And Here We Are

Last October I was ready to pilot a two day work life balance program. We all know what happened to the economy around that time and let’s just say the timing wasn’t exactly right for employers to really care if their employees were feeling balanced.

A year later the tide has changed a bit, after layoffs, doing more with less and general fatigue employees need help to recharge and many employers now realize work life balance is a productivity issue as much as it is a social responsibility.

I didn’t give up on the program when the pilots were postponed – I changed directions. I decided maybe what I was working on might be a good book – so I began talking to people, hearing story after story from men and women struggling with how to fit it all in, I researched, read and researched some more and I realized the original pilot wasn’t what the market needed.

What I had created was more like a luxury car when the market really only needed a mid size sedan. So I edited, researched some more and went through draft after draft of workshop content - then in November, I officially launched a four hour Work Life Balance workshop.

The goal of the workshop is to empower people to take accountability for their part in the work life balance equation. It is full of dialog and activities and contains 20 things people can do to bring their actions in alignment with their values.

I was fortunate enough to deliver the workshop two times to fortune 500 company and to a group of what I’d call professional self improvement seminar goers – all three ending in rave reviews and an appetite for more - more information, more dialog, more in their lives of the participants than they are currently living.

It is clear to me that for now my part is to help plant the seeds that more is possible and available to everyone. I do not have all the answers to how to have work life balance – but after two years noodleling on this topic- I can say I’m getting really good learning the questions that need to be asked, understanding people’s experiences and tying it together in a way that makes sense for people. So armed with questions, and an abundance of real world stories, I’m ready to plant as many seeds as I can in 2010.

Back at it

By the state of the world these days – there is a huge need for this conversation to take place. When the economy crashed a year ago – programs and trainings that support employees about balance and other soft skill topics were some of the first budget causalities. A year later people are working more, with less resources and less support and the need for balance is even greater. And my inbox has been lighting up, people want to know – what can they do – how can they make a change? And some companies are ready to support their employees.

I don’t have the answers – but I have the questions to ask. Look for more over the next few months – I’ve been busying researching, writing and interviewing people on the topic and there is much to talk about.

Hot Potato

I think I have realized there are 2 layers (at least) of balance – internal balance which the one you own that you can directly impact by the choices and actions you make and external balance the energy and choices of others that impact you regardless of your actions.

Examples of the external balance layer might be the boss with unclear goals and expectations on the team, the manager who is always changing direction, the family member who never has their act together or the friend who is perpetually late.

Let’s talk about the manager who is always changing directions creating an unpredictable environment for the team. On one level you have certain degree of control over how you respond when a change comes up, "I was working on XWY and changing direction now will cause Blah to happen". On other level you are forced to react to the situation, maybe its working late, changing your entire project plan, or hiring new vendors and depending on the situation it might cause you stress and anxiety to never know when a change might occur - which contributes to feeling out of balance, regardless of how many boundaries you set or how accountable you are to yourself.

So then, because this is reality and these types of people will always be in our lives, how do you find balance when those around you are imbalanced? What can you do to mitigate the stress this type of external layer plays in your life?

I don’t have the answer. Sure some of it is about confidence and clearly articulating a response in a way that is not defensive or wont get you fired, but outside that I’m at a loss. What comes to mind is the game “hot potato” and finding the way to develop some sort of skill that lets you catch and throw the wonky mojo as fast as possible so you don’t get burned by a potato that is not yours.

Feeling it a bit more

Funny that writing about being out of balance – made me feel a bit more in balance. I find it odd that that just by admitting something, your perspective can change and the power something holds dissipates to something a bit more manageable.

So now what? It’s simple – I’m going to spend the next 2 months enjoying what I have right now, and appreciate the incredible opportunities and choices I have in my life. I will resist the urge (and sometimes it’s a big one) to live in the future – I will live only in the moment as best as I can through the rest of 2008.

Professionally, that means enjoying my corporate clients, embracing the projects I have, being open to new projects I might not have considered before and most importantly – being opened to my creative self. That means listening to my ideas about how to begin a conversation so much larger then this blog, talking to people about what they have experienced, lost and found in their journeys for balance and finding my voice and the best way to tell the stories that millions of people can learn from and relate to.

