We have lost the ‘life’ portion of the ‘living experience!’ Our quest for livelihood and knowledge is more robust than ever. Whether you are working simply to put food on the table or working toward the next Vice President vacancy, the balance of life is a forever sizzling and shifting landscape. Do you ever get the feeling that you have more butts than saddles and everyone wants to ride? I hear this type of comment out of the mouths of nearly everyone I come across.
Serving as a professional speaker and life coach I hear comments like “there just aren’t enough hours in the day.” I also hear similar complaints of, “if I just had a little more time and a lot more money.’ Nearly every one of my clients speaks about the challenges of time and money. Oddly enough, it doesn’t matter how much money they make, the over all worry and often times chronic stress centers on time and money issues and that is washed down by the thirst to connect.
We want to know more. The more we know, the more there is to know and the connection (if you can call it that) to this deep well of knowing and information has a steroid like facelift today. The need to be connected electronically has an uncomfortable look of addictive like behavior in the quest to keep up. We moved from the ‘Crackberry’ to the information super highway and now I have to wonder if we have gone over the ‘social media cliff’ like Thelma and Louise.
To have knowledge, time, money and balance is good, but can they exist in the same realm at the pace we are going? New terms like…hey Facebook me or let’s get LinkedIn. It gets deeper, with comments like, why don’t you just Skype me. Let me share my connections with you through YouTube or Match.com. I can hook you up. How much real sharing are we getting here? Where is the true balance of life? These terms didn’t exist a decade ago and in our quest to keep up with it all, our work life balance is costing us relationship equity.
Our relationships are suffering more than ever because we are not living in the moment. We are not present. Our hook-up code is being allowed to define us…How many ‘Likes’ we have in the latest social media giant who simply purchases the competition in order to stay at the head crack like info craving!
In some ways, everyone fears being under-informed. The enormous volume of new knowledge broadcasted and published in every field exceeds our ability to keep pace. We speak of time management. What is time management? How do you manage time when we all get the same 24 hours in a full cycle? Isn’t it personal management that is lacking?
Let’s start with and inside job of managing self and pass on the outside job of managing time when clearly it is impossible to managing something that is already regulated in a finite manner. Let’s opt for personal and professional alignment. Tell the truth about where you are and who you are! Let work life balance be a byproduct of alignment.
Choose alignment today? Perhaps a good look in a fresh mirror followed by the right support team to tell you the truth about how you are showing up. This could be followed up with a great roadmap for success called a ‘life plan’. More people spend more time planning a two-week vacation than planning their lives. When was the last time you truly looked closely at your life plan and made the proper adjustments that would restore your work life balance while living a life you love?
