by Durgesh Kumar Mishra
To start, let’s ask ourselves, what is work-life balance?
Work-life balance refers to the growing cognizance that people require a fine balance between the needs of work and those of the rest of their lives.
One of the difficulties of addressing work life balance problems is that there is no ‘one measurement suits all’ solution. Rather, what is balance for one person may not be the same for another, and additionally an individual’s wants in relation to balance are incredibly likely to change over time.
Work life balance is consequently about adopting work arrangements so that each of us can find a stability that enables us more easily to combine work with their other goals and responsibilities.
The goal of work-life balance is to provide a vast array of choices so that we can have the freedom to pick out what works for us within the constraints of business.
Organizational change — including technological change, globalization, the trend towards mergers and acquisitions, strategic alliances and the tendency towards organizational restructuring and downsizing — has put added pressure on employees both in terms of adjusting to the change itself and coping with its resulting effects.
All of these changes have increased the urgency for organizations to recognize their employees as people with responsibilities that require time and energy outside of work.
Prioritizing work life balance makes good business sense because it is essential to effective recruitment and retention and it also improves staff motivation and commitment. It often improves productivity and reduces stress and absenteeism which in turn further improves employee health and wellbeing.
Why Happiness is the Mantra for an individual?
We can’t have control over changes that are beyond our control, but we can learn how to be happier at home or at work.
Before we get into how happiness can help better maintain work life balance, let’s have a quick look at these points:
- How often have we said, “I just want to be happy”?
- How often have we said to someone else, “I just want you to be happy”?
- Have we ever stopped to consider exactly what happiness means? What, exactly, is this happiness we are wishing for?
These questions matter because it’s hard for our wishes for happiness to come true if we aren’t clear about exactly what happiness is.
What is not happiness?
Many people believe that happiness is having fun at a party, the excitement of new experiences, the thrill and passion of sex, or the delights of a fine meal. These are all wonderful experiences to be cherished and cultivated but they are not happiness. These experiences are the definition of pleasure. They are experiences to have and let pass. So, if happiness is not the same thing as pleasure, then what is happiness?
‘Happiness is when our life fulfills our needs.’
In other words, happiness comes when we feel satisfied and fulfilled.
Happiness is a feeling of satisfaction that life is just as it should be. Perfect happiness, enlightenment, comes when we have all of our needs satisfied.
I am an agile coach by profession, where happiness and culture are major ingredients. Happiness at work or at home is a win-win situation. Happy, engaged people are healthier, more productive; they have more ideas, are more likely to contribute over and above the responsibilities of their job and perform to the best of their ability.
If your team or family is happy, you and others around them are more likely to be happy too.
To help organizations around the world focus on the happiness of their workforce, and as part of the Worker Happiness module, Jurgen created the 12 steps to Happiness.
Nice article. I agree to the fact been written over about achieving happiness. For happiness you need to be satisfied. That satisfaction may include work satisfaction, personal life satisfaction and many more. But i think if a person is satisfied personally and professionally, then only he is happy. He have a conducive environment in office to flourish and a loving family at home. That’s the accomplishment of satisfaction.
Nicely drafted Durgesh. I would like to take a moment and share some quick thoughts around the same. We are living in a macro cosmic world with micro cosmic opportunities at hand. Most of the people tend to fiddle with their daily lives and feel unhappy,confused and sort of dissatisfied in what they have been doing. Managing work between office and personal life is kind of a very important factor in maintaining a healthy life style. A great life is more than professional success. Love requires work. Relationships require work. Health requires good eating and daily exercise. Key is to not lose sight of the bigger picture and keep conscious of where time is going. I have seen a lot of posts that actually talk about work life balance but what is work-life balance, and can we ever actually achieve it? When we talk about work-life balance it’s never about adding more work into the mix, but always about adding more life. It’s about making sure that we have time to go to the gym after work, may be a walk, have dinner with your family, it’s about balancing childcare with career advancement. I think , “Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.”Work-life balance is also often defined as something you attain over time: slave away now so that you’ll have the financial freedom to take an early retirement later.
Technology, of course, has made this increasingly possible. Blurring the boundaries between work and life is presumed bad if it means taking your work home from the office to slog away in the evenings, on weekends, and on your holidays, never turning off your phone, and never being in the present moment with your family – more than anything that kind of blurring can lead to burnout. However, if blurring the boundaries means enjoying your work as one of the many challenges in your life then I believe this blurring is no bad thing. Personally, it requires just minor effort to feel the pleasure of attaining something in life. If reading makes you feel happy read. Release your daily stress in some form. So that, when you are back at home you should feel the zeal, re-energized and ready for another challenge to win over new goals. I know, risk is one thing that always borrows the happiness share but invest in that risk earlier so that the borrowed percentage is kind of neglect factor.
It is really important to balance work and personal life and it is said that one should keep personal and professional life separate. These tips are really useful for every common man.