How is Your Social Life?

“Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum”

~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

We are on the subject of your personal life in this short series, so let’s talk about your friends. Everyone has them and everyone needs them. Friends are a necessary social extension and they provide an outlet, a group of like-minded people who share values, though perhaps not always every opinion.

Time out with friends, whether they are old high school buddies or friends you’ve made at work, is important.

A movie, a cup of coffee, an occasional dinner, perhaps even sharing an activity you both like, such as bowling, golf, baseball, slot machines, a book club, or going to the movies, the theater or the ballet.

All of the techniques we discussed for your family life can also be applied to your friends.

Above all, keep in touch. Schedule events and get-togethers with a realistic eye to what you can achieve.

Many people work long hours, have demanding jobs and still manage to participate in monthly groups, or scheduled activities. And, this is a welcome relief from their grueling work schedule.

Put the appointments on your calendar just as you would any business meeting, and be dutiful about keeping the appointment even if it seems a guilty pleasure during that critical crunch season at work.

If you must cancel, communicate clearly with your friend(s) and let them know why you have to reschedule.

DO reschedule.

Don’t leave it to chance or you will never get together.

When you go out with friends, even if they are co-workers, use your newly learned skills in self-discipline to keep you out of the realm of work discussion.

Don’t talk shop, or you will not get away from the stress you tried to leave behind at the office. It is a hard habit to break, and it may take some time and focus to learn the new habit.

You can make it fun by agreeing that the person who breaks the ‘don’t talk shop’ code first will have to buy a round of drinks or coffee, or has to pay for dinner.

You’d be amazed at how quickly your co-workers will learn the lesson!

If you have a friend, or a group of old college chums with whom you love to socialize, try to pick a monthly or weekly date – the second Tuesday of every month, for example – and get together then.

Everyone will look forward to these occasions and you won’t feel so deprived of social contact.

During times of high stress and long hours, take the time to go out for a walk or get a cup of coffee or have lunch with someone outside the office.

Get away from the people you see in the halls every day and get a breath of fresh air.

You’ll feel much better.

Don’t give up the activities and friends you love. Exercise and socialization are key to balancing your life and even though you may feel they can be postponed until a time when your career is not on high speed, your health will benefit from the short breaks and scheduled visits you insist on taking.

We’ll talk more about stress and exercise later, and how these figure into life balance. Right now, let’s focus on your friends.

If your friends have fallen by the wayside with the advent of your most recent and most hectic job, you need to get some more friends fast.

Man does not live by work alone!

And though your family is very important to you, your friends serve a different purpose.

They are often more honest with you than your family can be and they will forgive and forget without the same intimate emotional attachment of a spouse, a mother or a brother.

You can count on them to make you laugh and to share your successes and failures. They are part of your psychological armor and a necessary part of your life’s balance.

If you need to reconnect with friendship, you can often find someone with whom you share common values at work, or in an industry association or club.

Or you may find a friend that shares a passion for a sport or an activity while attending a sporting event or on line at the movie theater.

Seek out friends actively and don’t be afraid to invite your new friend for a drink or coffee. There is no harm done if the friendship does not blossom.

Friends make you more interesting and expand your horizons.

And, they keep you from becoming a boring, ‘all work and no play’ kind of person.

Again, you have to be disciplined, have a plan and pay attention, to take advantage of these opportunities.

“Work is the greatest thing in the world, so we should always save some of it for tomorrow”

~ Don Herold

Setting Expectations

Up until now, we have only touched on expectations, but they are perhaps the most important part of your balancing plan. Expectations come into play in several ways.

First, there are YOUR expectations.

What is it that you expect to get from a more balanced life? More free time? A closer relationship with your spouse? The time to pursue an advanced degree?

Maybe, you want to learn to ride a horse? Any or all of these things are fine goals, but your expectation to achieve balance must take into consideration that some of these goals will take MORE time away from your family.

So, the first thing you have to do is to get it straight in your own mind. What is ‘balance’ for you?

Is it more time for yourself? More time for your family? Don’t make a promise to get more work/life balance and then squander that balance with poor planning.

What do you expect to achieve? How will this balance change your life?

Are you expectations realistic for the planned timeframe and actions you want to take or are you dreams too large?

Once you have your own expectations under control, you’ll need to look to your employer and your family and friends to be sure that you understand and can meet their expectations.

It is all well and good that you expect to regain some balance in your life but if your employer still thinks you should work eighty hours per week, you aren’t likely to get far.

Put it on paper. Then talk to the people most important to you and those whose support is crucial – like your boss – to find out what THEY expect. Then compare notes and figure out if everything is aligned.

