Nearly every day, I hear a story of someone who is extremely successful in their career, but a failure in some area of their personal life.  You’ve probably heard the stories too, of…

• Sports stars who win big on the playing field, but not in their finances.
• Business leaders who invest in the personal growth of their employees, but not their own kids.
• Entrepreneurs who invest much time and energy into growing their business, but take no time to care for their health.
• Sales people who know how to make their customers feel special, but not their spouse.
• Blue collar workers who give it their all during their shift, but have nothing left to give at home.

I’m confident that no one sets out to do this – to win at their work at the expense of other areas of their life, like family, health and finances.  It just happens, right?  After all, most of us spend much more time at our job than we do in the other life areas.

It doesn’t really “just happen” if we think about it, though.

I’ve found that most people who are successful in certain areas of their lives have made a plan, and a concerted effort, to be successful in those areas.

Conversely, when people are not successful in other areas of their lives, it is because they have not made a plan, and a concerted effort, to be successful in those areas.

Thus, the old axiom is true: “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.”

Is Achieving Balance at Life and Work Important?

As I said in “How to Define Work-Life Balance”, work-life balance is:

An intentional state of harmony and wholeness that exists within the seven major life areas (categories) in a person’s life:  Family, Career, Financial, Social, Health, Personal Development, and Spiritual/Ethical.

Pursuing work-life balance is important to me because I want to enjoy the peace and harmony that comes from living a balanced life…from focusing my time and energies on the things that are most important to me..and not just the things that clamor the loudest for my attention.

Deep down, the thing that motivates me the most is…the feeling of regret.

When I come to the end of my days, I don’t want to regret for one moment that I cared more about work, money or my personal hobbies and habits, than I did for my family.  Do you?

That’s why I’m on a journey toward work-life balance, and a journey toward success in all areas of my life.  It’s all about the life I want to live with my family now, and the legacy I want to leave behind when I’m gone.

What about you?  Are you satisfied with where you’re at in life right now?  Do you feel like you’re giving the attention you want to give to the life areas that are most important to you?

If not, stick around here, sign up for my RSS feed if you haven’t already.  And we’ll walk this journey together.

In How to Define Work-Life Balance?, I shared my belief, from personal experience, that work-life balance is a journey, not necessarily a destination.

I’ve been on this journey to achieve greater balance in my life and work since 1999, thanks to an older man I knew from church, who sought me out one day.

He’d been an executive coach for years, helping hundreds of men and women grow their businesses, achieve their dreams, and find true success in all areas of life.  Now, he said, he felt led to tell me all he knew about living a life of success and significance – if I desired to hear it and put it into practice.

Something told me that I needed to hear what he had to say, so I said yes.  He’s been a coach and mentor for me for over 10 years now.  He’s inspired me to make an intentional effort to live the life I want instead of just letting life happen to me.

Before he began coaching me, I hadn’t really given much thought to living “on purpose” – I just let things happen as they came my way.  Didn’t everybody?

I learned later that the answer to that question is No – successful people don’t just let life happen, they make it happen.

Over time, he showed me some specific strategies that would help me…

• Get the most out of life and live to my full potential.
• Help me accelerate the achievement of the goal and dreams that were most important to me, with the people who were most important to me.
• Invest what I’m learning in the lives of others.

Best of all, he showed me how to live a life free of regret, and that has been a gift of immeasurable value.

As I close out this post, let me ask you the same question my coach asked me when we first met:

If I could show you some proven ways you can know your life’s purpose, accelerate the achievement of your dreams and goals, and be a success in all areas of life, would that be of interest to you?

If your answer is yes, subscribe to my RSS feed (if you haven’t already), so you won’t miss any of the strategies that he shared with me, that I’ll be sharing here at Life Compass.

Next time, I’ll tell you my real motivation for pursuing a balanced life.

We don’t often think about work-life balance until someone or something tells us we don’t have it.  By then, it is sometimes too late.

Like when your spouse says, “I don’t love you anymore,” or when the kids say they hate that you’re never home (and when you are home, you’re not really home, if you know what I mean).  Or when you’re rushed to the hospital due to a stroke or heart attack.

Sadly, these things don’t just happen out of the blue, without warning, because our lives don’t get out of balance in one day, without warning.  We lose balance over time, through a series of actions that, in and of themselves, may not be so bad.  But add them all up, and we are way off course from where we want to be.  And the warning signs are there…but we often deceive ourselves into thinking we can keep doing the same things but somehow get different results.

What is Work-Life Balance?

I define work-life balance as an intentional state of harmony and wholeness that exists within the seven major life areas (categories) in a person’s life:  Family, Career, Financial, Social, Health, Personal Development, and Spiritual/Ethical.

It is true that many people tend to focus more on their career life area to the detriment of the others – most often the family life area.  This happens because we typically spend so much of our time and energy at work.  But really, any life area can become out of balance by focusing too much, or too little, energy there.

When I say that work-life balance is “an intentional state of harmony,” I mean that it does not happen naturally, or by default.  If it did, we wouldn’t have millions of stressed-out people in this world, would we?  When we re-orient our lives toward achieving balance, we enjoy more peace and less stress.

How is Work Life Balance Achieved?

From my experience, work-life balance is a journey, not necessarily a destination.  I find that I achieve the most balance (and harmony) in my life when I do these four things:

1. Make a conscious decision to prioritize my personal values and commitments (goals) within each life area.  Each life area must get attention, but not all life areas carry the same weight at the same time.  And not all commitments within each life area are of the same importance.
2. Create a written plan of action designed to help me achieve these commitments.
3. Set aside time each week to track and review the progress being made.
4. Recruit an accountability partner to check up on you and hold you accountable for the commitments you’ve made.

I think #3 and #4 are missing ingredients for many people, and the reason why we so often fail at achieving work-life balance.

Let’s face it, it is easy for most of us to craft a plan.  But real success comes from implementing the plan, not just making it.  It comes from tracking and reviewing progress and making adjustments as needed.  And when others know of our plans and agree to hold us accountable and encourage us to succeed.

Over the next few posts, I’ll explain exactly how to follow these steps toward work-life balance, so be sure to come back, or sign up for our RSS feed so you don’t miss it.  Next, I’ll tell you How My Journey Toward Work-Life Balance Began.