It's Your Choice

Yesterday I received a great e-mail from a former client who wrote me, "Just want you to know that I almost never work weekends anymore! Thanks again for your help."

Ah... Freedom of choice.

This client is a woman who has an extremely stressful job involving the supervision of dozens of remote offices, frequent monthly travel and as a bonus, her very own demanding, perfectionist boss. She came to me for coaching, not surprisingly, somewhat burned out from work and eager to put some balance back into her life instead of living a life of 80 percent work and 20 percent exhaustion.

One of the first coaching strategies I worked on with her was to point out to her that the number of hours she worked, the number of conference meetings she attended, the number of e-mails she returned every day was all her CHOICE.  From getting up in the morning --  do I get up or sleep in today-- to deciding what commute route to take, to what to have for lunch to how long to stay in the office -- these are all choices we make every day. 

But, you say, it's easy for me to decide what time to get up, what route to take on my morning commute but... I have NO choice when it comes to work. I must return all these e-mails, make all these phone calls, and toil away in my office cubicle until 10:00 pm because if I don't ....(scary music here), "I'LL LOSE MY JOB!" 

Are you sure?

Or, are you playing the role of "helpless work victim" who, if truth be told, would rather cling  to the insane working conditions which, as awful as they are, are still not as awful as having to take a risk and say the "no" word out loud (instead of the thousand of times you have  rehearsed it screaming in your head)  to someone. Even when the someone is yourself.

In my case, it took me years, even with working with a wonderful life coach, to release my death grip of I-have-no-choice-poor-pitiful-me until finally backed up against the wall with exhaustion, I said a big no to my boss' work demands. And shock of shocks -- he didn't fire me, in fact he was quite sympathetic to my situation and together we worked out a reorganization of my duties that gave me back a personal life, and gave him a happy and productive employee.

So, it can happen to you too! But, it's your choice.

Yesterday I found online an interesting article discussing work and personal life balance:   "Happy at Work and Home".  A study done earlier this year by the Family and Work Institute in New York in conjunction with Catalyst, a non-profit research organization; and the Boston College Center for Work & Family studied 1,200 senior executives at multinational companies. 

The study found a new type of worker it calls "dual-centric": someone who puts equal focus on work and home and is less stressed, healthier, feeling happier at home, and more successful at work than work-centric colleagues. Interesting article and worth a read.

11:03:48 AM    comment []