In a world where everything seems like a mess, how can you achieve a work life balance? Gone were the days when you could just separate work from home. But due to the fast-paced life nowadays, work life seems to invade your personal life.
Maintaining that certain equilibrium may look unattainable. To some, it may not even be achieved in their lifetime. Many single women are married to their jobs. It’s understandable, considering that women are a competitive bunch. If a single woman just focuses on one aspect of her life, the tendency is that the other aspect would be in jeopardy.
Some of the effects of an imbalance work-life situation are fatigue, lost time with close ones, and more responsibilities. These will all greatly affect how you deal with your work life balance. Be careful not to tip the balance too much.
Before you even know the strategies for a great work life balance, you need to understand the principles behind them.
Work-Life Balance Principle #1: Managing oneself
To understand this balance is to understand that one also needs to be taken care of. A single woman should understand that she needs the right diet, proper sleep, and the likes. This also means that a single woman should have time for herself. She should be empowered in the realization that she can have total control of her life.
Work-Life Balance Principle #2: Managing stress 
Stress is inevitable. That is a fact. It isn’t true that one can remove stress altogether in her life. One can only reduce it. Stress can come from people or situations. The way a single woman reacts to these stressors will determine how she handles stress. A lot of women believe that multitasking will reduce their stress levels. But the opposite actually happens.
Work-Life Balance Principle #3: Managing time
The most appropriate way to manage a single woman’s time is to consider the resources that go with the right use of time. Being sure of how you handle time and what kinds or resources are suitable for that certain period is the way to go. Knowing and giving reachable goals is also important. That being said, it’s also vital that the single woman knows which tasks need urgent attention and which do not.
Work-Life Balance Principle #4: Managing leisure
Because women are so work-oriented, many fail to realize that having leisure time is also vital to achieve such balance. Leisure is the way the body relaxes and rests. One just cannot undermine the value of play time. However, a single woman must also realize that too much leisure time isn’t good as well.
Work-Life Balance Principle #5: Managing change
One philosopher once said that change is the only constant. It’s indeed true. A single woman may not recognize change at first, but this is dealt with on a daily basis. Change can be stressful. For the single woman to be able to handle stress is coup de grace.
These principles should be a part of the work life balance so as not to tip the scales on both sides. What do you think?
3 Truths That Can Help You Strike a Balance Between Your Career and Personal Life
Eight years ago, a movie was shown in which a character says one can achieve a successful career only by sacrificing his life. By the way that many of us live, it’s evident that we agree. How many times have you stayed at the office for days on end in order to finish a project? Our guess is more than you’d like to admit. So we ask, is it impossible to strike a balance between one’s career and personal life? We believe it is.
Striking a balance between your career and personal life requires less from you than you’d think. You may read all of the books, attend all of the seminars, and watch all of the shows that promise to help you do so, but really, all you need to do is reflect on certain age-old truths that can enable you to realize how.
These facts convey first-hand knowledge that you can employ to improve your life in such a way that will enable you to strike a balance between your career and personal life, resulting in a significant improvement in your well-being.
A myriad of such facts exist, so to save you from the pain of having to learn them all, here are some of them that we believe are the most important for you to learn:
Success is Based on Preparation
When you were still a student, it’s likely that you flunked most (if not all) of the tests that you didn’t study for. For whatever reason, you should’ve known better. Unless you cheat, you cannot pass a test that you know nothing about. The same can be applied to your life. If you don’t plan to work as hard and as well as possible but still be able to enjoy yourself without falling ill, you’ll never be able to do so.
If you burn both ends of the candle, which means work and play hard at the expense of rest, you’ll experience burnout or exhaustion due to doing a hard job for a long time. Feeling so can cause you to fall ill, not be able to work well, resent your job, quit, or get fired, or worse.
Believing in Yourself Enables You to Achieve Almost Anything
It’s likely that you dreamed of becoming something when you were a child. A friend of ours dreamed of becoming an astronaut when she was a child. She didn’t become one, but her self-confidence enabled her to be successful at her chosen profession but still be able to spend quality time with her family and friends.
