Since the pandemic started, the question has arisen “What is a proper work-life balance?”. The struggle between, “I like to work but I also like to have my own time” is only increasing.
It is my opinion that if you’re a young entrepreneur, with no spouse or children, then you should have no life to distract you. You may not agree with me, however until you achieve all your goals, you should focus 100% of your energies on work.
From your 20s’ to your 30’s, you’re building up your business and you’re trying to fulfill all your lofty goals. You should just focus on work and there should be little time to play. You must work 12 hours a day to achieve your goals!
Spend all your time trying to succeed! After you work 12 hours, you can sleep for four hours and that still leaves you several hours for free time. You can still do anything you want but only after you have spent 12 hours on working to achieve your goals.
Now you are in your 30’s and you have made a little bit of money. You’re enjoying life and thinking about what work-life balance means. You may be getting married at 35, and thinking about having kids, and you might say, “I need to start thinking about work-life balance now, because my spouse wants me to be helping out with the kids.” Or one spouse says to their partner, “Hey, listen, I have a job. I need you to stay home, just to help out with the kids and to make things manageable.” Here’s the problem: You’re still achieving your goals BUT you haven’t achieved the epitome of what you want to do.
And if you remember what your dreams were when you were in your 20’s, you haven’t achieved them in your 30’s. Even if you’ve become a billionaire by the time you’re in your 30’s, you still haven’t achieved what you wanted to achieve, because it’s not all about monetary success (believe it or not). You might also be looking for academic success or the type of success where you would be acknowledged by your peers. If all your peers are doing the same thing at the same level, and you haven’t really achieved that level, and that’s how you measure success, then you should still be working. Maybe instead of 12 hours a day, you only work 10. But you should still be following up on that goal!
And then you hit your 40’s and your kids are growing up and you say “I’ve worked so hard since my 20’s. Now it’s time for me to breathe and focus on work-life balance. I can now do yoga and exercise and try to figure out how to get to the next level so that I can balance work and enjoy my life.”
In your 40’s you can really start thinking about it. Reflect on all the goals, the hopes, the dreams that you had in your 20’s and in your 30’s. Have you achieved them? Are you content where you are? If so, then focus on work-life balance. Between the ages of 45 and 55, focus on building a better you; focus on building a better family. You’re having kids later now, and you’re doing all the things that you should be doing and hopefully your business is where you want it to be at this point.
In your 50’s, your kids go to high school and you want to participate with them. You’re playing football games or hockey games. You’re taking them here, there, and everywhere else. You’ve become Uber! At that point, again, your work becomes secondary. You actually don’t have a balance anymore because you focus on your kids and their needs. You must decide what’s important for your family and move forward with them as a team. You need to figure out what works best for your situation. It’s important to have balance. In my opinion while you are in your 20’s and 30’s and still have the energy to build your life, you don’t need to worry about work-life balance. The life stuff will all come, and you’ll be able to have lots of fun in your 40’s and 50’s.
Live a lot! Laugh a lot more!
I know a wonderful and energic young Realtor in Saskatoon with a beautiful 10-year-old son. Tanya works extremely hard and is a very successful realtor and single mom. She still has time for her son and has time to work on her charity foundation. When you are balanced, you’ve met success. Good luck Tanya!
She is what success can be. She works hard, achieves and still manages to have a wonderful home life with her son. Is that not what we all want? A perfect Live/Work life that is balanced and maintained?
As I am always posting business related articles, I thought it was time to share some personal thoughts on this subject that so many people are dealing with. We can get so caught up in spending 100% of our energies on work that we need to remember the importance of finding the right balance.
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