If it isn’t, you’ll have to adjust the plan. Once you get the plan right, you can move forward more quickly and with more success.

Setting Goals

“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you” ~ Carl Sandburg ~

Now, let’s talk about Goals. Like any other important life decision, you have to have goals or you are shooting in the dark.

To set Goals for your work/life balance, you have to take your expectations and translate them into the ‘what’ of what you want to achieve and the ‘when’. Be as specific as possible.

For example, if you are going to look for a new, less demanding job, your goals might include the industry you want to work in, the type of job you want to get and how much money you want to make, as well as when you want to get the job.

Here are some examples to get you started:

“My goal is to get a job with one of the Top Ten banks in the U.S., as a Bank Manager, by May of 2006”

“Reduce the number of hours I work by 10 hours per week in time for John’s 2006 Little League Season”

“Visit my mother every Sunday for at least three hours”

“Train 2-3 people on my staff to take over the bookkeeping process by January of next year”

“Schedule and keep a weekly date with Mary for dinner and a movie”

Simple, right?

Remember, the best way to set goals is to word them simply but specifically!

That way you can measure your success without trying to guess whether you succeeded.

The next task at hand is to figure out HOW to achieve your goals.

Remember that your expectations and goals must be realistic or you will never get to where you want to be!

 

Now it is time to figure out just how realistic your expectations and goals are, because you have to establish a plan to achieve those goals!

Let’s take the first example and see what we can do with that one.

“My goal is to get a job with one of the Top Ten banks in the U.S., as a Bank Manager, by May of 2006”

To establish a workable plan for this goal you would need to consider the following questions.

            􀂾 What are the top 10 banks in the U.S.?

            􀂾 How do you find out what jobs are available at each bank?

            􀂾 Are you qualified for the Bank Manager jobs in these banks?

            􀂾 Will these job openings require you to move your family to another location?

            􀂾 Are there job placement agencies you can use to find these jobs and arrange for interviews?

            􀂾 Do you have an up-to-date resume?

            􀂾 Do you have the appropriate wardrobe for this job?

            􀂾 Do you have good references?

            􀂾 Do your family and/or spouse support this decision?

            􀂾 Is it realistic to expect that you can research, find and get this job by May, 2006?

 

You can probably think of more questions you’ll have to answer!

But, this list will give you some idea of the considerations involved in just one goal.

For every goal you set, you will have to think about how reasonable the goal is, how achievable it is and exactly how you plan to accomplish it in the timeframe you have set for yourself.

When it comes to the goals of your family and friends, the emotional attachment and desire to do the right thing may make it hard to think clearly and to accurately plan for how and when these things will happen.

Be honest with yourself and with each other and by all means include your support network in the plan.

Ask your family to come up with ideas about how you can accomplish these things. Brainstorm and leave the door open for crazy ideas.

You’d be surprised at what you might uncover in this way.

Then sit down and pick through the plan and decide which ideas will work and which must be discarded.

As you start to execute your plan, be sure you review it occasionally to ensure that you are still on target and decide if you have to change anything.

Life happens!

And, you may have to change some of your timetables and tasks to incorporate the unexpected changes in your life.

For example, you may plan to take a job that pays less and gives you more time at home to help care for an aging parent.

But, if that parent requires some sort of catastrophic care or expensive medical treatment, you may have to keep the higher paying job to earn the money you need.

If so, are there community support services and low-cost, high-quality caregivers that can come in an work a few hours every day so you can continue to work the longer hours at work to pay for the care?

If not, do you have family members or friends that can pitch in for a little while until you figure out what to do next?

Does the parent have a home that can be sold to help pay for the extra healthcare costs?

Remember, there is always more than one way to solve a problem. Don’t panic and don’t give up on your work/life balance goals.

Just find another way to accomplish them and be realistic about whether you can achieve them in the same time period.

Perhaps you need to extend your timetable a bit to accommodate the new developments in your life.

That doesn’t mean you won’t get there.

Just knowing you have a contingency plan will keep you afloat and moving forward.

Remember! PLAN is not just another four-letter word!

 

Your Balanced Life- Part 3

Keeping the Home Fire Burning

“Work is the meat of life, pleasure the dessert” ~ Bertie Charles Forbes ~

 

We’ve talked about the work environment and some of the considerations there. Now, it’s time to open the Pandora’s Box and talk about your family situation.

Unless you are starting your career fresh, with no history, you probably have a lot of fence mending to do.

Your family and friends may be very discouraged and disappointed that you haven’t found a way to balance your life and spend more time with them.

If this is the case, you need to talk to your family and your friends and tell them what you have in mind. Tell them that you are going to dedicate yourself to achieving balance in your life and ask them for their opinion.

