Being a woman, how do you find the right balance between work and Family?

Maintaining a healthy Work-life balance is challenging for everyone in this world, especially for working women, a healthy work-life balance is always questionable. If you have a health issue, family issue, or problem at work, the ultimate root cause is poor work-life balance.

“My family members are not happy, my children’s habits are negatively changing, and I feel stressed”
“I don’t know what happened to me, my conversations always go wrong. People are not liking me and even I don’t like myself”
“I can’t able to complete my work, I feel that I am incapable”
“Sorry, I don’t have time for any entertainment, lots of work there to complete”
“Sorry dear, let’s play tomorrow, mom is having a headache, back pain blah…blah…”

If any one of the above sentences resonates with you or if you are the one who is always busy with phone calls when you are at home or the person who feels detached from the family, Dear ladies, Stop!! Listen, you are imbalanced in your work and personal life. Alert, this is the right time to check your alarm signals and take steps to strive for the right balance.

What is Work-life balance?

Work-life balance is the state where you can healthily prioritize the demands of your personal life and the demands of your career.

Balance is not about equally weighing as we measured on the weighing scale. Balance is all about incorporation. i.e integrating as a whole in order to run the process. The aim is to stabilize and maintain the equilibrium in personal and professional life.

The classical and best example is riding a bicycle. While riding, your foot is placed on both pedals, where each pedal goes ups and downs, so that you can ride without falling.

Likewise, finding the right balance between your work and family is not about punctually starting your work and punctually leaving the office, properly doing the household chores, and spending more time with family. It is not!!

It is a ride, sometimes you need to prolong your working hours for the betterment of your business or your working organization where you cannot able to spend more time with your family. Sometimes, you are in need to give more support to your family’s needs when you cannot extend your working hours. So how you can manage with reduced stress but without any significant negative impact on both your family and your career determines your healthy work-life balance.

Tips to improve your Work-life balance:

The root cause of poor work-life balance is a lack of self-awareness and poor communication skills.

Stop!! Do one mental pause and explore yourself:

Take a pause and question yourself
Am I OK? Happy? Stressed?
What I am doing now? Am I satisfied with what I am doing?
How do I feel when get stressed? Why I am getting stressed?
Does anything disturb me? How do I regulate my emotions?
How are my behaviors? Whether it is aligned with my thoughts and emotions?
Am I spending time exclusively with my family? Whether they are happy in my presence?
How people are managing my work in my absence?

Answering the above questions is quite challenging and sometimes a bit confusing. Don’t get irritated, just be patient and take your own time to complete it. Exploring yourself in detail paves the way for the steps that foster your work-life balance.

Get clear on your core values and Find your purpose:

Find your values and check your behaviors, decisions, and steps taken to fulfill the decisions are aligned with your core values. Get clear on it and find your purpose. Finding your purpose navigates you to lead a healthy life and when you get clear on your values, it naturally reduces the stress and helps you to achieve the right work-life balance.

Practice Assertive communication to delegate your work and set boundaries:

Assertiveness means exercising your rights without denying the rights of others. It’s not about speaking softly, it is all about respecting yourself and others and how you made your opponent feel.

Delegation gives you time and focuses on other important tasks and it improves your productivity and time management. Start delegating your work both in your workplaces and in your family spaces.

Setting healthy boundaries in both personal and professional relationships is crucial for health and well-being and it fosters your work-life balance. Learn to say “No” which depletes your health and well-being. Saying “No” is neither defending nor offending. It is your basic right. Communicate it assertively.

If you can’t work continuously on that day, communicate it assertively to your colleagues. Similarly, in your personal life too.

Pay attention to your busy days and times:

Just look over the particular days or times when you are too busy that you cannot concentrate on other important things. Give attention to it and explore it in detail. It helps you to plan and to prepare everything in advance which helps you not to miss anything important in your both personal and professional life.

Focus on “Me” time and things you should do in your time:

Your health is your top priority. Your “Me” time helps you bring harmonious balance to your well-being. Give time to yourself, to take care of your physical health which includes your skin and hair, to take care of your mental, emotional, and spiritual health.

Stop comparing yourself with other women, you knowingly or unknowingly compare yourself with other women and feel guilty, especially in terms of child care. Don’t do that. Address your self-doubts and improve the key areas where you can stabilize your work life and personal life.

Let go of perfectionism, don’t try to be perfect. Accept the reality and focus on excellence. Remember, It is OK to be “Not OK”. Indeed, stress happens as a result of perfectionism. If something not happening as per your wish, accept it and be kind to yourself.

Focus on building healthy habits that help you to regulate your emotions, maintain your health, improve your creativity and boost overall well-being. An effective tool to balance your work life and personal life.

A good work-life balance brings harmonious integration between personal and professional life which fosters you to breed happiness and success in every aspect of life.

Photo credits: Unsplash