Forget Work-Life Balance – Try This Instead
Work-life balance is something that many, if not most, people find elusive. It’s certainly one that we struggle with. We say forget balance, and here’s why…
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And, as all small business owners know, there’s never an end to the work that can be done. Sometimes it’s just hard to shut it down for the day.
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Besides that, Mary-Lynn is about the hardest working person I’ve ever met, so I have to keep going just to keep up!
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At least we haven’t pulled any all-nighters for a while! But we did do that a time or three in the early days of BIGG Success.
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If you’re one of our regular readers, you know that we’re not fond of the phrase work-life balance. So we say …
Forget work-life balance.
Forget balance. Prioritize instead.
Forget balance. Diversify instead.
Forget balance. Synergize instead.
That’s the bigg idea behind bigg success. You can create synergy in your life – between the five elements of bigg success. You can also create synergy with others.
Finding the synergy allows you to reach BIGG success faster. So forget balance. Let’s talk about prioritizing, diversifying and synergizing.
Prioritize, diversify and synergize at work and play – between your personal and professional lives. On some does, work will take priority. On others, it will be family.
Prioritize
Research shows that people expect less of us than we often think. So don’t stress about it. Keep the lines of communication open at work and home.
We have learned that we get more done when we take time off. Your body, mind and spirit need time to unwind.
Forget work-life balance … prioritize. Do today what’s most important for your success. You don’t truly reach BIGG success at work or play; it comes at work and play. When you think this way, you’ll find synergy!
Here’s an example of how your hobby helps you at work. A researcher studied a group of incredibly smart scientists – all members of Sigma Xi. Many Nobel Prize winners have come from this group.
Less than one percent of all the members of this society had a hobby. In stark contrast to that, more than half of the Nobel laureates had a long-standing hobby!
Diversify
(Go ahead; sing this verse to the tune of “Love and Marriage”)
Work and play … work and play,
They go together like night and day. …
You can have one without the other, but life is certainly fuller with both. And you’re likely to miss opportunities without both. Here’s an example:
The amazing Lorelle VanFossen – the queen of WordPress, the blogging software we use here at Bigg Success – recently wrote a post on her blog about meeting one of her favorite authors, Alan Dean Foster.
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What a great last name he has … maybe we’re related!
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I wasn’t familiar with his work. He’s an author of fantasy and science fiction.
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As Lorelle prepared to meet him, she came across an interview where he talked about how he gets the ideas for some of his books. The author said that he loves to travel. He got one book’s opening line from a cab driver in Calcutta.
The cabby had moved to Calcutta from a small village. The author asked him why. One of the reasons the cabby cited was that “a leopard ate his dog.”
As the author said, “That kind of line you just can’t invent.”
So it is with us. We often get ideas for work while we play. We often get ideas for play while we work. Forget work-life balance … diversify. You’ll find synergy when you have a variety of experiences.
Forget work-life balance … do what you love. That’s life on your own terms. That’s BIGG success!
How do you prioritize, diversify and synergize?
Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00541-011110.mp3
(Image in today’s post by personalfx)
