Aiming to a Healthier Work Life Balance
Written by Noyonika Sircar
Let's burst the bubble, your work and your personal life are meant to intermingle. Whosoever told us to keep them separate, didn’t possibly see a wave of pandemic uprooting and fixing us in front of our screens, in the same spot for a year.
No matter how much you push it away, you always find these two different worlds colliding for reasons, you never thought to encounter. Having been fixated on working from home for a year, we all have witnessed how mental health has taken priority when work and personal spaces have merged.
Recently coming out and being in the process of squeezing a gap between my personal and my work life, I share a few tips, that can help you achieve a work-life balance. Reminder, the balance will never be perfect, the coping strategies are highly dependent on the person. These are just a few ways, which might help you achieve some rescue in the chaos.
1. Waking up early
After a month of juggling with classes, research, a full-time internship, and one part-time, I have seen that a small practice can make a difference, rather than a big one, but in the longer run, it will be a catalyst. From that, waking up early genuinely helps in more than one way. It might seem impossible to be an early riser initially, but if you start with small-time limits, one hour per week, you will get there soon. After you wake up early, note down your things to do for the day and set time limits for your activities, you will find a lot of time for yourself by the end of the day. This has immensely helped me, once I started waking up early, there is no going back. Waking up early also improves your health, if you also plan to nudge in a quick morning jog.
2. Sharing with others
A recent survey told that people tend to share joys more than disappointments. This stigma of holding back disappointments leads to bottling up of emotions, being the reason for your mental health to decline and eventually see counter-productivity at work. Sharing your thoughts with a trusted person, colleague or someone who will understand what you are going through, will widen your perspectives and also tell you why aren't you acting like yourself lately. The start is hard, but in the near future, this is a healthy engagement and a safe space for you to be vulnerable, which will purely give you clarity about your decisions.
3. Setting realistic limits
This is such a pragmatic step to give yourself some breather. Setting goals for the day boosts productivity, as long as they are productive. Unrealistic goals pile work for tomorrow resulting in disappointments. The best bet would be to set a time. For me, I avoid all business calls and all my work-oriented discussions after 6 pm, and for the weekends, where I give time to myself, doing the silliest things.
This applies to your thoughts, most importantly. If there is any thought purging and constantly insisting you think more, this is the reason, you must shut them out, and tell yourself that you will think about it tomorrow.
4. Grow yourself and your support system
Your work is a part of your life, not your life. This demarcation is a daily reminder for you to consider yourself as a human and acknowledge your criticism, your mistakes, and your ways of malfunctioning. This also forms a part of the reasons why you might face a series of emotions, overwhelmed, or sad, or sometimes hopeless. The only way to get through them is by acknowledging them and by validating them. This can be done either by yourself alone or by your support system, your colleagues, your trusted friends, and your cheerleaders, who will take you on the right path. Grow with them
If there are still questions and thoughts or hesitations about your work overtaking your personal life, trust time.
Never feel you are alone and remind yourself to take care of yourself, or come and talk with us, BMG believes in supporting each other and growing together. We have got your back!
