Leadership

The Answer to Work-Life Balance: Don’t Try

May 23, 2013 – 07:30

The issue of work-life balance is something relatively new to humanity.  Brought to light by British anthropologists in the late 1970’s, we now have libraries full of self-help books and courses in how best to solve this affliction of modern life.  I struggled with finding the best way to thread the needle myself as the responsibilities of my professional and personal lives increased.  New positions at work brought more commitments and growing a family brought an equal amount of commitments.  Add to this a wife who has had led an equally taxing professional/personal life and solution set for work-life balance seemed out of reach.  Then it dawned on me. 

 

The answer to work-life balance: don’t try.

 

Be engaged with full intensity in something you know has a heart.  That is, something in which you can be all-in and throw 100% of yourself into.  If you can’t do this with what you’re involved in presently, then you will feel torn between investing your life into work that doesn’t have a heart and life.  When you’re all-in with your work, you mysteriously find the time to fulfill all of life because you’re completely immersed in it.

 

Don’t make up work to fill a gap in your life.  I’ve seen too many people make up for a shortfall in their self-worth by being at the office for 12-plus hours per day repeatedly for no reason at all.  Other than to feel like they were contributing, like they were important. What they don’t realize is that by doing this everyone suffers.  They suffer, their family suffers, colleagues suffer, and the quality of their work suffers.  If you are working 12-plus hours per day you sure have a balance problem and have obviously already elected to not try.  Evaluate why you’re burning the candle at both ends.  It’s probably a self-worth problem, not a work problem.

 

Aim instead at achieving equanimity, not balance.  Equanimity comes from the Latin aequs (even) and animus (mind, spirit):  even mind/spirit. Equanimity as applied to work balance comes from the understanding that there will be times when you’re focus must go towards work and times when focus must go towards life.  Once I adopted this approach towards my work-life, the stress left and I no longer was afflicted with guilt about shortchanging my work or my life.  Instead of forcing more from the time I had, I let the natural cycles of work and life run the show.  I did this by paying attention to my gut and by paying attention to the most important matters.

 

Balance comes from stasis.  It’s a state of no motion.  If you are seeking balance between work and life you will be seeking it forever and you will never find it.  Choosing a path with a heart and then naturally putting your focus where your time will achieve the greatest good is a lot better way to operate.

 

“A path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you . . . Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself alone, one question . . . Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t it is of no use.”  Carlos Castaneda

 

If you like this post, you might like:

Designing Your Life and Asphalt:  What Mix Design Can Teach Us

Why is Balance Hard?

Balancing Demands

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Leadership

Achieving With Goals

May 20, 2013 – 07:30

If you’re into the use of goals to guide your life, then the thought of operating without goals is likely to cause a stir.  It did so in me after reading a post on Leo Babauta’s zenhabit blog earlier this month.  Leo is a master in all things “zen” and applying these concepts to everyday life.  In most cases, I’m in synch with Leo.  On the matter of Achieving Without Goals, the title and topic of his post that energized me, we differ.  Bottom line:  if you desire to achieve your ideals in life, both personal and professional, you need goals.

 

Achieving with goals doesn’t mean you cannot be content, a.k.a. happy, with life.  One can be happy with life and have goals.  The problem with goals arises when you become so associated with the goal that you drive yourself into unhappiness and discontentment.  Instead of a Zen approach, let’s try Tao approach and have the goal without possessing it.  That is, set the goal and then operate without an attachment to it that drives you into depression.

 

Achieving with goals doesn’t mean that you must lock on to only one outcome.  In fact, if the goal is really important to you, you must have alternate plans in place to generate a outcome.  In most cases, the really vital goals in our lives manifest not exactly as we envisioned them in our mind.  The outcome fulfills what we envisioned, but it’s not an exact replica.  The goal sets the general end state.  What we do in between starting and achieving doesn’t have to be rigid.

 

Achieving goals doesn’t mean that one must shut themselves off to other opportunities.  Just you must remain flexible with alternate plans to achieve the goal, you must remain flexible and conscious to capitalize on emerging opportunities. 

