Number 1: Know what your values are

Figure out what’s at the heart of you.  What are your deeply held beliefs about what's important, your highest priorities, and the fundamental forces that drive who you are and what you do?

Try sitting down with paper and a pen (I like using post-it notes and a lot of coloured pens – but that’s just me). Note down key words that describe the things that are most important to you.  These could be things like: authenticity, connectedness, freedom, creativity, service etc. (Ok I admit it – these are my values!).

If you’re coming up with things or people (i.e. my car or my career), what is it about these things that’s important to you?  For a car, it might be freedom or prestige.  For a job, it might be financial security or challenge.

I can email you a list of Value Words that will help to get you thinking but it’s really important that these words come from you – they’re your values!

Drop me an email at bronwyn@magicroundaboutcoaching.co.uk if you’d like this list.

When you’ve got your list, identify the top 10 values.  You’ll find some of them can be grouped under one key word. (For example in my list of values, Authenticity also represents Honesty and Integrity so I don’t need to list them all individually).

Now get it down to the top 5 (go with your gut instinct here and don’t forget to group similar or connected things together under one word), and put them into priority order.  A great way to do this is by taking 2 values (for example: freedom and connectedness) and asking yourself, “if I could have freedom, but not connectedness OR I could have connectedness but not freedom, which would I pick?” Keep doing this with pairs of values until they are in priority order.  The post-it notes are useful here because you can keep moving them around.

So now you have a list of your top 5 values and (as well as understanding yourself better than you did 10 minutes ago), now every time you have an important decision to make, you can test the options against your values list and see which option is going to best serve you and who you are!

Number 3: The Rocking Chair test (Warning –this involves time travel!)

Imagine yourself in your old age, sitting in a rocking chair (or seat of your choice) and looking back at your life.  Now I can pretty much guarantee that no-one in this situation ever looked back and said “wow, I really wish I’d spent more time at the office!”.  Often the regrets we have are about relationships and opportunities.

So how would this future version of you feel about the decision you’re about to make? Changing the perspective can often get us unstuck from all the detail we’re struggling with in the present, and bring real clarity about what the most important things really are. 

A lot of the people I coach want to work on their work-life balance.  To varying degrees they feel overwhelmed, frustrated and unhappy, bombarded with all the things and stuff coming at them.  Like they’re constantly reacting and fire-fighting and spending far more time than they want to keeping on top of the emails, meetings and "to-do" list.  Usually this is happening at work (either employed or self-employed) but sometimes outside of work too (like the lady I’m going to tell you about in a minute). Often things like family, relationships or time for themselves gets neglected, due to lack of time and energy.  Life can start feeling like an existence, like you’re surviving (going through the motions) but not thriving. I can totally relate to this because I’ve been there myself and I can tell you with confidence, from personal and professional experience, you can do something about it!

Judy came to see me because she felt things were getting out of control at work and at home.  She was stressed out in her job, trying to keep on top of everything and do what she thought everyone wanted, working later and later and feeling stressed out and frustrated.  She felt she couldn’t ask for help and that she had to be seen to be strong and capable. She had to do everything on her to-do list every day, regardless of what work came in and when it was actually needed by.  It was impacting her relationships with her colleagues and her boss had noticed and mentioned her behaviour.  When she got home at night she would get started on her other job, a voluntary role she was doing for a club she was a member of.  She’d joined the club to do the hobby she loved, but had somehow ended up doing a job she didn’t want, that was taking up all her free time.  Her relationship with her partner was suffering and she never got to see her friends.

After she had told me all about this situation and the impact it was having, I asked Judy to draw me a mind-map of the absolutely most important things in her life.  She drew a circle in the middle of the page with her name in it and then put the things that were most important to her in the whole world around the circle.  She included her partner, her parents, her friends and the people she was close to through her hobby.

I asked her what she had noticed about this map.  She said “I thought there would be more on it”. I shared what I’d noticed about the list:  NONE OF THE THINGS SHE WAS SPENDING ALL THIS TIME AND ENERGY WORRYING AND STRESSING ABOUT WERE ON THE LIST OF THE MOST IMPORTANT STUFF!! What was most important to Judy was the special people in her life but she was focusing all her time and energy on other things.

Judy was amazed.  It was a huge moment and marked a massive turning point for her.  In that session she consciously chose to focus her time and attention on the most important things.  To put them in her life first and build the other stuff in around them. She started making conscious choices about what she would and wouldn’t do and set up some strong personal boundaries.  She started managing people’s expectations so that they got what they were expecting, when they were expecting it (instead of what she assumed they were expecting, when she assumed they were expecting it by - notice the difference?). The people around her were happier. Best of all she started feeling like she was thriving, back in control of her life and happy.

So, if you’re feeling a little overwhelmed with the demands of work and life, try this out:

1.       Write a list of all the things that you’re worrying about (things at work, jobs that need doing at home, deadlines, things you mustn’t forget, cupboards that need clearing out – anything that’s getting on top of you right now).

2.       Now write a list (or draw a picture or a mind map) of the absolute most important things in your life.

3.       Now look at both lists.  Is there anything that appears on both?  If so, that stuff needs to be focused on.

4.       Consider the list of the most important things, the things that if all else failed but you still had these in your life, you’d be ok.  How would it be to make these things your priority and fit all the other stuff in around them?

5.       And to reinforce all of this with a good story, have a look at this 5 minute video of the story of the golf balls and the mayonnaise jar!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-iyK1zGC84

Thanks for reading! If you've got some work-life balance challenges you'd like support with, I'd love to have a chat with you about how I can help!  I offer free, no obligation introductory consultations, including a short "coaching taster" so you can see for yourself what it's all about.