Maybe Obama inspired me more than I realized - the change begins here on this random blog, the change is now in how I think about what I’m doing and being opened to what is around me. The change is in how the dialogue takes shape, a change I can impact if I have enough courage to do so. Because what I’m learning is that choosing a life of balance is not for the weak at heart.

Confession

I’m not always in balance. You can tell when I’m out of balance because I write less. I avoid my blog because I feel like an imposter writing about balance when I’m not feeling it. I know that these are the times that I should be writing more – because that is the whole point – to talk about the real issues when life gets out of balance.

I left my full time job 8 months ago to dedicate more time to working on work life balance issues - which started with developing a program for work life balance with an executive leadership coach. Well, the pilot program didn’t happen – with the economy the way it is the belt on corporate training programs got tight real fast. And the hard truth is, that belt isn’t going to loosen up any time soon, so now what, because I have too much passion to wait around for Wall Street to get it’s shit together. This set back got me thinking that maybe I’m on the wrong path all together.

In an effort to collect my thoughts I bought a giant white board. The thinking was I’d grab a marker and start organizing my thoughts– maybe color code some things – draw some arrows and boxes and develop a new plan. What came out was a list of 8 items, a list I wrote before almost 2 years ago to the day sitting on a beach in Hawaii watching a documentary film festival for my birthday. It was a to do list for a book and documentary about people working themselves to death. Note to self: create interview question about avoiding the obvious and how that relates to balance.

Is balance in your genes?

I had an interesting conversation last week with a close friend about balance. He suggested that some people might be more pre-disposed to being in balance than others – maybe even to the point where the desire to be in balance is in the genes.

It is possible, for example when you look at addiction, his hypothesis could be true. Some people are built a certain way and are predisposed to act a certain way based on the chemistry in their body. After thinking about this and wondering if a drunk can sober up or a smoker can quit smoking why then can’t someone who is used to living in chaos learn to live in a more balanced way?

Just like an addict has to learn new routines, identify triggers and place themselves in new scenarios, so does a person striving for a more balanced life. For example in one of my early blog posts I talked about how I had built my life around others who were out of balance like I was – so when I was late, I missed dinner or simply didn’t show up – the behavior was tolerated and forgiven.

So is it that because being out of balance isn’t life threatening (at least on the surface) it’s easier not to try to be in balance? Has a relationship ever been destroyed or a family torn about because one of the members is out of balance? Maybe not in a way that is as dramatic as with drugs or alcohol, but my guess is its slower more drawn out way, that over times builds and builds.

So then the question I ask is how do you motivate a person to aspire to live a more balance life if they see no perceived threat and/or benefit to their life? I assume that it is just like with an addict – the one seeking balance must want it enough to make the lifestyle changes to support it – because in the end balance is a personal lifestyle choice.

Being you

As I see it, a huge threat to being in balance is the struggle faced being true to yourself. There are so many influencers on an individual every day that impact how someone feels about something, but in the end the feeling that matters most is your own.

If you are like most people, you want people to like/love you, so it’s easy to honor other people’s wants and desires over your own, for example putting the feelings of your partner, children, boss/co-worker before your own.

In the end, you end up paying a higher cost to your life’s state of balance by ignoring your true feelings and instincts. Most times when you don’t honor how you feel it ends up coming out (normally quite sideways) and does more harm to your state of balance than if you’d taken the difficult path and honored your feelings in the first place.

So why then do we cause ourselves harm and emotional hardship by ignoring our true wants and desires? Why then do we do things we know we shouldn’t do or don’t want to do, make commitments we know we are not going to keep or say things we don’t actually mean?

I think we do it because managing the internal balance between horning what’s right for yourself and supporting those around you is one of the most difficult things we as humans do. There is no guidebook, and there is no support or encouragement for this behavior as we grow up from our families or society at large. We are taught to please people that ego is negative and there is a very thin line between confidence and conceit.

The part that is most amazing to me is that say for example your partner/spouse treated your emotions with such lack of regard, constantly not listening to you saying one then doing another time and time again; most of us would end that relationship. So why then we do tolerate such disrespect from ourselves?