Top 7 Steps Towards Work-Life Balance

You are doing okay up until a certain point, but then: life starts to feel out of whack, there is no time to do what you need to do, let alone what you WANT to do; family, social activities, work, they all start to encroach upon you; everything needs to be juggled, relationships seem to get tighter and tighter, work becomes even MORE demanding, you start to cross out weekends to at least have two days to yourself self, etc etc....It is just all too much.

Technology doesn't make it easier: e-mails, (mobile) phones, beepers, pagers, sms, video-messaging or -conferencing, voicemails, websites, magazines, newspapers...Information overload. Moreover, "bosses" nowadays expect us to take on more work every day, work longer hours, more days; it is not surprising that the World Health Organisation calls work-related stress a "worldwide epidemic". It makes us want to run into the woods, build a forest hut, light a campfire, catch some fish, maybe toast some marshmallows, and stay away from "civilisation" for at least an eon..In my coaching and NLP practise there are a couple of really cool exercises we would do to get you the balance you were looking for. As we are not looking at each other right now, let me give you some tips that will help you to get more clarity for now:

1. Recognise where you are and how you are feeling right now regarding your work and life. Is there balance? And if not, can you pinpoint where there is lack of balance? Which values are infringed upon?
   
   
2. Identify several tangible, short-term goals. Setting goals usually will create more balance immediately as you are creating a vision.
   
   
3. Don’t be a lone ranger. Ask for support, whether from family, friends, colleagues, your community or your boss. Tell them you are off-balance and want to improve the situation. Honesty is nearly always appreciated.
   
   
4. Look at and in your business or ask your boss to find out what you may be able to do easily and effortlessly and will greatly benefit the business, for which you, in return, will be granted something that lessons the burden you feel placed upon yourself. There is lots that can be done in the “mutually beneficial”-field.
   
   
5. Be strict on boundaries between work and private life. There is a huge grey field, and if you let it your life becomes more and more grey and blurry.
   
   
6. Assess your general life style. Your professional and/or working conditions may be fantastic, if you eat and drink too much (or unhealthily), sleep too little, exercise too little, smoke, use drugs and think negatively all the time, you will feel lack of balance regardless.
   
   
7. Hire a coach (but that’s quite self-explanatory); a coach will get you on track and keep you there. I can guarantee you that (if you choose to commit).

Marc is a certified life/business coach and master NLP Practitioner on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia. He specialises in coaching people at critical junctions in their careers and/or lives, in order for them to find out what has been hindering them all along in achieving what they want, and to then make the conscious choice to take their lives and/or careers to the next level. Having been a lawyer for nearly 6 years in his “previous life”, before immigrating to Australia from The Netherlands, Marc knows exactly how daunting taking the first step in a new direction can be. On the other hand, he also knows how fulfilling taking that step is, and has the knack of imparting his knowledge and wisdom in a stunningly simple and highly effective way.