Balance your work and personal life

Today, working has become an even more essential activity to sustain your newfound consumption habits. The list of items to buy has become longer, as the things once looked at as luxuries are now considered must-have necessities.

Let’s face it. For those who can increase their salaries based on output or those with their own businesses, it has become commonplace to take advantage of overtimes, take-home assignments, and sleep-deprived nights to double or even triple income. We understand that hard work pays off, and if that is the case, then maybe working a lot harder will yield better results.

There is nothing wrong with working our fats off. In fact, this has been true since the day we started going to school. We gain higher grades by making life-sized projects, getting involved in extracurricular activities, and reviewing an extra hour more than our peers. We were told of stories of unsuccessful people who refused to move, and of successful people who, from the grassroots level, reached the top of their game and eventually became the most successful person in their field. True enough, we have learned to understand that success favors those who work hard. However, there is such a thing as working too hard.

Some may argue that working hard is justifiable, but at what cost? How about that movie marathon special of your favorite show, the thrill of saying “Thank God it’s Friday”, your children’s birthdays or your anniversary? Some of us have become too absorbed in work that we seem to have forgotten that there are other things to experience and have, aside from that stockpile of money in our account that’s fit enough to buy a bridge.

Working too much will lead to poor health, increased stress levels and poor social skills. Remember that the reason you are working and earning is for you to be able to provide for yourself and your family a decent and preferred standard of living, be prepared for any possible accidents, and your retirement. So have the time to live that “standard of living” you have been working for, realize how much you have earned and how much you deserve for exerting your full effort at work.

Intense work with only short breaks is good because it shows how passionate and diligent you are, but learn to discipline yourself and make it a point that work will only be until a given time, and after that, it’s all about you, your family and everything else outside the workplace. There is just too much that you will be missing out on if you keep yourself from them and spend every bit of your energy in the office. Your children will never describe you in front of their class based on how much you earn, but on how you spend time with the family, so if you choose to be a workaholic, expect an unexciting narrative. Worse than this is the damage that your kids will suffer psychologically from the lack of sufficient attention.

Learn to strike a balance between business matters and personal matters because too much or too little of either would bring about disastrous results. Just like how you must not bring personal matters to work, you should minimize talking about business matters during family and personal time. For those who earn as high as the skyscrapers they work in, who forget to come down from time to time, always remember the reason why you work hard. Make time to live that reason.

*Originally published by the Manila Bulletin. C-6, Sunday, June 15, 2014. Written by Ruben Anlacan, Jr. (President, BusinessCoach, Inc.) All rights reserved. May not be reproduced or copied without express written permission of the copyright holders.