Does your job leave you time and energy for the other aspects of your life? Do you think that the reconciliation of work and personal life is a myth? If I ask you what is the most important thing in your life, I imagine that work will come after family, health, friends ... However, it is likely that your work takes most of your time, energy, imagination, ability decision … If you want to check the balance you currently have in your life, you can do a self-diagnosis with the Wheel of Life .

1. Actions To Encourage Work And
Personal Balance In Workers In
Companies!
It is the interest of organizations today, to encourage in their collaborators
the balance between personal and family life for several reasons: first,
due to an awareness of social responsibility, and second, as a reaction to
the new ways of thinking of people in relation to meaning. from work
(work to live, not live to work) and finally as a loyalty strategy for its
employees.
This is why intentional actions to encourage said balance become a
powerful tool to prevent effects derived from stress, since they favor the
increase of regulators associated with family and social life. It is
important to bear in mind that the benefit is not limited exclusively to
physical and mental health, there are also effects on job satisfaction,

2. which is reflected in the decrease in turnover and absenteeism indicators
in organizations.
Here are some simple actions that will make it easier to achieve balance:
● To sensitize leaders to this issue to avoid actions such as: assigning
activities frequently outside the day, contacting their workers during
non-working hours for issues that can be resolved the next day, etc.
With this, the collaborators manage to “disconnect” during the break
time and enjoy family time
● Allow vacation days to be taken at various times of the year. This
allows more times a year to have spaces for interaction and
relaxation with the family.

3. ● Implement flexible hours, with different options; Thus, people will
be able to respond for the assigned results, attending to some
family matters, which if not attended to, generate tension and blur
● Provide spaces according to the particularities of the population, for
example, free afternoon on Halloween for those with children under
certain years
● Within the labor welfare agreements, include entities related to
healthy eating, sports activities, family activities, hobbies, etc.
● Generate policies regarding departure and entry times. Preventing
people from starting earlier or lengthening their day, unnecessarily.
● Train employees in techniques for effective time management and
prevention of procrastination
Personal, team and finally organizational productivity cannot be achieved
if people are not connected and since the human being is integral and
personal and family life is the protagonist of any person's life, it becomes
an issue. to attend to in organizational environments, to be sustainable
and facilitate the expected growth.
WORK IS NOT THE MOST
IMPORTANT THING
Does your job leave you time and energy for the other aspects of your life?
Do you think that the reconciliation of work and personal life is a myth?

4. If I ask you what is the most important thing in your life, I imagine that work
will come after family, health, friends ... However, it is likely that your work
takes most of your time, energy, imagination, ability decision … If you want to
check the balance you currently have in your life, you can do a self-diagnosis
with the Wheel of Life .
In general, I have been able to verify that the work takes the best of most
people, and cI think this should not be so. In this post I want to share with
you some thoughts about it. But first I leave you a wise phrase from my
friend the little prince:
I know a planet where there is a ruddy Lord. He never smelled a flower. He
never looked at a star. He never loved anyone. He never did anything but
accounts. And all day he repeats like you: "I am a serious man! I am a
serious man!" and that inflates him with pride. But he is not a man, he is a
mushroom!
Why should we
reflect on the
importance we
attach to work?
Bronnie Ware , an Australian palliative care nurse, accompanied terminally ill
patients for years. Through the conversations he had with them he
discovered that their regrets had certain similarities. He decided to collect

5. such wise recommendations in his book " The Five Commandments To Have
A Full Life ", or "Top Five Regrets of The Dying".
And where does the job rank on this list of regrets? The second!
Ware sums it up like this "I wish I hadn't worked so hard . " Unsurprisingly,
this regret is more common among men. Almost all of the men served by
Ware regretted that they spent most of their lives at work instead of
spending more time with their family watching their children grow up.
I think it is reason enough to reflect deeply, proactively , before reaching the
age of 80.
I also made this same observation accompanying people at the end of their
life… work. In my first professional experience, at the headquarters of a large
French company in Paris, I met many executives about to retire. They had
had a successful professional career, but many of them regretted having
sacrificed other aspects of their lives. This first experience made me reflect.
By the way, you can read my other article to discover all these most common
regrets. But I anticipate that the regret that occupies the first position in the
Bronnie Ware ranking is: "I wish I had the courage to live the life that I wanted
and not the one that others expected of me" Does that sound familiar? If not,
I recommend you go through my manifesto.

6. Why does work
absorb us so much?
In general, work occupies us a lot ... too much. It is common to leave work
tired, without energy and with a lot of stress.
If so, why do we dedicate so much to work? I know the answer is not unique,
but I want to share with you some reasons that I have discovered based on
my own work experience.
1. We need to earn a salary
Work is essential for most people in order to survive or reach a certain
standard of living. That does not mean that we should make it a speculative
activity. Many people long for a higher and higher salary. They progressively
adapt their consumption habits to salary increases and end up being
prisoners of this level of income to maintain their way of life.
I am not saying that it is not true that the financial need may be great. But if
the work that allows you to meet your needs does not allow you to live a life
according to your mission and vision , then I think you should look for an
alternative.
2. We seek social recognition
One of the first questions a stranger asks us when we start a conversation is
"What do you do?" This says a lot about the importance we place on work.

