You’re work-life balance shouldn’t be balanced
Why the scales should lean towards life
Time might be forever, but for us, it is counting down to a finish line. For us, it is not finite. There is a deadline, and living in a deadline driven era can make time pressure feel even more substantial.
Think of something you’d much rather do than work. I bet you can think of a few. Giving up your hobbies isn’t only detrimental to you, but also to your place of employment. Personally, when I am able to engage in my hobbies, it increases my overall mood and productivity, helping me even when I’m on the clock.
I personally enjoy sports, working out, and making music. When I am able to do these things, the positivity carries over into my work. Too often, and not unique to me, I get sucked into working a 50+ hour week with off the clock emails and phone calls. After those longer work days, it is easy to get home, kick the shoes off, and do something sedentary in nature, like video games or Netflix, the leisure activity of choice for most.
However, when I do spend time on my hobbies, I am able to develop and expand some personal skills that are beneficial to me overall, as well as in the workplace.
Confidence — I believe in me
Sports and working out both contribute to building on my confidence. Working out allows me to feel good about myself and comfortable in my own skin. If you’ve ever worked out, you know the feeling. If you aren’t working yourself into a sweaty pile of goo, getting the blood and endorphins flowing increases your mood and will improve your confidence in yourself, positively impacting your work performance.
Sports allows me to socialize, improving my confidence in networking like environments. It also allows me to improve skills regarding stress and pressure management.
Recreational sports are perfect opportunities to make mistakes and learn ways of bouncing back. Since mistakes are abundant in athletic environments, the skill of resilience is learned that could boost workplace confidence, even post-mistake.
Sports also contribute to confidence with successes. This may have been obvious, but winning competitive events is a quick way to boosting confidence in yourself. Now, winning every game isn’t likely, however, there are other ways to benefit from athletics besides just winning.
Building confidence isn’t limited to my hobbies either. Simply engaging in an activity that you enjoy doing can boost your confidence in yourself. Typically, if you enjoy it, you are probably good at it. Doing something you enjoy and are good at will make you believe more in yourself, and making time in the day to do those activities will help that feeling carry over into the work place.
Perseverance — Ability to push through
The short explanation to this is, with an activity you enjoy doing, it is much easier to want to push through the shit and continue what you are doing or working towards.
For me, working out is continuous perseverance, lifting heavy weights until my arms are spaghetti noodles. Sports also clearly fit into this category, staying persistent in the fight for success despite mistakes or setbacks.
But perseverance isn’t limited to those either. Often times, with music, I run into a creative block where nothing I make sounds good to me. Staying persistent and staying the course is imperative if I intend to continue to make music.
Any time you carry on when the going gets a little tough, you are persevering. It is easier to do that with tasks you enjoy, and will help you build upon the skill, increasing the likeliness that it carries over to your employment.
Creativity — Problem solving outside of the box
Creativity is an extremely important skill to have especially in workplaces that are becoming more modernized and flexible, focusing on innovation and quality rather than productivity and quantity. Having the skill of creativity essentially means that you are able to see the world in new ways. With this, the ability to think outside the box, make new connections, find solutions, and link seemingly unrelated things.
Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. — Steve Jobs
Engaging in your hobbies and your life outside of work will boost your creativity. It will allow you to bring outside experiences into your work and be inspired by worldly events. A lot of great, fundamental theories and ideas were generated through engaging in other activities.
Nobel-prizewinning physicist Murray Gell-Mann, who theorized about subatomic particles, was influenced by reading about the philosophy behind Buddhism. Galileo realized that the shadows on the moon were actually the moon’s rough and mountainous terrain, despite it being believed to be smooth. He was inspired through his hobby in painting, learning how to recreate three dimensional objects.
Creativity is everywhere. Finding it in yourself starts with giving yourself the time to cultivate it by setting time aside for you to engage in the activities you enjoy doing.
Team work — How to work together to accomplish common goals
This one needs no explanation. Whether you are are a CEO or a low-level employee, you are almost always working with or for someone else. Even if you are running your own business, this would mean that you have customers of some sort. Understanding the customer and working with them is a skill directly related to team work.
Not all hobbies can contribute to this skill, but if your hobby involves working with other people, like sports or making music with others (my examples), it is an easy way to build and develop this skill while also doing something you enjoy. Having 15 years of football, including 5 at the collegiate level, I can very easily say that it contributed greatly to my development of team work.
Essentially, the first step is to stop feeling bad about having things you enjoy doing and interests outside of work. On a few occasions, I have had a day off where all it takes is a small thought about the work I’m missing that I’ll have to catch up and, all of the sudden, a relaxing day off becomes an unpaid anxiety filled work day.
The more time you give to the ‘life’ side of the scale, the easier it will become to be comfortable with taking time off. On top of that, the more you dedicate to your hobbies and passions, the more skills you develop that are extremely beneficial in the work place. So tip the scale.