Remember, that you don’t have to take every suggestion anyone gives you, and make clear that you will do what you feel is best in the end, but you want his or her thoughts on the topic.

Listen carefully and be honest with yourself and with your friends and family about what you can expect to achieve.

Don’t promise what you can’t deliver.

If there are going to be issues on which you must compromise, if you will have to look for another job where you will make less money in order to achieve your goals, be sure they understand that sacrifice, as well.

There should be no surprises. Before you start this discussion, put some thoughts of your own on paper and think through what you can achieve, realistically.

Be prepared to talk to your family and friends and have some idea of how you will execute your plan.

You can change this plan and work with your family to adjust it, but you need to go in with SOME plan or you will face a chaotic mix of accusation, opinion and emotion.

Here are some links to get you started. After you look at these links, you may have other questions and ideas. Keep track of these.

Write them down so that you can address all the issues with your boss and your family.

(note: I actually included clickable links in the last post and some jumped off before finishing reading and had trouble getting back on, so I am not including clickables in this post and suggest that you cut and paste into your browser after you have finished reading this post)

The Center for Work and the Family

http://www.centerforworkandfamily.com/

National Institute of Health

http://wflc.od.nih.gov/

Questia Online Library for Work and Family

http://www.questia.com/library/sociology-and-anthropology/relationships-and-the-family/family/work-and-family.jsp?CRID=work_and_family&OFFID=se1&KEY=work_family&LID=14582939

PBS

http://www.pbs.org/workfamily/

Bella Online

http://www.bellaonline.com/site/workandfamily

If you do your homework online, you’ll find many more links that are useful.

There are sites that specifically target stress at work and many other topic-specific sites to help you deal with your job and your family in a way that makes life easier for the ones you love.

When you come up with some ideas to discuss with your family, be sure you preface your discussion by explaining that you want to change your focus and balance.

Tell them that you know that work has been pulling you away and you want to fix that.

Just knowing that you recognize the problem and want to work on it, will make them feel better.

If you have children, talk to your spouse or significant other before you call a family meeting.

Consider how you want to address this with the kids and remember that children will often take what you say very literally so don’t play fast and loose with your language.

Think carefully about what you want to say and the words you will use and only promise them what you can deliver.

Don’t lead them to think you are quitting your job to stay home with them and play all day – unless you’ve just won the lottery, of course!

It is likely that whatever plan you have to regain some balance in your life will take awhile to execute, so don’t promise that everything will be fixed by tomorrow.

You may have to look for, find and train in a new job.

You may have to cut back on expensive purchases and lifestyle.

Be sure everyone is on board before you pull away from the dock! Make sure the children understand how important this to them and to you and what they will get in return.

You may think that is clear, but depending upon their age, it may not be as clear to them as it is to you and your spouse.

As you make your plans for work/life balance, consider these things:

You may be trading long hours for financial stress, if you are going to take a job for less pay. How will that impact the family and your commitment to this process? Can you find ways to offset some of the impact of this financial decision?

If you are not changing jobs, but you are going to manage your schedule in a different way, how will you change your family schedule to accommodate that?

Can you eat dinner a bit later, so you can eat together as a family?

Can you take the children to an early movie to spend time with them before you take that afternoon shift?

If you and your spouse work different shifts to be home with the children, include time in your plan for the two of you to get together. If you have to make a date to do that, don’t be shy about it.

Can you share a cup of coffee in between shifts? Get up a little earlier? Go to bed a little later? Don’t neglect that most important person in your life.

Whatever your schedule is, find some quiet time for yourself, and quiet time with your family without the TV playing in the background. Eat dinner together or play a game. When you go grocery shopping with the children, take a break and go to the back of the store for a cup of coffee and a doughnut. The kids will appreciate the time with you and it will make the shopping more tolerable. Find time to do something as a family at least once a week. Order a pizza so you don’t have to cook and spend the time playing a board game, or taking a hike. 

Pick an activity that everyone likes and just do it! It sounds corny, but even a few minutes of this kind of activity will give you a lot more balance in your life.

Assuming you have done what you need to do to find more time away from work, or to change jobs, you may think you’ve now completed the transition. But, that is far from the truth.

The fact is that balancing work and family – in short balancing your life – can be a constant challenge.

There are lots of distractions and, that extra time you’ve carved out of your work schedule will not do your friends and family much good if you spend it parked in front of the TV or computer, instead of with the ones you love.

To complete your plan, you’ll need to develop two traits: Self-discipline and awareness.

Most of us suffer from the absence of both of these traits, but if you focus on them and on breaking bad habits that distract you and take you away from what you really want to do, you will be much happier.

