Most VA colleagues I know are extremely workaholic, and I can understand why. If you are being paid by the hour in dollars, you simply can’t afford to waste any time. No wonder I hear a lot of VAs slaying at work and satisfying their clients to no end. The result of course is a new house, a new car, a trip abroad sponsored by the client, gadgets upon gadgets and what not. Not to mention that some VAs do work so hard because they don’t want to be suddenly out of work one day.
But no matter how impressive being workaholic is, that is not the ideal situation. Not having a work-life balance could hurt your health and relationships as well as overall happiness. In time you might realize that none of what you’ve worked hard for was ever worth the things you compromised. Even if working towards a work-life balance seems like an impossible feat, know that if you understand how not having it will greatly impact your life and career, you can achieve it by little steps at a time.
Here’s what the experts will tell you on how to achieve a work-life balance.
Accept that nothing is perfect. By accepting that nothing is perfect, you accept that you aren’t too. By trying to feel or act perfect you tend to say yes to everything like additional work tasks, or favour from someone or unrealistic material requests from love ones that pressure you to do more. Even small yeses here and there add up, building stress against tight schedules and promises to fulfil. The result would just be burnout and self-destruction. Say yes only for the things that truly matter to you for the long haul and forego those that would not even contribute to your overall wellbeing.
Stay offline. It’s obvious that in the current state of our lives, we have revolved around anything and everything digital – be it material demands, relationships, social following, politics and religion, entertainment and even education. No matter how amused we all seem to be by the digital technology it can never keep up to the live human relationships we all crave for. And true moments we spend with families and friends are those times when we are absolutely offline. Staying offline after work helps you develop resilience and enables you to build your boundaries to focus on what’s in front of you – your time with self, family or friends.
Reconnect with yourself. If you think about it, it’s almost for sure that you give substantial amount of time for others, like clients, family or friends. But have you really thought about spending time with yourself? Spending time with yourself is investing in yourself. You must know that you are a powerhouse that keeps everything together; therefore you need to build a solid physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual foundation. Exercise, meditate, or serve in your religious community. Doing so will give you more ability to manage the daily stresses in your life and at work with calm and collected manner.
Redeem your time. Has it occurred to you sometimes that some days pass by without you accomplishing anything important? That’s because as you go by your day you become unaware of the small amount of time spent doing the unimportant things here and there, only to be surprised later on that another day just passed by. We all have important things to do, but time is fixed at any day. That is why it is important to redeem your time and use it wisely. List down all the things you want to spend time with that are important to you. Block them out so that you make sure these periods of time are already spared; then manage the rest of your time for tasks by priority. Avoid doing things that cause delay and compromise important things on your list.
Change bad habits. If you’re a person that’s fully are of bad habits sabotaging your own progress then the good news is that you’re not alone. Sometimes we all stick to a bad habit like a glove because the bad habit has become a comfort zone no matter how that destructs a lot of aspects in our lives. We do need to acknowledge that growing in maturity means shedding our skin of bad habits: procrastination, perpetual lying and cheating, bad mouthing, whining and blaming with no sign of sense of gratitude, and the list goes on. We cannot just force the people and situations around us to get along with our bad habits as this is not the right way to go and hardly creates balance in our lives. If we want to maximize our potential and opportunities, we all need to walk in the direction of what is right for others and for ourselves.
There! I think this is a very lovely post. I had a great time writing this one for you VAs. Our success not only comes from our careers but also with how we deal with life in general. Work-life balance may seem like an easy concept but the truth is it’s not! But we don’t have to make this goal very difficult for us; just like everything else we want to achieve, one step at a time is all it takes. And as a bonus for you on this post, here’s a really nice article I’d like to share to inspire you to achieve that work-life balance. Just click on the article below.
