This is me at my desk in my lovely garden office, I’ve been spending a LOT of time here and I’m going to be real with you, behind this smile… recently that’s not been making me very happy.
My work/life balance was off
The dreaded Blue Monday feeling caught up with me last week and it hit me like a tonne of bricks.
Maybe it’s being surrounded by all of the ‘New Year, exciting new things’ buzz on social media when I wasn’t feeling excited.
Maybe it’s feeling overwhelmed with all of the changes happening in my business life at the moment.
Maybe it’s the menopause? 😬
Or maybe it’s just that sometimes on a grey day when you’re cold and feeling a bit miserable – everything is just a bit much 🤷♀️
And it’s easy to spiral into those feelings and get down and feel useless and a bit guilty for feeling that way. But, that’s not very helpful to anyone.
I realised I was feeling unhappy because I was spending far too much time working and not enough relaxing and connecting with my ‘non-work life’. My work/life balance was completely off!
Whilst I absolutely love my work many other important things make me happy too.
So I made a change
I took stock of my day-to-day and worked to redress the balance with my tried and tested method:
- Stop something
- Start something
- Keep doing something
Stop Something
I am the proud franchisee for The Women In Business Network and I love running these fun and supportive groups. I had two new groups scheduled to launch in February and March 2024 to add to my 4 existing ones.
BUT!
And it’s a big but! I was feeling stressed with managing the organisation of the launch. Between managing the attendees, venue, food and advertising it wasn’t bringing me joy. Because I had too much on my plate.
So, I stopped.
I will still launch these groups, just a little later in the year when I haven’t got quite as much on my plate.
When I was taking stock of my day-to-day and thinking about the things that make me happy (and unhappy) I realised that I was missing my ‘me time’ and ‘us time’.
I enjoy visiting new places, walking my dogs and going to the gym. However, just recently it’s felt really hard to fit these things in.
Between the working week being jam-packed and weekends filled with appointments and football practice it was difficult to fit it all in.
Start Something
I have a ‘Places we want to go’ inspiration board on my fridge and it felt impossible that we were going to be able to go to any of them with the way things were.
So, it was time to start something… And that something was carving out more time for things that aren’t work.
Time for the gym – instead of trying to fit it in the evenings and weekends I am now going 2 days a week at 9 am, I can start my working day at 10am on those days. And that’s OK; it’s what works for me and I will do this guilt free.
Time for ‘us’ and visiting places. – once a month I have blocked out one or two days in my diary to do something fun with my husband. This will be mid-week, just for us. No work, no commitments, no obligations – just because it makes us happy. Again I will do this guilt-free.
Keep Doing Something
I will keep doing the work that I love as a DISC Trainer and Women In Business Network franchisee. Because it makes me happy. It wasn’t the work itself that was making me unhappy. It was my work/life balance that wasn’t quite right.
But don’t you feel selfish?
This is a question I hear a lot from people when they are addressing work/life balance. We are trained to feel that we should be working all of the time and it’s selfish to take time out to do things we want to do.
Self-care isn’t selfish
It’s selfless!
It’s so important to recognise the things we need to keep us happy. That’s how we maintain happy relationships with the people we care about.
Lightbulb Moments
Before I discovered DISC personality profiling I would struggle to maintain balance in my life.
Why was I unhappy? Why did I struggle to understand the things that other people needed to be happy?
As soon as I worked with DISC and understood myself and the people around me everything fell into place.
How?
DISC helps you understand which environments you thrive in, what makes you tick and your strengths and weaknesses.
It also helps you understand how you like to be communicated with and how to communicate with others.
- First, recognise the things that make us happy and make sure we do them.
- Second, recognise the things that make our loved ones happy and respect their need to do them.
This results in a happy and healthy life and relationship with clear communication – not two exhausted and wrung-out people angrily snapping at each other.
It’s all about communication
Even with the understanding that DISC brings no person or relationship is perfect – so communication is key!
I love this quote by the wonderful Brené Brown which describes a partnership perfectly.
“Everyone says marriage should be 50/50. It’s a biggest crap of bullsh*t I’ve ever heard. It’s never 50/50. Ever.
What we do is we quantify where we are. So if Steve comes home and he’ll be like I got 20. ‘In terms of energies.’ I’ll be like, I’ll cover you. I got you brother. Like I’ll pull the 80.
Sometimes we come home which we’ve done a lot… and I say I’ve got 10 and Steve like two days ago said I’m riding a solid 25. So we know that we’ve to sit down at the table anytime we have less than a 100 combined. And figure out a plan of kindness towards each other.
Because the thing is marriage is not something that’s 50/50. A partnership works when you can carry their 20 or they can carry your 20 and that when you both just have 20 you have a plan where you don’t hurt each other.”
Brené Brown
The things that work for us
So, here’s to maintaining the balance. Prioritising the things that make us happy and looking after the important people in our lives.
If you are interested to find out how DISC could help you to prioritise your happiness and help you to maintain happy relationships at home and work I’d love to help.
DISC is the best training you can invest in to help you develop your people skills.
Drop me a line to susie@showthelight.ltd.