The timings of Work-Life Balance

Work Life Balance

The Autonomy to make your Work-Life Balance thrive


I can choose, so my best work/life balance is achieved outside the 9-to-5!

A recruiter reached out to me last week, and it turned out to be a very helpful thinking exercise for me.

Far from being a coaching conversation, it sticked with me the whole weekend nonetheless. Also, it felt good to be on the other side of the fence for once πŸ˜€.

The questions asked (to assess my current and desired situations) allowed me to state out loud the aspects of my profession I love, and the ones I love a bit less. One question in particular stood out: β€œWould you consider going back to 9-to-5?”. My hunch went: β€œHard No, with every fibre of my body!!”.

Flexibly is not a given these days, however common it has become. It is a personal flair (at work, it has to co-live with company policies): night owls shine after dusk, early birds excel at dawn, and the hybrids early owls πŸ¦‰like me live at their best at different times depending on the day (and quality of sleep).

 

It did, however, exposed the sheer difference between my last 5 years (high flexibility), and the previous 5 of my life (low flexibility). It can be translated geographically as well: a difference between my home country (Italy) and other countries I’ve lived in (Germany and New Zealand).

The underlining theme? I was given the choice (autonomy in neuroscience lingo terms). Autonomy has been linked to productivity: the higher the autonomy one has, the more productive they can be.

Autonomy can be defined as the ability to make choices according to one’s own free will. It is a key driver of human behavior: we seem to be hard-wired to desire autonomy.

Restrictions on our autonomy may well be the culprit of our unhappiness!

And yes, it has got that full 50-shades-of-colour meaning it is not black and white. In certain situations (like if your work requires you in person) your autonomy may be rightfully limited: imagine an ICU nurse trying to work from home.

When it comes to striking our work/life balance correctly, we’d better include autonomy as a weighing factor.

So, if you are experiencing dissatisfaction or that languishing feeling that can be translated with a β€œMeh”, here are a few questions you can ask yourself:

  • What can you decide on?
  • What can you not decide on?
  • How do the two relate to each other?
  • How do you feel when someone tells you to do something vs you telling yourself?

Having the flexibility to structure your day is then crucial: also when it comes to your Leisure time!!

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

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