Managing things that we find difficult, scary, or impossible requires us to believe we can do so. Not only does psyching yourself up give you the push to be able to make the first step, but doing so also makes you strong and brave at obstacles, enabling you to persevere. Hence, if you don’t believe that you’ll be able to strike a balance between your career and personal life, you’ll never be able to do so no matter how hard you try. How can you if by believing you can’t you’re stopping yourself already?
You’ll Receive Only What You Give
It’s only common sense to exert as much effort as possible at work. Badly slip up even once and you’re out. So it’s a mystery why, evidently, most of us don’t do the same in our personal lives. Honestly, do you think that your marriage will be harmonious and that your kids will warm up to you if you don’t spend as much time with them as possible?
Your spouse and your children aren’t your pets; they won’t care for you if you don’t care for them. Once you give 100 percent in both your career and your personal life, we assure you’ll manage to strike the balance.
If there’s a mistake you’ve been committing that’s preventing you from living a healthy, pleasant life, it’s ignorance. As you spend days doing nothing except toil away at your job, the information you need to be able to start really living is waiting for you to find it. Having explained to you these truths that can show you how to strike a balance between your career and personal life, we hope to encourage you to do so.
3 Critical Guidelines on How to Achieve Work Life Balance
As a modern working woman, you’ve a successful career and financial security; however, you find yourself not having enough time for recreational things and notice that it’s taking a toll on your health.
How can you achieve a work life balance? Is it possible to be successful at work and still live a healthy lifestyle? The answer is yes, and this article will give you guidelines on how to do exactly just that.
1. Know your priorities
Are you working for your family or toward having one? Are you saving up for a dream home? Take into consideration all the reasons why you’re driven to work and remind yourself why you’re working so hard. Realize that you won’t be able to enjoy and appreciate all the hard work you’re putting in now if the price you’ve to pay is your own health.
In this case, the adage ‘the end justifies the means’ doesn’t apply. After all, how can you enjoy your retirement and your big beautiful ranch if you won’t be able to reach that age, right?
Work is fulfilling but even more so if you’ve someone to share your ups and downs with. If you’re working hard for family, make sure you’re not sacrificing time with them for what you think is ‘a better future for them’. I remember reading about how one person said that people on their deathbeds normally regret not spending more time with their loved ones; no one wishes that they spent more time in the office. 
2. Surround yourself with reminders
In our busyness and everyday challenges, we tend to forget what matters to us. It’s too easy to be caught up in the immediate needs of what surrounds us (which is, more often than not, our work) rather than keeping our focus on what is important. That’s why it helps to have reminders.
At your job, if something is important and needs attention, you make post-it notes and stick them where they are visible, right? We should do the same with our lives. Surround yourself with things that remind you that your health and wellness also need looking after.
It can be a stone or crystal on your night table that can remind you to stop and breathe or go for some relaxation. Hang pictures of inspiring landscapes that will motivate you to take short breaks to beautiful destinations. Use humorous refrigerator magnets that will remind you to have fun and enjoy life more.
3. Ask someone to check on you periodically
I used to supervise four people while working in a restaurant. It can get pretty busy most nights, and I could tell all of them would get so stressed out and sometimes not bother to eat or go for bathroom breaks. To remedy this, I appointed one person to be in charge of all of our wellness; this person would regularly check to see if everyone has eaten, if they need a break, or if they need help with anything.
This responsibility would rotate every week to the next person. I can tell it worked right away, and it boosted everyone’s morale knowing someone is always looking out after them. Everyone’s productivity doubled and it brought everyone closer.
If you’ve a friend or colleague close to you, or a family member who can call or visit you once in a while, ask him/her to be this person for you. It helps if another person can be the one reminding us as sometimes all we need is a little nudge from someone other than ourselves. Friends and family can also provide a fresh and objective perspective, which we can always benefit from.
I hope these three simple and easy guidelines will be able to help you realize where you stand and how you can improve your work life balance. There’s nothing wrong with having a successful career and there’s no reason to give that up; just find balance with that and other aspects of your life.
At the end of the day, nobody wants to be burnt out. Remember Mariah Carey when she had a meltdown, which according to her doctors, was a nervous breakdown? Success is sweet, but having work life balance is even sweeter.
