So the ever so mythical “work-life balance”. Interpreted in hundreds of ways it seems to be every working professional’s ultimate target.
And yet no one can clearly define it and therefor it can forever remain illusive.
Is a work-life balance purely down to time? Making sure I spend as much time outside the office as in it?
Is it about workload or stress? So I work up until I feel it is to much and the rest is then life?
Is it a 50 - 50 ?
For me its about only working the amount I can handle, the job I can handle and especially the environment I can handle BEFORE it starts affecting my life. You work to live not live to work.
I can work 50-60 hours a week and still feel it isn’t affecting my personal life. While I agree it might only be for a short period of time it still shows that neither time or workload are accurate metrics for a healthy balance.
On the other hand I can also barely work 40 hours and it could still affect my mood, motivation and energy way past that and really influence my life outside of work. In which case that is clearly not a healthy balance.
So I would argue that to some degree job satisfaction is equally as important as workload and invested time.
Mathematically you could put it like so:
(Workload or Stress + Invested time) * job satisfaction = time and energy to lead a meaningful, personal life, personal growth.
Sadly, the so-called “rat race” has become somewhat of a cultural epidemic and with it an absence of a healthy work-balance has followed.
What if I told you under 65% of employees experience a good work-life balance (effectory.com).
In this day and age a lot of this can be put down to technology. Emails, instant messaging like Slack and the “urgency” of the internet means you are always available and many also feel the need to always be available. The time and workload factor is growing disproportionately.
Most would see the discussion around a healthy work-life balance to be somewhat synonymous to “how to get away from work to lead a happier life” or “how to leave your work at work”. It’s a polarising “bad” vs “good”, work vs life scenario, which in itself is a rather unhealthy way to see it.
I’d describe that as the situation for the “rat race” workers. (I know this is massively generalised, but just continue reading and you’ll see what I mean)
That’s the case for people where work really is “just work”. It’s not their passion and neither does it align with their hobbies, goals, worldview etc.
Inc. even goes as far as to say that 99% of people choose the wrong career path (https://www.inc.com/jt-odonnell/why-99-percent-of-people-choose-wrong-career-path-and-4-steps-to-get-you-back-on-track.html) Well, I agree that that stat is a bit high, but you get the point.
What I mainly want to talk about is that 1% that do have a job they like doing. A job in their chosen field. Luckily I find myself in such a situation.
I am one of the lucky few that can say I go into work every day and get paid to do my hobbies which revolve around video, photography, editing and digital media. Of course there’s a few days where you end up writing more emails or looking through excel sheets, but hey, that’s just life and any job would have that.
The only issue with getting to practice your hobbies at work, during your 9-5 (or in my case more like 9-nearly 7), is what do you do after work? What do you do when you get home? Do you need new hobbies or do you essentially just keep working when you get home. Change desk, change to your personal projects and just keep working?
That sounds like a fast-track to burnout. Especially if you consider the creative aspect needed in this field, the creative flow and energy will very quickly dry up.
Adding onto this, is the “need” to build up a personal portfolio. The “need” to show your worth outside of your 9-7 just in case you ever move job, want to go freelance or even just progress at the company you are already working for. With Instagram, Youtube and now TikTok constantly changing the style and face of the online media landscape, you again spend more and more of your time and energy trying to keep up, trying to innovate. But then again it’s these social media platforms that create this “need”, that at the same time give you an unhealthy and unrealistic comparison to your own life and creative skills.
Again, a fast and slippery slide to burnout and frustration.
Finally, what happens when your “dream job” turns out to be much less. What happens when a chef ends up only chopping potatoes instead of actually cooking, what happens when a black smith ends up only making nails instead of flashy swords or wonderful chandeliers, what happens when a journalist only gets to cover dull impactless stories and not do any meaningful or substantial work? In theory all are still working in their “dream job”. All three still get to practice their passion and hobby (to some extend), but none are actually doing what they set out to do - the whole reason they started in the first place.
Well, one thing that definitely happens is it is damaging to their overall health, both mentally and physically, as it slowly wears down their confidence and to some degree also their passion for their work and hobbies. An insight I gathered from Johan Hari’s bestseller “Lost Connections”, where Johan in short reiterates that
" In short if you feel aimless, hopeless and there’s no clear progression in sight it will both affect your performance and creativity at work (again further hindering any progress or approval by senior staff) and can have a detrimental effect on mental health..”
But that’s a wider topic I’ll definitely cover in another blog.
Back to the issue at hand - the work life balance.
The examples I gave above are extreme, but most would experience this in some form or another - at least for a short period of time. This frustration of sorts can lead to many responses, but I’d only like to highlight two.
Two of the more extremes and two I find most important and relevant.
Either the frustration gets too much and literally kills the passion for the hobby and work in a “f*ck this” response. Or, on the other hand, in a similarly “f*ck this” kind of way, every spare minute gets pored into private passion-projects to keep the passion alive and to prove there’s more to it than just the ‘work stuff’. It's overcompensation. It turns into a battle between private passion projects and the paid work. It’s a risky work-life balance based on passion and motivation, as opposed to the factors mentioned above such as time or stress. Lose the balance and once again the professional performance will suffer, which again could be detrimental to getting out of this situation. Or even worse the passion overall suffers and through that your mental health.
Looking at the topic through these various lenses I feel it is clear that a real work-life balance doesn’t truly exist. It exists for each individual with their priorities, commitment and most importantly their expectations. It’s limited and fleeting at best.
However, any conventional approach to achieving this illusive goal goes out of the window when you enjoy working. When you want to turn your hobby into a job. When you are driven outside of work to do something more meaningful to you.
90% of the time this is such a good thing. A sign of success or future success. A sign of intellect through the “will to improve and learn”. But still any concept of balance will quickly vanish and either your work, your life or your health will suffer.
I for one know that I have struggled to find any semblance of rhythm or balance and have to bear both the physical and mental consequences, despite thinking I was working hard and doing my best to try and further my career. I was not.
“On an individual level, a few of us might escape. If you can move to a job where you are controlled less, and have more autonomy, or are doing something you believe matter - do it. Your anxiety and depression levels will likely dip. But in a landscape, where only 13 percent of people have jobs they find meaningful, that advice seems almost cruel."
(J. Hari, p 202. Lost Connections)
All this makes me wonder whether balance is easier achieved, when you work a robotic (but relatively happy 9-5) and can enjoy your hobbies outside of work as a counter or if its best to turn your hobbies into a career…
Guess I’ll never know..
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