It’s a Saturday.\u00a0 A Saturday in August.\u00a0 A Saturday in August at the cottage.\u00a0 And guess what?\u00a0 It’s raining!\u00a0 You know you work too hard and play too hard\u00a0 if your first thought is “Yay forced lazy day!”\u00a0 It’s a guilt-free day.\u00a0 You grab that first delicious coffee of the day and finish your book.\u00a0 Somewhere mid-morning brunch time is done and you are still in your PJ’s. Time to ponder what’s next….clean up your email in-box?\u00a0 Clean the house? You are already getting that creeping feeling of all the things you could be doing or should be doing.\u00a0 Ever wonder why relaxing and doing nothing is not one of them?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rest leads to refuelling,
\nRefuelling leads to renewal,
\nRenewal leads to inspiration!<\/p><\/blockquote>\nIf you are anything like me, you work a minimum of 50 hours per week (that is a light week) and because you love your work, it doesn’t feel like work and you have trouble disconnecting.\u00a0 You are often in that flow state, where you totally lose track of time.\u00a0 There also is that feeling of angst that if you disconnect you’ll lose control of what is going on.\u00a0 Besides, you are so used to checking your email, Instagram, Facebook and or LinkedIn account that you don’t know how to not do that even though it’s Saturday and even though it’s raining.\u00a0 Like it or not, this is something you need to learn, before you learn it the hard way.<\/p>\n
Life Work Balance vs. Work Life Balance<\/h1>\n
Most business owners lean toward a work life balance where they fit their personal life around their work.\u00a0 Their work draws them in much like most addictions and many are in fact “workaholics”.\u00a0 \u00a0They don’t make enough time for friends and family, they don’t take any down time, they don’t exercise.\u00a0 They fail to understand and believe in the importance of doing nothing.<\/p>\n
Increasing Downtime = Increased Productivity and Creativity<\/h3>\n
We may not realize it, or want to believe it but the more we work, the higher the chances of us running out of steam, getting lost “in our business”, losing touch with the rest of our life and losing perspective.\u00a0 \u00a0Here are 3 great reasons to reconsider your life work balance.<\/p>\n
\n
- Burnout – the more we work the more we run out of energy. How many times did you pull all-nighters and then keep going?\u00a0 There is a huge competition in the world of entrepreneurs on how little sleep one can work on.\u00a0 Arianna Huffington\u2019s book on The Sleep Revolution<\/a> should be a must read.\u00a0 We have to take time off to refuel and get inspired.\u00a0 Sleep, relaxation and breaks are necessary.\u00a0 (Mother Nature scored and encouraged me to sleep 9 hours last night!)<\/li>\n
- Meet your life goals, not just your work goals. It\u2019s so easy to get stuck in the vortex of the next task that \u201cmust\u201d get done, or the \u201clast\u201d task before you head home.\u00a0 \u00a0Time with your children is not limitless, they will move away from you and so will your partner if you don\u2019t make family a life goal.\u00a0 The same is true for friendships.\u00a0 Add personal time, family time and partner time to your schedule.\u00a0 Block off the time in your calendar just like any other meeting you make. The balance of personal life and work life will actually make you more rounded, calmer and more inspiring and effective at work.<\/li>\n
- Live longer.\u00a0 Invest in your physical and emotional care, both are needed for a healthy long life. Exercise,\u00a0 vacations, meditation or meditainment<\/a>.\u00a0 Get to get to the point where it becomes entertainment not something you have to do.\u00a0 Remind yourself of that high you feel after a run,\u00a0 that feeling when you reach that mountaintop after the hike, the calmness of your mind when you paint, doodle, fish or see a therapist, hypnotist.\u00a0 The release, the challenge and the environment are important components to ground ourselves, keep emotionally and spiritually fit.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Balancing out one\u2019s health, relationship and work requirements is the \u201csecret<\/strong>\u201d needed to experience a fully rounded life, one where each aspect of your life acts as a cheerleader for the other parts.<\/p>\n
So what do you do when you know all this and yet still don\u2019t do it?\u00a0 Take baby steps.\u00a0 I did in fact finish that book.\u00a0 I have booked holidays in Cuba where I knew I would be forced to disconnect and I did commit to running a 10k race with my friend for her 50th<\/sup> birthday. Mother Nature helped me out today\u2026and what happened after that?\u00a0 I became inspired to think deeply on life work balance and inspired to write this post. Now it\u2019s time to get out there and play with Mother Nature.\u00a0 Rain or not, nothing inspires me more. What goals\/commitments can you make to wean yourself?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s a Saturday. A Saturday in August at the cottage. And guess what? It\u2019s raining! You know you work too hard and play too hard if your first thought is \u201cYay forced lazy day!\u201d It\u2019s a guilt-free day. You grab that first delicious coffee of the day and finish your book. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creativity","category-work-hard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mincmagic.com\/womens-workation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mincmagic.com\/womens-workation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mincmagic.com\/womens-workation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mincmagic.com\/womens-workation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mincmagic.com\/womens-workation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/mincmagic.com\/womens-workation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1277,"href":"https:\/\/mincmagic.com\/womens-workation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions\/1277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mincmagic.com\/womens-workation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mincmagic.com\/womens-workation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mincmagic.com\/womens-workation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mincmagic.com\/womens-workation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}