5 Guiding Principles to Help You Achieve Work-Life Balance

Friday, March 10, 2023

In just a few short years, achieving work-life balance went from being a nice-to-have ideal to becoming a must-have reality. The ability to navigate that fine line between productive work and quality life outside of one's career is necessary if one is to remain competitive in the long term. All other paths lead to burnout, decreased productivity, and strained personal relationships.

However, learning how to walk this tricky tightrope remains one of the elusive secrets of modern success. How does one find a healthy balance between work and life when the boundary keeps blurring by the day?

In this guide, we go back to the basics by understanding the principles behind how to achieve work-life balance.

Principle #1: Know your values

What types of experiences do you hold dear? Do you love doing creative work? Do you find social interactions stimulating? Do you perhaps prefer the challenge of working with constraints? From these joyful experiences, you can extract your most important values: creativity, community, industry, etc.

When your personally held values match your daily experiences, it’s easier to find fulfillment in your work. But if there’s a gap between what you do daily and what you consider important, it can lead you to subconsciously think of work as a burden and try to find an escape through procrastination or distraction.

“Do what you love” doesn’t always seem like practical advice. But if your goal is to find a sustainable way of life, a life that is enjoyed and not just endured, then it’s the sanest advice you can get.

Just a side note: doing what you love may not always mean doing your “dream” job. It can be as simple as transitioning to a job that will help you practice your core values on small scales. For example, if you’re a people-person who works at home all day with barely any social interaction at all, why not as to be transitioned to a more active or social role?

Finding fulfillment in work doesn’t always have to be life-altering. You can start by negotiating little changes and going from there.

Principle #2: Hold yourself to a high standard

Feeling a sense of accomplishment is necessary for all areas of life, be that at work, in your relationships, or in your personal goals. And what’s more fulfilling than completing something you gave your best to finish?

As Philip Stanhope said: “Everything worth doing is worth doing well.” Whatever it is you dedicate your time to, don’t take half measures whether that’s in being a friend, a boss, or simply working on your day-to-day tasks.

There are significant advantages to holding yourself to a high standard.

Things that are done right don’t need excessive revision, thus avoiding wasted time and resources.
Your high-quality output speaks to your skills and character, helping you earn people’s trust.
Doing things well requires self-discipline, attention to detail, and focus — a roster of skills that will benefit you in work and in life.

It’s useful to remember that at the end of the day, what really matters is what you do, not what you say you’ll do. So make your work and your actions sing!

Principle #3: Find your rhythm

Countless pieces of advice have been given about the best daily routine or how to make the most out of one’s day. But many of these popular suggestions fail to take into account the most important factor of all: the individual. If you’re a night owl trying to follow a trendy routine that tells you to wake up at 6 in the morning, you’re essentially working against yourself and risk failure (and the resulting frustration) from the start.

You, the common denominator between your work self and your personal self, have your own unique needs that you need to consider first before you turn to others for advice.

There’s no better compass for cultivating a sustainable way of life that nurtures work-life balance than your body. It is said that time management is, at the fundamental level, really about energy management. The body constantly gives you helpful feedback about when you are at your peak, when you need to refresh, and when you need to get a full reset. From this, you can create an optimum routine that allows you to function at your best without straining too hard.

Work with instead of against yourself. Find your own magical rhythm and schedule your life and work around it.

Principle #4: Manage stress

Many people who attempt to establish a work-life balance fail due to stress. And most of it comes from our unhealthy perspective about it. Stress is often seen as a negative symptom. Some may even see it as a sign that their work-life balance is off. But it’s futile to try to avoid stress, to begin with. Most worthwhile goals in life are difficult and are, therefore, naturally stress-inducing. Instead, a healthy work-life balance strategy should involve an effective stress management system.

This is easily said than done. Humans’ emotional reactions to stress are automatic. However, you can try to understand the stressors that lead to these responses. Journaling is a good strategy to help you analyze and realize what these triggers are and your reactions to them. Understanding why they happen can help you devise your own stress management measures to cope when it happens.

Try not to let stress build-up. But when it does, do not hesitate to give yourself a break to recalibrate. Again, there’s no work-life balance without you so you should never feel guilty about putting yourself first.

Principle #5: Know your limits

Life is, unfortunately, but also mercifully, limited. Your energy is limited and so is your creativity, your focus, your patience, or your time. To achieve work-life balance, you must learn to work with these limits or you risk exhausting yourself to the breaking point.

Knowing your limits can help you set up healthy boundaries for yourself and the people around you. It can help you make wise decisions as an employee, a boss, or a friend. It can help you identify opportunities for growth.

Unfortunately, there’s no shortcut to self-knowledge but through trial and error.

Over to you

Achieving work-life balance begins with you at the core. After all, it’s your life you are trying to improve. These principles may imply work ahead and the realizations and experiences can be painful at times but once you manage to concoct a beautiful balance in what you do and how you live, the payoff is for life.

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