Creating a healthy work/life balance is a matter of setting your priorities the way you want them.

There are times in life - seasons, eras - when you will feel completely out of whack.

For instance, when you’re just starting out in a new career, you will probably prioritize work because you want to learn the job, make a good impression with your new colleagues and leaders, and set yourself up for success in the future.

Once you have established yourself in your new career or position, things might start to settle in and you might feel more capable of balance in your life. You might feel like you can commit your time and energy to your family and friends in addition to your work.

In this case, there was imbalance before there could be balance.

There will be other times when your work life has to take a backseat to your actual life. You might be expecting a new family member. You might want to care for a loved one, deal with a divorce, rescue a dog.

Those things are going to force you to re-prioritize the areas of your life. You’re going to have to corral your work, personal life, home life, family life, hobby life, etc. so that you can prioritize your focus.

You must understand the balance by understanding the imbalance.

That’s some ninja shit right there…

And all of this is okay. It’s supposed to be this way.

Balance isn’t about setting amounts of time for each area of your life; it’s about being conscious of what’s happening in your life and being able to make deliberate decisions about where to focus your attention most fully.

Here are some personal examples that I didn’t get right (I was completely unaware of any of this…):

🤨 When we were expecting our daughter, we saw her due date as a deadline. From July until April, we were preparing, but we weren’t prioritizing. At least I wasn’t. When our daughter arrived, I kept right on moving in both directions (my career and my family), not realizing that I could have prioritized my wife and daughter until things were calmer. For me, this resulted in chaos that reigned over my life for over 10 years.

😯 When I started a new job halfway through my career, it would have helped to communicate that I was going to make my job a priority until I had settled in. Further, I could have set a boundary regarding how far I was willing to push myself. It would have helped to have some non-negotiables to guide me in the right direction because ultimately, I pushed too hard in that situation. And that made it difficult on my family.

😌 When I got divorced, I prioritized my kids so I could take care of them as best as possible, but I was unable to focus fully on them because, well, divorce is hard. Because I wasn’t able to focus on the kids, or my work, or my extended family, I wasn’t able to be good at any of them. As a result, everything in my life suffered.

All of this led to the burnout which cost me dearly.

Since then, I’ve been able to execute a Healthy Work/Life balance by Assessing, Prioritizing, and Communicating.

✅ Assess where you are in life at this particular moment. This is important whether you have a nice rhythm going and you feel pretty good about all the directions your life is taking or whether you’re in extreme discord about what to do next.

The important piece is that you know and understand that you are in rhythm or discord, or somewhere in between. When you know that, you can prioritize.

✅ Prioritize what you want to have happen now, with an eye on the future. Consider what you want your life to look like in one year as a result of the actions you take now. What are your current actions going to produce in one year? Once you know that, you can prioritize your area of focus over the next few months so that you’re set up for success when that year mark arrives.

✅ Communicate your plans for balance with your partner or other people in your life that will benefit from knowing.

This is important, especially in a partnership. The individual work/life balance should be calibrated with the partner’s work/life balance. If you decide you need to focus on your career, you probably shouldn’t be the only one making that decision. That decision impacts a lot of people, most importantly your partner and family.

Communication will go a long way in creating a successful work/life balance that will help you achieve your one-year and future goals.

Coming to an understanding about all of this is important, but it’s also a work in progress. Over time, you’ll get better at it because it makes sense. Now that you’re aware, you’re WAY ahead of the game!

There’s not going to be a right or wrong way to do this. The point of this article is to help you make clear and intentional decisions about the balance that you want to implement.

How will you implement Assess, Prioritize, and Communicate into your intentional Work/Life balance?