Making the Internet My Accountability Partner

For the vast majority of us, work takes up a significant amount of our waking hours. And thus, it also creates a majority of the stress we experience. Having good stress management techniques helps and so does investing in yourself outside of the identity you carry at work. Work-life balance is crucial to keeping our lives on a more even keel.

Yes, this means leaving work at your desk and leaving it out of your mind when you clock out. But I have via experience realized that just because you’re not focusing on work while off the clock doesn’t mean you have a good work-life balance. It is also being interested in your life outside of work. At one point in time, I was working in such a stressful role that I would come home and lie down on the couch with the quickest food I could find (often popcorn) and a spiked seltzer. And that was it for hours, then I’d go to bed and do it all over again the next day. Work had consumed so much from me that I had nothing for the life part of the work-life equation.

I knew that I had to start setting some boundaries at work. I stopped saying yes to extra tasks. I communicated realistic deadlines, although there were always things that sabotaged my best-laid plans. I began advocating for my needs with my team. Since the stress had started at work, I found myself skipping lunch because I was too stressed to be hungry and too busy to take the time away from my desk. So naturally I decided to force myself to step away from my desk, even if I only ate a protein bar because I was still too stressed to eat.

I am lucky enough to be in a field where I have plenty of opportunities for mobility. Once I realized that my problems at work weren’t something I could cope my way out of, I began applying to other positions. And now that I knew what would be overwhelming for me I could be selective in the jobs I applied to. This helped me land a role at an outpatient mental health clinic with a structure I could thrive in. I kept a lot of the techniques I had developed to keep my work-life balance in check and I began to invest in myself again.

As much as I love what I do, I am starting to view work as just a piece of my life that enables me to do everything that makes me, me. I am aware that as we move through life and the world changes around us the skills and habits that maintain this delicate balance will inevitably change. With my hard-earned realization of its importance, I have no doubt I will continue to prioritize finding my balance as life changes. I would love to hear about some of the things that have helped you find the work-life balance that works best for your circumstances.