Improving Your Work/Life Balance

A Practical Guide

Sorin Dumitrascu

• Publisher: PublishDrive
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9798201045890
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Workplace Culture
• Index: Business

People with a healthy work/life balance are satisfied with their work and home lives and can fulfill their multiple responsibilities at home, work, and in the community without guilt or regret. They're healthy physically, emotionally, and socially, have a sense of control over their life, and feel that the decisions they make are informed choices as opposed to forced sacrifices. In this course, you'll learn about how to detect imbalances between home and work and how to achieve a healthy work/life balance.

If you're one of the lucky people who has achieved a good work/life balance, you know you can't just rest on your laurels. Maintaining that balance takes constant vigilance. You still need to defend yourself from any potential threats – that is, demands from other people, new responsibilities, and other changes that may affect your life balance. In this course you'll learn about simplifying your life to maintain balance, communicating assertively to set your limits, and reframing expectations to maintain balance.

Stress is an inevitable part of work life. Looming deadlines, personality conflicts, and ever-expanding to-do lists are often out of your control and can end up leaving you burned out. But you can control your reaction to the causes of stress. In this course, you'll learn about the health impacts of stress, the characteristics of burnout, as well as ways of coping with stress. You'll also explore a model for identifying and managing irrational thoughts related to stressful events.

Putting the ABC Model to Work

People's response to a stressful event is usually based on their perception of that event. And if their perception is irrational, it can cause even more stress.

However, you can overcome this irrational or negative reaction using a three-step process. First, identify your beliefs about the actual event. Next, challenge your thoughts by asking questions that force you to be objective. Then replace your negative or irrational thoughts with positive, rational ones.

Irrational or negative thoughts are often caused by thinking errors, such as thinking in absolute terms, assuming you know what others are thinking or know, and assuming that similar situations will always turn out the same.

To overcome these errors, as ask yourself “Am I overreacting?” “Are my expectations realistic?” “Am I taking things too personally?” or “Am I wrongly blaming myself or others?”

Challenging yourself to reframe your thinking can help you manage your reaction to stressful events, and in turn, the stress you feel. Learning to combat negativity and irrational thoughts is a good way to do this. It will also give you a more positive outlook on life in general and feel better about yourself.

Take Matthew for example. He's just received an e-mail telling him that he'll be delivering a sales pitch to a prospective new client. Right away, he gets stressed out and thinks to himself “There's no way I'll be able to stand up and talk in front of all those people.”

Then Matthew remembers the ABC model. So he first examines why he reacted that way. He admits to himself that he believes he can't give sales presentations…that he's not confident enough, and not a good speaker.

Next, he challenges these negative thoughts. He asks himself “Am I really that bad of a speaker? Or am I just being really hard on myself?” Matthew then recalls a presentation he gave some months back. He remembers being nervous at the start, but that overall it went well. His manager even congratulated him. But all he thinks about is his nervousness. And since then he's avoided giving presentations at all costs. He recognizes that his reaction is holding him back and challenges his thinking by considering whether his perception of his skills undermines his true abilities.

Matthew then replaces his negative thoughts about the sales pitch. From now on, when asked to do something that he feels anxious about and thinks will turn out badly, he'll view the event as an opportunity for personal growth.

Checking your beliefs in response to a stressful event is a good idea. Doing so will help you have a more resilient reaction to the stressful situation you face. And that will lower the overall level of stress you experience.

Table of Contents

• Taking Stock of Your Work/Life Balance
• Managing a Balancing Act
• When the Balance Shifts
• The Benefits that Come from Being in Balance
• How Is Your Work/Life Balance?
• The Battle between Your Work and Private Life
• The Barriers that Make Change Difficult
• Overcoming External Obstacles
• Staying Balanced in a Shifting World
• It's Work to Maintain Balance
• The Benefits of Simplicity
• Make Changes to Simplify Your Life
• Your Behavioral Style Affects Your Life Balance
• Setting Your Limits
• Reframing Situations to Maintain Balance
• Take a Deep Breath and Manage Your Stress
• Getting a Handle on Stress
• The Toll that Stress Takes
• Beyond Just a Feeling - What Is Stress
• The Signs of Burnout
• Tips to Better Cope with Stress
• The ABC Model - Moving from Negative to Positive
• Putting the ABC Model to Work

© Sorin Dumitrascu 2021

Table of contents

• Taking Stock of Your Work/Life Balance
• Managing a Balancing Act
• When the Balance Shifts
• The Benefits that Come from Being in Balance
• How Is Your Work/Life Balance?
• The Battle between Your Work and Private Life
• The Barriers that Make Change Difficult
• Overcoming External Obstacles
• Staying Balanced in a Shifting World
• It's Work to Maintain Balance
• The Benefits of Simplicity
• Make Changes to Simplify Your Life
• Your Behavioral Style Affects Your Life Balance
• Setting Your Limits
• Reframing Situations to Maintain Balance
• Take a Deep Breath and Manage Your Stress
• Getting a Handle on Stress
• The Toll that Stress Takes
• Beyond Just a Feeling - What Is Stress
• The Signs of Burnout
• Tips to Better Cope with Stress
• The ABC Model - Moving from Negative to Positive
• Putting the ABC Model to Work