 

To read Leo’s post on Achieving Without Goals you might believe that the only path to success is to kick back and let life just wash over you.  You can surely do that, and then let me know how content you are in the end. 

 

Life without goals is like a ship without ports of call.  You’ll ride along on the waves, moving along with the currents hoping that you might make landfall.  Hope’s not a strategy and operating without goals isn’t a means to achieve.

 

If you seek happiness and contentment, pour yourself into truly knowing who you are, what you desire, and what your ideal self looks like.  Then set your goals without attachment to them.  If these goals are truly aligned with who you are and what you truly desire in your heart, then you will achieve them without all the drama that besets those who chase after goals that are not aligned with who they truly are.

 

“having without possessing,

acting with no expectations,

leading and not trying to control:

this is the supreme virtue.”   Lao Tzu

 

If you like this post, you’ll also enjoy:

Desires Are Goals Part I and Part II

What Drives You

Engineering Satisfaction

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Leadership

Never Question Your Worth

May 16, 2013 – 07:30

RejectedFalling short of expectations on a project is never good.  Falling short of expectations in pursuit of a life-long dream is even worse. It’s simple to say that your interpretation of how bad it feels is just that – your interpretation.  But that doesn’t make the pain that comes with failure any better.  More than likely, you probably feel like you’re worthless.  But you’re wrong.  In fact, never question your worth.

Easy to Say, Not Easy to Do

I’ve fallen short of profession and personal pursuits numerous times as have you.  One such situation had to do with a special training opportunity where I’d have a chance to earn a master’s degree in international relations, work alongside other individually selected colleagues, and rub elbows and lean from some of the most important minds in military strategy and foreign affairs.  But it didn’t pan-out.  Others were selected and although my package was competitive, I didn’t make the cut. 

It was painful, made more so by how much I’d built up in my mind that I was certain to be selected.  I was visioning where my wife and I would live when we moved to the location, what I’d be doing, and how it would benefit my career.  Then I was faced with the reality that none of this would occur.  I felt dejected and worse, worthless.

To make up for what I felt was a lack of professional worth on my end I embarked on a quest to make up for my non-selection.  My rationale was that if I wasn’t worthy for this opportunity, then I’d make myself extremely worthy for the next.  But then I wasn’t selected for another training school two years later.  Seriously!?!  Was I that worthless?

Non-Selection Doesn’t Equal No Worth

What I didn’t realize at the time was that my double non-selection didn’t mean that I was worthless.  It wasn’t a reflection of my skill, my ability to engage with people, or my ability to perform and deliver projects.  It simply meant that my portfolio lacked some element that the selection panel needed.  It took me several years to understand that falling short of a goal didn’t mean that I was devoid of value.

What Do I Question?

Falling short definitely drives questions, but not questions about your worth.  Feel free to question your approach, your technique, or the next step you need to take.  Definitely explore why you failed to achieve the position/contract/award.   Question what you’ll do now and what you’ll do instead. 

It’s entirely acceptable to question why you failed to achieve. But never, ever question your worth.  That is unnecessary as it’s already answered.  It’s the same answer that has been from beginning and will be so in the end: priceless.

“Self-worth comes from one thing — thinking that you are worthy.”  Wayne Dyer

If you like this post, you’ll also enjoy: 

Divining Your Prime Directive

Measuring 

Image courtesy of pakorn at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Leadership

Choice: Guts or Complacency

May 13, 2013 – 07:30

ParachutistIt takes guts to do things outside the comfort zone that matter beyond you. Actions like the time you did the zip line in Cancun on vacation or the tandem sky diving to celebrate your 40th birthday are outside the comfort zone and take guts, but they only matter to you.  Going outside the comfort zone to affect someone else, that takes guts. 

Not only do you have to overcome your own internal blockages and hurdles – to suppress the voice that screams, “you’ve no right!”  You might be rejected.  Wow, that takes a lot of guts.  The kind that makes a zip line look like a hell of a lot of fun.

The other choice is to pick complacency.  Complacency doesn’t seem like such a bad choice if you can get it, right?  read more »

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