You're Missing Your Life
“You’re missing your life.”
This whispered in my mind early in my corporate career, when I first desired a better work-life balance. I really, really cared about doing great work and performing at a high level. I had a strong work ethic (which I had to redefine for myself years later) and prided myself on going above and beyond. I was also feeling way too busy and spread thin. I’d just come back to work after my first maternity leave and was figuring out how to juggle my work with a toddler in the mix. One particular day, I remember sitting in a team meeting for a planning session on employee engagement results. Lack of resources and work-life balance were the top two issues. This wasn’t anything new, and the resourcing issue always seemed to trump and take the focus. I remember wondering, Why isn’t anyone paying attention to the whole work-life balance thing? It’s when I first had this nudge, this feeling that there had to be a better way to approach our work and how we live our lives. But we just stayed in the same old grind—and seriously out of balance.
“You’re missing your life.”
About a year before I left my corporate career, that same voice whispered in my head. It was around the time when I made the bold decision to stop overworking, set a strong boundary between my work and personal time, and get back to a forty-hour workweek DURING the most demanding time of my corporate career. I’d been working most evenings and weekends—sixty to eighty hour weeks—and felt like I was drowning in everything I “had” to do. I was exhausted and overwhelmed every single day. I still showed up pretty well at work (or so I thought) but had very little energy or patience left by the time I got home. My work got the best side of me, and my husband and kids got the worst side.
In my defense (and yours, too, if this is you), I had very little left in the tank to give.
“You’re missing your life.”
The voice whispered in my head again when I was on summer vacation at the lake a few weeks before I gave my notice at work. I was spending time with my kids in the backyard at our cabin but my mind was elsewhere. My thoughts were racing about everything going on back at work. What did I forget? Is everything taken care of? Does my team have what they need? I’m so mad that I was asked to skip my vacation. Are people upset with me for not working? I forgot to send that email! While my mind was distracted, my kids were playing right in front of me. I was physically there with my family, but not present with them or the current experience AT ALL.
By the time I quit, I had a better work-life balance in the traditional sense—as in, I was working fewer hours—but I still felt as if I were going through the motions each day. Looking back, I now know that I didn’t have to leave my corporate career to be present and enjoy my life—to FEEL balanced.
Has that voice ever whispered to you?
A special reminder: my book, Your Balanced and Bold Life: Work Less, Live More, and Be Your Best, is available for sale on Amazon.
This book is the result of months and, really, years of thought, effort, and care to create something life-changing and help you be happier, balanced, and successful—whatever that looks like for YOU.
