Welcome to the Stop Sabotaging Your Success Podcast, episode fifty-six. I’m your host, Cindy Esliger. This is the podcast focusing on what we can do today to take control of our careers and overcome the inevitable barriers to success that we encounter along the way. 

The concept of work-life balance has been debated for decades. It means something different to everyone, but many of us can agree that you can achieve a semblance of balance in your life when you feel like you have enough time for work and you’re able to pursue the personal interests that you love. Whether it’s a myth or not is for you to decide. 

In this episode, we will cover some common mistakes that we make when we’re feeling overwhelmed by all that we have going on in our lives, both with work and trying to have a life outside of work. We will discuss some strategies to help you achieve more balance in your integrated life because it keeps getting harder to separate our work life from our real life because really, it’s all part of the same.

When you feel as if one side of your life is using up too much of your energy, you can become stressed, your productivity decreases, and your personal and professional relationships can become strained. It’s important to find a balance that works for you. 

The concept of trying to balance work and play gained more prominence in the 1970s and the term ‘work-life balance’ became increasingly popular in the 1980s as more women began to enter the workforce, but it quickly became more inclusive and accounted for the needs of all working people. Today, work-life balance is an evolving concept and has become a bit of a buzzword in the workplace. 

Many people question whether it’s even achievable to find the mix of business and personal life that’s right for you. We’re all unique. The term ‘personal life’ means something different to everyone, maybe it’s time with your friends and family, resting, participating in hobbies, engaging in personal or educational development, exercising, caregiving, and many others. And for some people, it can even include your work. 

Work-life balance is a perceived state. Only you know when your life is or isn’t in balance. It’s a subjective concept and more dynamic than static. I think it’s unreasonable to think everything in your life will remain in balance, that’s why it’s a constant balancing act. There’s no need to feel guilty about being dedicated to your job. As long as you feel happy and balanced, there’s no need for change. 

Research shows that when you don’t feel in control of your time, illness and burnout can quickly follow. Failure to achieve balance leads to higher stress, lower productivity, and higher absenteeism. It can also be a major cause of job dissatisfaction if we don’t make the effort to correct a temporary imbalance. 

Working long hours can increase stress and anxiety, which can have a number of serious effects on our health, including more frequent headaches, high blood pressure, persistent insomnia, anger management issues, weakened immune system, and clinical depression, just to name a few. When you think you’re spending too much of your time and energy on one area of your life at the expense of another, you can also feel guilt, regret, and frustration, which can have a negative impact on your personal relationships and your self-esteem. 

I think we all know that it can be challenging to achieve a good work-life balance. In this economy, downsizing has people being expected to take on additional tasks while your responsibilities at home still remain and can sometimes conflict with those at work.

Nobody likes being told they can’t have it all, but everyone has constraints on their time and energy and every choice has a cost. Most of us don’t want to face the real issue that life is filled with trade-offs. 

The idea of work-life balance is not necessarily helpful because we may never feel balanced. When you’re feeling like you should be doing everything, then you never feel like you’re actually achieving anything. It’s never going to be perfect, but it doesn’t have to be. 

Struggling with work-life balance is a common problem for many of us. We’re all juggling a lot of responsibilities between home and work with demanding workloads, family responsibilities, managing friendships, cultivating those outside interests, and finding ‘me time’. It can all seem like an impossible goal. We want to get it all done, but we only have 24 hours in the day. As stress levels rise, productivity plummets. It’s not easy to find the right balance all the time, so it’s a matter of constantly making adjustments to have it align more with what makes you feel good. 

When we’re feeling overwhelmed during busy and challenging times, we may react in ways that don’t help the situation and sometimes even make it worse. It’s important to become aware of the common patterns overwhelmed people tend to fall into so you can make things easier on yourself, and help those around you, with practical solutions for each that will help you feel like you’re on top of things and do a better job of solving problems and navigating your most important tasks. 

There are five common self-sabotaging mistakes overwhelmed people tend to make:

1. Dismissing the things that might help
2. Not making space for your mind to wander
3. Interpreting the feeling of overwhelm as a weakness
4. Not being flexible or adapting to changing demands
5. Missing opportunities to restore your energy

So back to number one, dismissing the things that might help. We often have great ideas about things that would help us feel better and feel more in control, however we dismiss them because we think we’re too busy and that it’s not the right time. We’re waiting to take those actions until a more ideal moment that typically never arrives. Instead of thinking about what would be ideal, choose the best option that’s easily available to you right now. When you have good ideas but don’t act on them, it can lead to a sense of powerlessness that, if left unchecked, can lead to learned helplessness.

