Don’t Let Your Career Affect Your Life: How To Improve Your Work-Life Balance In Nigeria
We all should work. Indeed, Apostle Paul even admonished that whoever did not work should not eat. It is admirable to have a work or better put, a career. But, you should also have a life away from your work. This is absolutely why you must improve your work-life balance.
This issue of work-life balance became pertinent after so many people became affected by their lack of concern on other important aspects of life. The social, health and religious aspects of life started suffering and this became a very serious issue.
Related: Career and health: attitudes at work that may affect your health
I guess you must have seen or heard about people who had glittering careers and ended up with a depressed and frustrated life. That shall not be your portion.
However, if your major concern in life is work and you spend the bulk of it working, you may become successful at work but you will suck at other things in life.
For you to be truly successful, you master the ways to improve your work-life balance. Your career doesn’t have to be that restraining.
Because of the recurring cases of depression associated with being frustrated at work and the fact that a successful entrepreneur must find a way to balance out these issues, we have come up with tips on how to improve your work-life balance.
Tips On How To Improve Your Work-Life Balance
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Be sure that perfect balance is a myth
How do you think you can share your other life issues and work to have a perfect balance? Should it be 50-50, 40-60, 30-70, 40-60 or what exactly? Don’t be deceived, there is no perfect balance.
There is no particular way of doing this that seems the only way, there is no blueprint to follow and there are no laid down rules and regulations regarding this. That is our dilemma.
To improve your work-life balance, you will need to carry out realistic functions and not perfect functions. You can give more attention to work when you can and focus more energy and time to pursue other things some other days.
All you need to think of is about remaining open to readjusting your plans as the circumstances will require. Do not let any aspect suffer neglect as that will always come to bite you in the butt.
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Don’t mess with your health
Health is wealth. In your quest to handle your work and other aspects of your life, you must not neglect your health. As a matter of fact, you should prioritize your health. When you are less healthy, you may attend to work but you will remain less productive and that is all messed up.
According to Monahan, “prioritizing your health first and foremost will make you a better employee and person. You will miss less work, and when you are there, you will be happier and more productive.”
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You should like your job
How can someone be very productive when he doesn’t like his job? It doesn’t make sense. How can you improve your work-life balance when you are not productive? If you don’t like your work, you will produce less and less and you will be unfulfilled most of the time.
I am a writer. Growing up in the academics, I loved literature and was very passionate about that. in fact, there is this orgasmic feeling I get when develop a nice content. It makes me want to do more and gives you an internal fulfillment.
If you can, get to work on things you love and it will be easy to handle your tasks and devote more time to family and relaxation.
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Sometimes, you need to unplug
To unplug once in a while is a necessary step towards improving the quality of life you live. Our world never really sleeps that is why it is important for you to cut ties with the world and take a quality rest.
When you unplug, you will get the needed space for great thoughts and ideas to come up. According to Jackie Stone, “When you are always on, you don’t allow other things to come up that might be more important,”
There are so many ways to unplug. It could just be about meditating which is important. When you meditate, you clear your head and mind and make important decisions.
You can take vacations alone or with your family as part of the unplugging.
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Create time for yourself
Finally, you will need to take some time for yourself if you must improve your work-life balance. You cannot keep working 365 days a year and expect to give out optimally. In the first instance, your job or career is undoubtedly important so you must take care of it.
However, you had a life before the job. So, don’t throw it away because of your work. Look at those activities that make you happy should also be continued as they can only enhance your work output.
More so, there are people that love you and will always love you. Therefore, you should surround yourself with them. According to Monahan, “Realize that no one at your company is going to love you or appreciate you the way your loved ones do. Also [remember] that everyone is replaceable at work, and no matter how important you think your job is, the company will not miss a beat tomorrow if you are gone.”