Tipping the Scales: Making Work Life Balance Work
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ou are not the only one struggling to juggle your life. Many people have the same dilemma. It’s just too sad to see that people have to spend a lot of time focusing on one aspect of their lives at the expense of another.
If you were a single woman who happens to be working in a large corporation, how would you manage your life so that you can enjoy the simple pleasures of it? Instead of mulling over the things that you cannot control, how about doing something about the things that you alone can control? If in case you’re still clueless about the rules, check out the list below. Hopefully, these can help you manage your work life balance.
Drop it like a hot potato
One of the biggest busters of work life balance is the activities that are really worthless. A lot of people fall prey to these. Instead of doing something worthwhile, they inadvertently do things that don’t have value. Take, for example, gossiping about other people.
So what should you be doing to help the work life balance?
Avoid those nonsense activities. As long as these activities don’t contribute to your welfare in a positive manner, then scrap it out of your schedule. If it’s still impossible to remove that thing altogether, how about minimizing doing such things that can hamper your work-life balance? 
Be on the move
If you’re too busy, you’ve all of the reasons not to do some exercise. Exercise is one of those activities that can help you in your work life balance. You see, exercise increases concentration as well as your energy level.
If you notice, the more you exercise, the more alert you become. It’s easier to think of ideas when you do some exercising. Waking up early to do a bit of cardio is a small sacrifice to pay. After all, a much clearer mindset will set your flow of thoughts at the start of work on that day.
All work and no play makes Jill dull
You don’t have to make large sacrifices to find your work-life balance. Even those small decisions can create a big impact on your work-life balance. What you need is realistic goals that you can easily accomplish. These goals will lead you to have time for yourself. This is very vital to achieve balance in everything you do.
Being a workaholic can be a good thing. Being a workaholic who knows to insert time for herself into her schedule is way better. There’s nothing wrong with recharging your batteries during a full-day schedule. You can take a 15-minute break from your busy schedule and do some deep breathing techniques to clear your mind. These things, as small as they are, can go a long way.
Having balance in your work and life won’t just give you calmness and peace of mind. This will also bring you a sense of accomplishment for the day. What do you think?
Summary: Achieving Life Balance
Do you feel that you don’t have control over your life? In this fast-paced world, how can one maintain life balance? Just think how a single woman can squeeze work, social, and personal aspects of her life in one big balloon called life.
In many cases, women are controlled by the day-to-day schedules. Women are trying to cope with the intricacies of work; they are also maintaining their vibrant social lives. Squeeze in other modular aspects of life and you get chaos. Perhaps you’re one of these nameless women who come home late at night feeling tired and drained.
The rat race you need to follow day after day will take its toll sooner or later. How does one take control of the life balance? A change in the life balance mindset is the answer. It isn’t just taking a step back and analyzing what your life has been recently. It’s more than that. However, there are things that you need to be coached on.
Life Balance Lesson Number 1: Free Doesn’t Mean Available
Imagine this scenario:
Your friend wants to meet you. You check your calendar. You see that there’s one part of a day that is free. You say yes to your friend. Later, you realize that that time is the only time for you to settle some errands. You feel guilty cancelling your appointment with your friend. Yet, you also feel that that time should have been reserved for some down time.
One thing you need to remember is that having free time doesn’t mean that you need to spend it with somebody else. Saying no once in a while to do some more me-time is more vital to achieving life balance.
Life Balance Lesson Number 2: Prioritize what is on the calendar
Oftentimes, you just cannot accomplish some other important tasks because there are other activities that keep on interrupting them. For example, how long have you been dreaming of that Cancun vacation? You have always wanted to do that, but it seems that a lot of things continue to get in the way of actually realizing that dream.
Instead of making your dream vacation or some other important decisions slip through, try micromanaging everything. For example, list the daily things you want to accomplish. Also, list what you want to do during the week and even the month. Of course, there are inevitable instances that you’ve to encounter. If these things happen, you’ve to follow what has been scheduled.
This means that you can do those inconveniences and move some other tasks to accommodate everything. Don’t drop your schedule altogether. Reschedule it.
Life balances depend on your choices. These choices should be done consciously and diligently. Think about where you need more time for yourself. Adjust your schedule to that time. If you’ve to think out of the box to accomplish those things, feel free to do so. What do you think?
