In our Backbeat column, Deepika Singh, Director, Corporate Communications, Gionee India, talks about striking a balance between the extremes of too much and too little in life
“It is better to rise from life as from a banquet - neither thirsty nor drunken” – Aristotle.
The famous doctrine talks about approaching a happy medium between the two extremes of too much and too little. Applying the same principle to achieve a work-life balance is critical to achieving success, a meaningful and a balanced life. You can’t change something you can’t measure – getting a sense of how much time a person is spending working, exercising, seeing the family, doing chores and everything else will help them see patterns and a sense of adjustments a person needs to make.
Being a Director of Corporate Communications, a proud mother and a wife it becomes extremely essential to strike a chord between a juggling life and a demanding career. According to me the mantra is to know where to draw the line, try to build certain rules around it and abide by them. To unplug from work and to concentrate on making the things that really matter are central to carving out a meaningful life outside work. “Resilient people feel a greater sense of control over their lives,” says Brooks, while reactive people have less control and are more prone to stress.
Our life is not binary; it has multiple components so the goal is to find a place of harmony among these. Health is one of the components which is overlooked and needs our undivided attention. Energizing yourself at your desk and keeping a healthy outlook makes us sharper and productive. I inculcated certain self-care rituals like Yoga in my daily routine and diligently immerse myself into the pure indulgence of walking as much as possible whenever and wherever there is an opportunity.
Guilt, poor time management and inability-to-say-no impact our struggle to prioritize. We should always remember that we can respectfully decline offers to run extra hours to work. When we stop doing things out of guilt we end up finding time to focus on activities that we truly rejoice.
Follow what you love and let the things you love follow you back. Focusing on what really matters and working on priorities that drive the overall goals of the business and personal aspects, should be the core of creating a work-life balance. Basically, what you do, do it wholeheartedly.
Grab a paper and start listing what you really love, things that you do which are outside the mean, neither too much nor too little. For me television and computer games come in the excesses and meeting friends is something I love doing but get to do far too little. The best path lies somewhere in between.
Some call it a myth but balance is an equation that each one of us has to solve. A person needs to decide what “work” means to a person and a clear vision of the life one wishes to have outside of the office. Responding to late night emails, keeping your work phone by your bed, not being fully present with your family and friends because of the distractions of what – ifs or, meeting deadlines of a project, are some of the signs of where an individual is going wrong. When I reach home I prefer to spend quality time with my kids and prefer not to take any calls from 7pm to 9pm, unless there is an emergency.
The journey across the span of my career has been challenging, different and interesting at the same point in time. My vision includes flourishing personal lives, compassionate support for each other and goal-smashing work ethics. Equipped with these in my opinion one can draw a line between work and life.
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