First, let’s talk about self-discipline. The absence of this trait is what gets you off track. It is what pulls you to the computer casino game instead of out to the back yard to play a game of catch with your son.

It is what makes you put off those chores and tasks – whether they are home or work related – that then spring full-grown at 8:00 p.m. to remind you that you must complete them before morning.

And you spend another evening in the den or office crunching numbers for bills, or finishing that project you put off, instead of tucking your daughter into bed or visiting with your husband over a glass of wine.

When you catch yourself listening to the news anchor while your wife tries, in vain, to tell you about her day, reach for the remote and turn off the TV.

Self-discipline and breaking old habits go hand in hand. If you’ve gotten used to becoming a vegetable when you get home from work, it won’t matter how much extra time you get with your family.

You will simply fritter it away!

Awareness is also important. Become aware of what you are doing, what you are saying and every time you catch yourself taking things for granted, remember that the little time you have with your family and friends is important and pay attention.

Listen to what your friend, spouse or child is saying to you.

Listen to your father when he calls you on the phone and wants to tell you about the fish he caught. And look for the opportunities to grab a special moment during the chaos of your week. Don’t just slide through life.

Make it happen!

There are two other things you may want to consider in your quest for balance at home. These two things will give you more balance and engender better relationships.

And once you’ve laid the groundwork, they will pretty much manage themselves.

The first consideration is: Rules!

Perhaps you are thinking that you hate rules. Most people do, but they are a necessary evil in life.

Think about it! Laws are nothing more than societal rules that keep the wheels greased and running and prevent chaos.

Rules in your work/life balance will give you and your family structure and, if and when the rules are bent or broken, the exceptions must be carefully explained.

Your family and you must know that you mean business and, only when there are extenuating circumstances, are the rules bent or broken.

But, Rules are never ignored!

Rules apply to when and how the family will get together and to things like whether your child can stay out late on a school night or whether they are expected to attend a family birthday party.

They also apply to YOU as they relate to when you’ll come home from work and whether you will attend the Friday night movie with the family or beg off and say you have to work. How often will you make it to the league soccer game or the lacrosse games?

Rules are for everyone.

A good way to establish these rules is to have the family sit down together and develop the list. Everyone can vote and everyone’s opinion counts. Some rules may be very simple and some may be temporary.

But if you have a set of rules printed or typed on your refrigerator, you and your family will feel more confident in your balance and will know better what to expect in a certain situation.

But, don’t expect the family to obey the rules, if you don’t obey them. You have to keep your end of the bargain too!

The second consideration is: Communication!

To keep your life and the life of your family in balance, you need time and attention. But you also need communication.

Even if your job is demanding, you can balance your life better with your family if you make them part of the equation.

Your job and what you do when you are away from home on business should not be a mystery.

If you have to go out of town, tell the family where you are going, when you will be back and why you are going and use telephone, email and text messaging to keep in touch so they don’t feel like you are on another planet.

If you say you are going to call at a certain time, be sure to do so!

Don’t leave them hanging. Leave silly notes or messages to find while you are away and bring home little gifts.

You don’t have to bring anything expensive – some kids get a kick out of the small ketchup bottles that come with your room service order.

That is easy, and inexpensive and it lets them know you are thinking about them.

If you can have dinner together at night, do so and keep the conversation pleasant. Don’t choose dinnertime to bring up bad grades or that boyfriend you can’t stand.

Your kids will not want to have dinner with you, if you do that.

Make the mealtime conversation pleasant, and keep the distractions out of the dining room. No TV, music or other disruptions.

Family meetings are a great way to keep the lines of communication open and, again, everyone’s opinion counts and everyone gets the floor to say what they need to say.

Keep the meetings constructive and informative and talk about whatever is going on in your lives.

A twenty-minute family meeting will give you a chance to touch base and feel connected and, even if you are working long hours, you will not feel like a stranger in your own home.

Agree on how and when you will communicate throughout the day – even when you are not home. Is your child expected to call you and check in when he gets home from football practice?

Create a mail slot or an ‘in box’ for all the notices from school, permission slips and other items. A mailbox for each person in the family is even better, if you have the room.

Then, you can leave little notes for each other to keep in touch, or just to say hello, or ‘I love you’.

I hope that this mini series has given you some ideas on how to get more balance, free up some time, and remove some stress from your life.

My goal is to provide you with guides that can help you go from surviving to thriving.

If you could please let me know in the comments box, I was wondering, do you prefer the longer posts or the shorter format that I have been using?

Also, I was toying around with maybe moving to the next step and moving to a podcast or Vlog format, would that be something that you would be interested in? Let me know below and as always, here's to your success.