Reflections

February 1st.  1/12th of the year has already passed.  Can you believe it?

On January 1st I wrote about the rebirth I said I would bring about in my career this year.  I’m happy to report that this rebirth is well underway.

Today I’m writing about another important tenet for me this year: restoring balance.

I am someone who is interested in a lot of things.  I want to see, experience, accomplish, make a difference, have a positive impact, learn, understand, think, always keep improving, always learn new things.  In short, live a full life.   What this means, though, is that I always have to be mindful of taking on too much – especially in my professional life.

About six years ago I set about rebalancing my life; making more time for myself and for non-work related priorities .  I took up hobbies and made sure there was time every week for things that were important to me that were not associated with making a living or advancing my career.  To bolster this, in 2005 I joined a program for busy professionals that embodies this goal as one of its fundamental principles.

For a few years, I did really well and made a lot of progress.  Hobbies were in place, I was taking more vacation, my enjoyment of both work and non-work activities increased.  Then, I began to lose my way.  I stopped doing some of the hobbies and other activities I had put in place, and slowly, work began to dominate again. By late 2007  this “derailing” was well underway.  Then came the recession, which put the finishing touches on this problem.

It didn’t feel good.

I was conscious of what was happening, but only in certain moments.  My enjoyment of work and day-to-day life dropped over time. I kept getting these glimpses about what I needed to do to restore balance, but for whatever reason, I could not find my way out of the forest; there were too many trees in my way.

I got several prompts along the way that it was really time for a change.  One of the bigger “aha” moments came in September while teaching at an executive education institute in France I am affiliated with.  Participants in the workshops I was leading were talking about a session they had taken that week on work-life balance and the notion of “self management”.  I was intrigued and asked some questions about it.  They showed me a book called “Managing Your Self” – the words “Your” and “Self” being intentionally separated – written by the person leading these sessions, named Jagdish Parikh.

I opened the book, and in the first pages read 3 powerful questions:

• Are you living for business, or in the business of living?
• Are you interested in adding years to your life, or life to your years?
• Is your main interest in making yourself a living, or making a life for yourself?

It stopped me cold in my tracks.

I felt like the book was speaking directly to me.

I realized I had fallen back into the trap described in the beginning of each question. The book was the final push I needed to reach the tipping point.

It was time for change.

BUT, I was still stuck way too far into the flow last fall to implement the changes.  Work was extremely busy; we were in the process of implementing important and substantial changes in my company; I was traveling a lot for client work; we were relocating our offices.  To top it all off, my wife and I had sold our house and bought another one which we were renovating.  This required a move to a temporary location for over a month while the renovations were completed. By late December, I was exhausted, as I had been at the end of at least the previous two years.

Thankfully, I had booked some time off around the holiday season and had the chance to celebrate Christmas and New Year’s with close family.  This created the space I needed to rest (a little), reflect, and enjoy some of life’s most important things – time and experiences with loved ones.

As the new year arrived, it was clear that it was time to implement.  I am now in the early stages of restoring balance.  It feels good.  Really good.

I put two new practices in place in January:

• A regular exercise regimen – on average 3 times per week.  I have not had this for several years, and it was sorely missing.  Research says exercise is one of the best stress-relievers.  In fact, some research says it is THE best.  I think many of us know this from our personal experience.
• Regular windows of time for myself.

These two simple changes are already having a terrific impact.  They are, in fact, a way to honour myself.  I was giving to everyone and everything but myself.  And, as many of us have learned the hard way, this is not sustainable.

I notice myself feeling selfish sometimes as I take time to exercise or just reflect.  But this is misguided.  This shows how far off the track I had gotten.  As many of you know, if you want to give to others, you MUST make sure you are in great shape, or else the system breaks down.

In today’s “always on, always available, instant-everything business world, it takes something to keep this balance in place and keep room for yourself.  Add to that a still challenging economic climate and it becomes even harder to set those limits.  BUT, it’s critical.

My wish for each one of you is that you have the courage and discipline to make this happen for yourself.  Yes, I mean courage.  Often it’s fear or guilt that keeps us from setting the limit and saying, “No, not now.  This time is for me.”

To balance, enjoyment, and wellbeing.