When you love what you do, how do you balance the desire to be two places at once?
More often than not, my definition of Work Life Balance resembles the above. Sitting outside on the hotel balcony, laptop in one hand and phone in the other, guiding my team back at home on a high pressure issue while my one-year-old (with my husband behind him) watch me from a window encouraging me with their eyes, and sometimes gummy smiles, to hurry up and get off the phone so we can go to Disney World.
While Disney World may not always be the final destination, the ultimate appeal to get off the phone and back to being present with the family is always their desired outcome.
For a long time I struggled with their desire for me to be more present with them vs my work. My business had “real needs”, I told myself. “Real needs” that were much more practical than my family’s “emotional” needs. After all, how are we affording this trip to Disney or dinner at the club anyway?
How bad does that make me sound!? Yet, to be honest, I still struggle sometimes.
I love what I do. I want my teams to feel that I am always accessible. That I am always there to support them. That their issues and concerns are my issues and concerns. And, let’s be honest all of my Type A friends, I want to be ‘in the know’ – always. If I were being REALLY honest, that last sentence is probably more of the driver then I care to admit. FOMO in the most sincere, empathetic, compassionate way possible!
As we all know, that FOMO coupled with less than desirable WLB leads to the capital B: Burnout.
So all of that sincere, empathetic, compassionate, honest desire to be there for the team leads to the exact OPPOSITE outcome in the most extreme way.
Actually, I just woke up one day and decided I didn’t want to feel like that anymore, or ever again. So I changed. Just like that.
Unknown Author
I know I don’t want to go through the Burnout phase of life ever again. I have been through it twice now and I am done.
Embracing the idea that the true reasons behind my struggle with WLB were personal and not situational has allowed me to really prioritize what is important to me. My team and I have also spent some time getting aligned on the definition of a truly ‘high pressure’ issue and what method of communication is best suited for the situation.
Our level of communication is essentially broken out as follows:
High Important/High Urgency ———> Phone Call
High Important/Low Urgency ————> Email
Low Importance/High Urgency ————-> Slack
Low Important/Low Urgency ————> Email
Altering what method of communication to expect in any situation has allowed me to disconnect when I need to disconnect while having the confidence that when I need to engage I will be prompted accordingly.
Best. Feeling. Ever.