one of those old-school balance scales where “work” is on one side and “life” is on the other. Work-life balance then becomes an exercise in ensuring that one side doesn’t outweigh the other. Something is wrong with this picture though: It pits work and life against one another in a sort of never-ending power struggle.
We’ve all felt it: work too much and you feel bad. You’re not investing enough in “life,” so you head to the gym or take a vacation to try and get that balance back. Then once you come back from that vacation, you’ve got a hundred emails waiting for you. Time to put some energy in the “work” side.
Work-life balance becomes nothing more than tug-of-war for your time and energy.
Over time, the struggle leads to one of two places, neither of which are fun to experience:
- Your work takes over your sense of identity completely and becomes the only source of meaning in your life.
- You grow to resent your work for overshadowing other things in life that matter to you.
There is a better way…
…keep reading the full & original article HERE