March 30, 2022 5 Min Read
Why You Should Aim For Work-Life Integration
The idea of work-life balance is a lie. There—I said it. Aiming for balance in your professional and personal life rarely works. For one thing, your work life is a part of your life. For another, the term “balance” implies that you are spending your time equally between the two. Trying to divide your hours equally may work for a while, but usually falls apart long-term.
TaskHuman coaches understand the appeal of “work-life balance.” But there’s also something to be said about why that “balance” seems to get lost so frequently. Consider the coaches’ suggestion: try thinking about it as “work-life integration” instead. Here’s why:
Balance Is Hard
Think about it…any kind of balance is hard. A yoga pose. Personal nutrition. Power between branches of government. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that balancing your work life and your personal life isn’t easy. In fact, it’s almost impossible. Coach Amanda Crooks wants you to think about balance as a see-saw and integration as a rhythm:
Finding your own rhythm can take some time, so give yourself grace. And, be prepared for changes to the rhythm. As Amanda said, your seasons in life will change, so your rhythms should too.
Dance To Your Rhythm
You can make finding your rhythm more difficult if you try to push too hard in one direction or the other. By letting your rhythm develop naturally, you’re more likely to find it—and keep it. Coach Abhishek Mishra uses the metaphor of a dance to help you picture the rhythm:
Once you learn to find work-life integration, you’ll be better able to move between the two fluidly. But what if, even when you understand there should be a flow, you struggle to find it?
Create Limits
Work-life integration starts with setting constraints around some parts of your life. Perhaps a constraint you make is to not check your work email between when your kids get home from school until after dinner. Or perhaps it means you put your phone on airplane mode for several hours during the workday to increase your productivity. For Coach Livia Vodarici, it’s blending these behaviors that starts the work-life integration process:
Finding work-life balance is a lot like finding a unicorn. It can be tricky to be entirely guilt-free and present at work and then transition to being guilt-free and present at home. Allowing yourself to find your natural rhythm and work- life integration will help you be in the moment and give your best self to your profession and your personal life.
You don’t have to dance alone! Schedule a 1:1 coaching session today. Working with a TaskHuman coach to discover your unique rhythm will help you find your work-life integration faster.