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ResilienceWork-Life Balance

8 Tips to Balance Work and Life

balancing life and work

As you pursue work and personal interests, be mindful that work-life balance means different things to different people. Prioritize what is important. Put energy into those things that mean something to you.

Here are eight simple ways to manage the stress of work-life balance:

  1. Start the day with a healthy breakfast and take a scheduled lunch, as diet management is important for your overall health.
  2. Begin work on time and end on time.
  3. Exchange services with friends, such as gardening or babysitting.
  4. Create a to-do list with three tasks that you complete at the start of the day.
  5. Schedule time with a friend or family member without interruptions (e.g., put phone away).
  6. Consider recreational activities, back packing, sky diving, swimming, bowling, or tennis.
  7. Consider leisure activities, such as strength training, making art, dancing, play video games.
  8. Get 7 hours sleep, avoid using sleeping pills, and reduce exposure to light before bedtime.

8 Elements of Resilience

Using the acronym FABULOUS, here are eight elements of resilience:

Flexibility: reframe the way you think about how you manage work and nonwork time.

Attitude: maintain a positive attitude as you adapt healthy life strategies (e.g., diet, exercise).

Boundaries: set and communicate boundaries and know when they have been crossed

United: maintain and nurture relationships that are work and non-work related.

Laughter: keep your sense of humor, as it is a trait that helps you to manage stress.

Optimism: while being realistic, maintain hope, and have a positive point of view.

Understand job satisfaction: focus on why you do your job and how it fulfills you.

Self-compassion: when you fail, don’t blow it out of proportion.

Eight elements of the FABULOUS framework help you to build personal resilience. Without resilience, wellbeing will suffer. Work-life balance is associated with wellbeing. The working environment needs to promote wellbeing. If you are achieving wellbeing than you are achieving work-life balance. Performance is enhanced as job satisfaction is increased.

Bottom line is that when personal life decreases stress and increases a sense of achievement while improving work performance, then you have work-life balance.  Enjoy family, friends, or a favorite hobby, and strike a balance between work and nonwork life.

Reflection

Have you struck a balance between work and nonwork life?

Barbara is a leading authority and best-selling author on managing burnout, secondary traumatic stress, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma. As a nationally recognized keynote speaker, she motivates audiences to build their resilience and create work-life balance. Her programs help leaders and teams manage workplace chronic stressors and get over burnout at work.

Barbara's newest book, "But I Didn't Say Goodbye: Helping Families After a Suicide", is available now on Amazon - https://amzn.to/2FwS6JI

• Three weeks prior to giving birth to triplets, her father died by suicide. Her story was featured in the Emmy award winning documentary, Fatal Mistakes, Families Shattered by Suicide narrated by Mariette Hartley. Many employees are grieving personal loss. She offers programs for leaders on lost productivity and performance while managing grief at work.

• As a sought-after keynote speaker who has presented to over 500 groups since 1991, including corporations, state and national associations and non-profit organizations, Barbara offers work-life balance strategies for leaders to implement right away. With clarity and humor, her speaking engagements are designed to give audiences powerful and practical strategies of work-life balance, wellbeing, and self-care that can be implemented immediately.

• Barbara is a Board-Certified Expert in Traumatic Stress and Diplomate with the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress. She received a Bachelor of Science in psychology and a Master of Arts degree in community health, with a concentration in thanatology, both from Brooklyn College.

Email: BarbaraRubel@BarbaraRubel.com
Website: www.barbararubel.com

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