Career Advice | Setting Professional and Personal Goals
Creating two objectives for the best work/life balance
Creating a balance between work and home is a tall order. Late nights on the
job don't mix with your child's soccer season. Extra work over the holidays
doesn't bode well for family traditions. It's a tough, but popular, ambition to
have-reaching equilibrium between your professional and personal identities. And
it can be done with some planning and forward thinking.
Your best bet? Set specific goals to achieve both at home and at work. Create two lists of objectives and put them side-by-side. Now it's time to see how you can achieve items on both lists without driving yourself crazy.
Understanding the conflict
Maybe you want to earn a promotion in the next six months at work, and at
home you want to eat dinner with your family at least four nights during the
week. Your first instinct may be to panic and think, "How can I stay late to do
extra work and make a good impression with my boss if I need to be home by 6
p.m. to eat dinner?"
Thinking about these types of conflicts is the first step in achieving work/life balance. Scan through your two lists and see what items on your work list preclude achieving goals on your home list, and vice versa. Yes, this may make everything seem tougher still. But in reality, you have a better understanding of what you have to work with.
Thinking outside of the box
Once you know where the biggest conflicts are occurring, you can start
working on the answers. In the example above, staying late at work isn't an
option more than one night a week, but maybe you can take a shorter lunch break
and complete extra tasks during the half hour you just added to your day.
The planning stages of achieving balance require a lot of alternatives and options. If what you are doing right now isn't working, then it's time to get creative and think of something else.
Taking the time to achieve your balance
There may always be issues that are tough to handle in the balance between
personal and professional responsibilities, and they will most certainly not be
the easiest issues to work through.
Creating a crystal clear picture of the facts-and your own personal wishes-makes the journey a whole lot easier. A few moments of reflection, a pen and a piece of paper and some creative strategies for success can make all the difference in the long run.
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