Having endless open loops of shoulds, waste time and energy since we end up thinking the same thoughts over and over again. When you don’t act, you miss out on the benefits you’d gain from trying your ideas and learning what works and what doesn’t. By acting to help yourself, you’ll get practice finding workable solutions, feel more self-efficacy, and reap those benefits sooner.

Number two, not making space for your mind to wander. Focus isn’t the only way to get things done. Your unconscious mind is a great problem solver too. So let your mind drift without directing it too much. Sometimes solutions to problems will magically emerge and sometimes what you should prioritize becomes clearer without a lot of effort. 

Your unconscious, wandering mind is as valuable a tool for creative thinking and solving problems as your focused mind. It can help you get important things done without so much pressure to not get distracted all the time, which can be an unreasonable expectation in today’s world. When we feel overwhelmed, we sometimes try to block out work thoughts during our personal time by listening to music or a podcast. And while this might seem helpful, it can rob you of some of the productivity potential of your wandering mind.

Try identifying the activities during which your mind naturally drifts in helpful ways and solves problems for you. It could be running errands, driving, exercising, taking a shower, or just sitting quietly, and be intentional about creating time to do just that. 

Number three, interpreting the feeling of overwhelm as a weakness. We tend to feel overwhelmed simply because we need to do a task we’re not familiar with, or because a task is high stakes and we want to do a great job. This thinking isn’t necessarily a problem. We can often work through the task despite those overwhelmed feelings, but we’re making it much harder than it needs to be. 

Sometimes we get self-critical about the fact that we feel overwhelmed, and when we’re self-critical, we become more likely to procrastinate because not only does the task trigger feelings of overwhelm, it also triggers shame and anxiety about having those feelings. 

Our emotions provoke a range of responses. Some react to this shame and anxiety by approaching the task with perfectionism, or they might become more reluctant to ask for advice from others. Try replacing your self-criticism with compassionate self-talk and see how that changes what feels possible for you. 

Number four, not being flexible or adapting to changing demands. We all tend to default to our dominant approaches and defense mechanisms. When we get stressed out, we tend to get a bit more rigid, with less cognitive and emotional bandwidth to consider other options or alternative approaches. 

We become less flexible about adapting to the demands of the situation and default to our more familiar way of handling things, where thoughtfulness can easily turn into overthinking, and self-reliance can morph into micromanaging or doing everything ourselves. Having high standards can lead to being picky or demanding perfection. Resourcefulness can steer you toward doing things in unnecessarily complicated or unconventional ways. When you’re overwhelmed, make sure you’re appropriately meeting the demands of the situation by considering how else you could achieve the result you’re after. 

And number five, missing opportunities to restore your energy. When you feel overwhelmed, you’ve probably got limited emotional energy and you tend to withdraw from the supportive people in your life. These changes in your behavior can be subtle, yet they are still self-sabotaging. You’re missing opportunities to fill up your emotional cup when you need it most. 

Others may notice the differences in you and act out to get your attention. Take the time to identify ways you can still enjoy connecting with your support structure, even when you’ve got limited energy. If you struggle to make time for these activities, schedule them or create routines for them so they fit into your day or week in designated places. 

By being aware of these five self-sabotaging patterns, when we feel overwhelmed, we can make getting through busy and challenging times easier on ourselves and those around us. They are predictable patterns we tend to fall into, not a reason for you to become judgmental. Knowing what the traps are enables you to make the small changes necessary to avoid them or overcome them.

Here are five strategies to help you achieve better balance in your life: 

1. Analyzing your current situation
2. Improving your efficiency at work
3. Taking advantage of the flexibility you have
4. Becoming more engaged
5. Doing something just for you

So back to number one, analyzing your current situation. Track how you are currently using your time at work and at home by keeping a daily activity log. You might be surprised at how you actually spend your time. Identify the most obvious time-wasters to be minimized or eliminated altogether. You might be watching far more TV than you think, or maybe that’s just me. Consider reducing your screen time to free up time for activities that you find more rewarding. Use this information to determine how valuable these activities are to you. 

Identify the non-negotiables in your work life, those commitments that are vitally important that you need to have time for, as well as the ones that aren’t. Be specific. Write down the activities that are less important, but still necessary, and use that information to give your days some structure. 

