As we are half way through our very British year of 2012, where we have enjoyed a Diamond Jubilee, England reaching the finals of the Euro 2012 and as Andy Murray stormed through Wimbledon and the Olympics are just around the corner – have you felt a tiny flicker of National pride? Did having an extra day off work during the Jubilee leave you feeling frustrated at losing a day, or glad to have some downtime? The answer you give says a lot about your life blend.
What is life blend? Essentially, it is my preferred name for work life balance
If you don’t know how to switch off from work, or don’t truly enjoy being at home spending time with family or friends, your life blend is out of sync.
An article in the Huffington Post yesterday highlighted this phenomenon. It asked ‘in a world where we seem to have everything, why are we so miserable?’ (article below)
As our standards of living increase, so do our working hours. Now that times are tough we are having to work longer hours to maintain these levels of income, or to pay off debt, which means that we lose out on the simpler things in life, like watching our children grow up, or stopping the dog from becoming stressed (see Daily Telegraph article below)
Talking about having the right life blend has become a passion of mine. I spent some time living in Spain where the pace of life was much slower, when we moved back to the UK we decided that, yes we needed to work, but not at the expense of our personal lives, our family, our relationships and our grandchild.
So when we were celebrating the Jubilee, it occurred to me that this would be a great time of reflection for most people. The spotlight is on our little Country & the world will be watching us, so maybe we should pay more attention to ourselves. All the great athletes that will be competing in the Olympics all have lives, families and jobs, but still have to find the time to train to be the best.
Maybe we need to take some inspiration from them and try to be the best at recognising where our priorities lie. Yes work is important, but for parents, those moments when your child or grandchild first walks, wins a race at sports day or is in a play are equally as important, you will never get those moments back. For those of you who may not have children, missing out on weekends away or nights out with friends can be equally frustrating and these personal times are just as important as your business.
Parents, when you are older do you want to look back and think ‘yes I secured that deal’, or ‘wow I am great, I kept those customers happy’ or would you rather be known as the hero that your children look up to? Or the person they say inspired them to be the people they are today, because you gave them the best thing ever – YOUR TIME?
If you would like me to speak at your event about Life Blend
please contact me – Joanne Hawkins on 07928 228764
or leave your thoughts on my Facebook page
www.facebook.com/pages/Executive-VPA
Huffington Post article
Daily Telegraph article