7. Work gives us status and social recognition. This is even more evident in
countries like Italy in which the profession is used to identify someone
outside of work "Doctor", "Engineer" ...
In our society it is much more difficult to achieve this type of social
recognition through other aspects such as the way we care for and educate
our children. I think the mothers and fathers who have decided to quit their
job to dedicate themselves to their children will agree with me.
In my opinion, this search for recognition through the profession is food for
our ego. It is an approach that makes little sense if we look at it a little
perspective. Who wants to be remembered on the day of his funeral for
having been a great financial analyst?
A particular case of social recognition is that of our parents. It may seem
anecdotal but I think it is not. In conversations with friends and colleagues I

8. have come across many people pursuing a position that allows them to
achieve that recognition.
3. It brings us satisfaction in the short term
I think it is much easier to achieve "success" in work than in the rest of the
aspects of life . If we dedicate time to our work, we will end up achieving
mastery that will give us some satisfaction. It also allows us to get specific
short-term recognition (congratulations, raises, incentives ...) and our ego
likes that a lot.
These kinds of "awards" are much harder to come by outside of work. There
is no incentive for having managed to give the children a good education.
Efforts in the couple, friends, children's education, personal development,
health ... give long-term results and are more difficult to measure.
4. We let others decide for us

9. It seems that the path marked out for a successful professional career is that
of promotion to positions of increasing responsibility . However, having the
capacity to fill a position does not automatically mean that we should take
the leap.
I do not know if it works the same in other countries, but from my short
experience I am clear that a promotion is associated with more
responsibilities, availability, worries, stress ... That is why I am clear that we
should not take this step without having assessed the effect on our balance
and if the new position is aligned with our personal and professional mission
and vision .
I have never had ambition. I only seek to do things that interest me, in which I
can contribute and that allow me to grow as a person. I think this comes from
a life lesson I received in my youth:

10. My mother worked for many years as a nurse, caring for the elderly. It was
done in this profession because an essential part of his life purpose was to
help people. In the last 10 years of her career, she was "promoted" to head of
a small nursing home. Although he continued to contribute to helping people,
his daily work had a large part of personnel management, administration,
billing ...
This change that could be seen as a professional "success" translated into a
distancing from his purpose and a higher level of stress and worry. In his last
year of work, he had the courage to ask to return to his previous position. It
was a great lesson for me.
And then is there
something good in
the job?
Of course! Work is an essential part of our life.
Karl Marx already said in the XIX century "work dignifies man" . I am clear
that a well planned job makes us feel accomplished, capable, useful,
necessary, self-sufficient, part of society …
In fact, I don't think it's a good option to have a boring job for the money we
need. Although it allows us to have a good family conciliation. We would be
wasting 8 valuable hours each day of the only life that we have to live.

11. Work also helps us develop and grow as people. This reason is what guides
me, in addition to charging a floor 😉
I have always looked in my jobs for an opportunity to learn, develop new
skills, get out of my comfort zone ... In fact, it was the main reason for my
last job change. Leaving a job that no longer gave me so much, for another
that is allowing me to grow.
Not to mention all the vocational or service professions. In this case, work
becomes a tool to achieve its purpose. Anyway, I think you should always try
to maintain balance.
I love this phrase from Confucius "Choose a job that you like and you will not
have to work a day of your life."
How do you get a
good work-life
balance?
To begin with, we should not let others decide the type of work that
corresponds to us or the time that we should dedicate to it. There is a lot of
victimhood in relation to work. "It is that my work is all urgent", "It is that in
my company it is not well seen to leave on time", "It is that no colleague has
asked for full paternity leave" ... All these phrases consolidate us in a
position of victim instead of taking our responsibilities and proactively
deciding this important aspect of our lives.

12. Luckily we live in a time and in a society in which slavery does not exist.
Except for very special cases, when you say "They force me to work longer
hours", you are the one who decides to do it.
The first thing we need is to be clear about the space we want to reserve for
work in our life. For this it helps a lot to be clear about our mission and
personal and professional vision. If you haven't done it yet, I encourage you
to define your personal 5-year vision using the template that you can
download in my toolkit:
Once you are clear that you are the only one responsible for your life and you
know where you want to take it, you will have no difficulty in making the right
decisions at all times. In my brief professional career, I have missed some
"opportunities" to make the leap to positions of greater responsibility,
because I felt that they were not aligned with what I was looking for at that
time.

13. When I had my children, the fact of being clear about the priorities in my life
made me ask for several reductions in working hours. I was the first man in
my company to do it and I am clear that it was the best decision.
Enjoying the afternoon with my first daughter Candela. I could have been
in a very important meeting ...
When we dedicate too much time to work, we end up leaving aside many
other commitments with ourselves and with others (relationship with a
partner, education of children, sports, hobbies ...). One way to ensure that
work does not end up occupying all the available space is precisely by
making firm commitments in other aspects of our lives. In my case, the
attention that I want to dedicate to my children or the commitment to write in
this blog acts as a "short fire".

14. If you are interested in the idea of ​​committing yourself in a balanced way to
each of the aspects of your life, then I am sure you will like my CreaTuVida
agenda.

15.
conclusion
I think we are all clear that work is not everything in life. However, most
people will at some point regret spending too much time on it. But on a daily
basis there are many factors that push us to dedicate more and more to work
(more money, recognition, ego…) to the detriment of other aspects of our
lives.
Work plays an essential role in our life and in our development as a person.
But it is up to us to define the place we want it to occupy. In the end
everything is in balance.
I leave you with an inspirational quote and some practical advice.

16. And remember, you decide your life if you don't want others to decide for
you!
A hug! Sylvain.
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