What work-life balance are you daring to vote for?

As I write, we are in the grip of election fever in the UK, again! Our voting cards arrived through the letter box today reminding me that it’s time once again to choose.  In the case of The Election, it’s our choice who we vote for.  It also made me think about choice in general and how it relates to work-life balance. My question for you is, ‘what work-life balance are you ‘voting for’?  Put another way, what work-life balance are you choosing for yourself?  I ask this question because not many people see it as a choice, their thinking being that they have no control over their situation.

It’s your choice

I would offer a different perspective on that. Work-life balance is a choice. It’s up to each of us to make the choice that is right for us. This is not, however, something that will be achieved without a commitment to living the life we want to lead. To do that means being aware of our core values. It also means switching off auto-pilot and being intentional and what we do, when we do it and how much time we spend doing it.

The power of positive intentions

When we have clarity about what we want and what is important to us, it’s possible to set intentions each day that help keep that vision alive. Being habitual about creating positive intentions trains our thought patterns to flow in a deliberate and positive way.   Imagining yourself doing something makes it more likely that you will do it in reality.  I am a fan of The Daily Greatness series and I use my daily journal to set myself up for success each day.  One of the 8 daily steps described at the beginning of the Daily Greatness Journal is the art of setting intentions.

“Intention is your underlying motivation for any action you take and more than anything else, is responsible for the results you get in life.”

Being conscious about what actions you take and your emotional state, allows you to respond to situations throughout your day in a deliberate manner rather than unconsciously reacting.

According to life coach John D. Moore your brain is a powerful “pattern recognition engine”

“Intention—more than any other thing you can choose—drives our behaviour on a conscious and unconscious level.”

See full article here.

To set a positive intention try forming a statement that describes how you want to be that day. For example, if you want to ensure you leave the office on time you could create an intention such as “I am organised and will easily finish my objectives for today” or “I am in control, will complete my proposal and be home in time to have dinner with the kids”, you get the idea.  The point is that you are in charge of setting a clear intent for how you want your day to play out rather than waiting for the world to happen to you.  You need to engage manual mode.  When you think about your day, how would you complete the following sentence:

Today I am ………..

 

Shifting from impossible to possible

During sessions when my clients are struggling to find a positive perspective I often say that if they look for obstacles they will find them.  I then flip things round to shift their thinking to look for opportunities.  When we apply this to work-life balance it’s easy to choose the perspective that “work-life balance is impossible” and find lots of supporting evidence to prove our theory. By simply changing the word ‘impossible’ to ‘possible’ it’s amazing what can open up. Try it! “Work-life balance is possible.” When you think about that statement and choose to create a positive intention what opens up for you?

I would love to hear your thoughts on this and how you’re choosing to make work-life balance possible for yourself.  What are you voting for at the work-life balance ballot box?

Get my free guide to improving your work-life balance, click on the image below:

 

 

Photo credit: <a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/51035796522@N01/61280221/”>Fifi LePew</a> via <a href=”https://visualhunt.com/re/5be183″>Visualhunt</a> / <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/”> CC BY-NC</a>

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