Number two, improving your efficiency at work. Recognize where you are operating at less than optimal right now. Determine your priorities and what can be delegated to others. 

Beware of Parkinson’s Law, where work expands to fill the time available for its completion. Embrace some self-imposed constraints on your time. Those well-designed limitations can actually improve your performance and help you stop procrastinating. The more efficient and productive you are at work, while being focused on the right things, the easier it will be for you to go home at a reasonable time. 

Try to limit your distractions during the day. Ensure you’re working on valuable tasks that will help you make a real impact with your work. Maximize your productivity, but keep in mind that continuous long hours can lead to burnout. Remember to take regular breaks throughout the day so that you work more effectively. Setting manageable goals for each day and prioritizing them gives us more of a sense of control. Take care of the urgent and important tasks first, then attack the less important activities. Dividing big tasks into smaller ones can be instrumental in preventing us from feeling overwhelmed. 

Your job can easily take up every single minute, of every single day, if you let it. It’s your responsibility to create your job how you want it to be so that it gives you the freedom you truly desire.

Number three, taking advantage of the flexibility you have. Flexibility is an important part of maintaining a good work-life balance. You are more likely to feel satisfaction in your job if you have some perceived flexibility in your working arrangements. Try to incorporate more of that in your schedule where you work from home one day a week, come in or leave earlier some days, and build in some flexibilities with the hours you work by looking at your week as a whole.

Part of embracing flexibility is also outsourcing what you can. Sometimes it’s a matter of spending some money to buy back more of your time, so you can spend it elsewhere. Managing each day will improve your work-life balance. 

There is real happiness to be gained by being more flexible about when things happen. Doing something personal during work hours need not make you feel uncomfortable. And doing work after your workday doesn’t mean something has gone wrong. Your work and effectiveness should be measured in terms of results, rather than time spent. 

Some work does require focus and concentration, so it’s not going to do you any good to be flipping back and forth constantly. And it’s important to spend long stretches of time on the weekends not thinking about work at all. So be clear about what needs to be done, figure out your priorities, and how you will schedule your work to meet your deadlines. Just be sure you get done what needs to get done, and try to get ahead when you can, then you’ll feel more free to embrace work-life integration. 

Number four, becoming more engaged. You may not be able to do much about your workload or schedule, but you can make changes that may improve your job satisfaction. When you feel more engaged in your job, the hours pass more quickly and you will leave work feeling happy and satisfied at the end of the day. 

Think about the tasks that energize you. Try to incorporate more activities and projects that use your strengths and enhance your motivation. Identify your energy boosters and those energy drains, which can be one of the main causes of poor work-life balance. Unfortunately, we spend a lot of our time on activities and relationships which drain our energy and add no value. Try to spend less time on those and see how that improves things for you. 

And finally, number five, doing something just for you. Take one night during the week that is just for you. Commit to doing something outside of the house that involves other people, and requires you to make an investment of time and money. 

We tend to juggle many responsibilities and roles in our lives, so it’s worthwhile to determine which are commanding more of your time and whether that feels right to you. If not, start making small changes to shift the balance so that you don’t favor one area of your life, but neglect all the others. Because balance means having time for yourself as well as taking care of everyone else’s needs. So build downtime into your schedule. 

With a bit of planning, you can create the work-life balance you desire. 

To recap, focus on ways to bring more balance into your life. Audit how you spend your time. Identify and eliminate low-value tasks whenever possible. Try to better utilize the flexibility you have in your schedule. Make an effort to become more engaged, and seek out more things that increase your job satisfaction, and find purpose and fulfillment in your work. Focus more effort on activities that are important to you, that you enjoy, to rejuvenate your energy. 

Work-life balance refers to your belief that your personal and work lives are properly balanced, when it feels like you’re spending enough time working towards your goals, while also devoting time to the people and activities you love. 

It’s your responsibility to determine what feels right for you. 

And that’s it for this episode of Stop Sabotaging Your Success. Remember to download your Guide to Overcoming Overwhelm at cindyesliger.com/podcast, episode fifty-six.

Thank you to our producer, Alex Hochhausen and everyone at Astronomic Audio. Get in touch, I’m on Instagram @cindyesliger and my email address is info@cindyesliger.com. And if you liked this show, please tell a friend. Subscribe, rate, and review. 

Until next week, I’m Cindy Esliger. Thanks for joining me.