How do you think about work life balance?

24 hours in a day, 168 hours in a week. Junior investment bankers regularly work 80-90 hours a week. Many other high profile professions require the same level of commitment. Often those on the outside claim that working 80-90 hours a week is bad/wrong/terrible/silly/etc but we’ve spoken with so many folks who say working that much has been the best decision of their life – it allowed them to develop a deep and strong skill set far faster than would have been possible otherwise. In other words, by working 2x the hours, they were able to generate 5x or more the rewards. And depending on where you are in your career, investing heavily in your skills and competence can pay dividends for a long time.
It has been a journey to creating balance in my life. I use to be a burnt out overwhelmed human in all aspects of life. I would take on more than I had space and capacity for and would run on empty. I tried to do it all. I shoulded all over myself and thought that to be successful and to be considered a hard worker and not lazy I had to operate in this way. About 1.5 years ago I was talking to a friend about working smarter, not harder, except what came out of my mouth was that I wanted to work easier not harder. I liked that slip so much, I started to make it my reality. I realized I was still operating in a very masculine way, which is not me! The feminine receives and invites, there isn’t a push which is what I had been doing constantly! I started to give myself permission to focus more on less things. To really find my foundation and to let everything else go. I started setting stronger boundaries around my time and started making even more time for me. Read more>>
Finding balance during this pandemic has been a trick. There has been so much uncertainty that it truly has been hard trying to find a balance between work life and home life when both are intertwined. I find myself even being creative within the parameters of hours of the day. The best way I have found to be successful is to simply set boundaries. I have this set amount of time to accomplish this task, if I don’t I have to move it to tomorrow and move to the next thing. This mentality has especially been helpful with homelife as well. I carry the burden of accomplishing the world daily that I feel like a failure if I don’t. In order to avoid this, I empty my brain, make a list, and plan for each hour of the day. This makes things more achievable and I can physically see all I have accomplished. This has been the key to finding the balance for me, making sure I am intentional in both work life and home life. Read more>>
Work/Life balance is a mirage and an unhelpful concept in the pursuit of a great life. This work/life balance idea stems from 175 years of living in what is still know as “The Factory System”, which 90+% of all organizations still use as their operating system. In 1850, for the first time in history, more people left their homes to “go” to work than were working in their homes. And virtually of the work we “went” to was radically different than the work we had done in our homes. It was instantly dehumanizing, demeaning, and largely brainless, and something people just put up with so they could go home and be human again. For the first time, we divided work from personal life, and work became an unwelcome interruption in an otherwise great day. Parents taught their children, “you don’t go to work to make meaning or make friends, you go to work to make money so you can make meaning and friends outside of work. Read more>>
In my 20s and into my 30s, I prioritized work over personal time and, unfortunately, time with others. My advancement in my career was over-woven into my identity and, too often, my self-worth. In more recent years, my concept of success has changed considerably, and too, my sense of balance. I’m defining it more as a process of letting go, than striving these days. Read more>>
I am a self employed visual artist and professor at Regis University. I have been a visual artists professionally for almost 40 years and a professor for almost 20 years. They are a good blend and contrast for me and my art. One profession informs the other. My long experience in the artworld and as an artist has help me in my teaching. I feel I can bring real world examples/experiences in development of the courses I teach and how engagement and challenge my students. The opposite is also true. I learn from my students and they also challenge me. I have had to learn how to verbalize and demonstrate, techniques in a variety of media and explain content, context and ideas in art. My wife and son are also artists. My wife Sylvia Montero creates paintings, photography and collages. Our son Cipriano Ortrega is a musician and actor. We support and encourage each other in our personally and public lives. It does create harmony between us but at times life can be a little kaotic. Read more>>
In my younger years, I was very achievement oriented. I was always striving for something bigger and working toward some lofty goal or metric. As a result of this constant state of striving, I found myself feeling burned out, out of balance and overwhelmed–which is NOT the way that I (as a Life Coach) wanted to feel. I knew that something had to change because how could I effectively coach my clients if I, myself wasn’t living a fulfilling life? Now that I’ve matured and grown into my business, I am far less focused on “achievement” and far more focused on “alignment”. Because of this shift, I’ve found it much easier for me to ground myself in what truly matters for me and therefore; I am also better equipped to help my clients do the same. This shift from achievement to alignment doesn’t mean that I am no longer ambitious, nor does it mean that I no longer go after meaningful goals. Read more>>