Work life balance for Men

What was previously an on-and-off scenario has now become a daily occurrence never-ending stress The bad news is that it is constantly increasing and shows no signs of abating.

Men face stress and pressure at work; they suffer from very heavy workloads. Managers are supposed to manage other people, but they are clueless about ‘how to’. The reason is simple: many of them have never been taught how to go about it.

Perhaps you are one of them. When you experience the pressure of delivery and performance, you pass it on to your team as they are the ones executing (or at least are supposed to) the task.

The demands of handling your own responsibilities, travels, targets and those of your team often leave you with little or no time to assess team coordination or even have one-to-one talks with each of them. Such pressure does not help; if anything, it only makes things worse.

You might want to plan seriously about your professional future, including considering further trainings, negotiating for a promotion or a raise, or even taking up a refresher course. But because of too much to do in too short a time, you find yourself unable to even start thinking about these at the moment.

This following scenario is probably familiar to you. All plans need extra effort, but lack of time and energy leaves you frustrated and dissatisfied with no willingness to put in that effort. Perhaps as a result of this negative state of mind, you have started binge or stress eating to suppress that uncomfortable feeling. You probably do not feel energetic anymore, even after 8 hours of sleep! Weight gain does not concern you as much because the kilos have been piling on for some years now. You have not been able to do anything about it, and have told yourself that you will take care of it “when life is calmer.”

Know this that you are not alone. Here are some eye-opening statistics for you. Did you know that 80 per cent of workers feel stressed on their job? Did you also know that 7 people die of stress every 2 seconds? That makes it around 110 million stress-related deaths a year! Stress is responsible for 30 per cent of all disability claims. Stress also leaves American businesses poorer by an estimated $300 billion a year! These are mind-blowing facts, I would say. More and more companies around the world are becoming aware of this epidemic.

The truth is stress is not just an “office” thing. Its shadows run into your homes too. Manager such as you face high demand and expectations from your parents, spouses/life partners and your children, who need your attention and time. Besides, often work follows you home. So working during the holidays does not help your cause with your family. It makes matters worse, and tensions rise in the house because of it.

You often have to hear your family members complain that you do not love them as you are always working. They often don’t understand or ignore the fact that you are working so hard for them only so that their lives are great, safe and comfortable. So it infuriates you sometimes when hear things like, ”What’s the point of working so hard? You are not even making that much money.” The anger translates into fights at home.

The disharmony and conflicts at home feel make you terrible. You realize that being busy has left you with neither any time for yourself or others at home. You sense that the last time you and your wife went on a romantic dinner date was ages ago. It gnaws at you, and your stress worsens.

Besides family, your friends, too, tell you that you don’t meet up as in the good ol’ times. You notice that you don’t have the time to even pick up their calls and decide to call later. But that later never comes, because by evening you are so tired that you forget to call them back.

To “survive” the demands of the job, you perhaps form some stress-releasing addictions—playing video games, watching sitcoms, gambling or pornography,eating more and late, having a drink or two—so that you feel relaxed at night.

Some of you may even have developed sleep issues and are dependent on pills for a good night’s sleep. If not, you probably just wake up feeling tired and drained. You can see that you have gained weight, but are too fatigued physically and mentally to hit the gym. Your doctor’s warning of possible diabetes and hypertension if you don’t change is at the back of your mind all day long, but you ignore it because you have other things to do.

You know deep down that things are somehow out of balance, but you feel helpless, emotionally and physically tired and lethargic. You have nightmares about “What if I get sick? What if the insurance company does not pay the hospital bills? What if my company fires me? What if my family has to shift to another place?”

Between your job, family, friends and yourself, you are probably in a very sticky situation right now. Your health is failing, your emotions are running high, your mind is fighting hard to cope and you are just losing a battle with yourself because of absolutely no work-life balance. You know you are at the edge of a cliff about to fall off.

Under these circumstances, if you were to carry on like this, how do you think life will be three years from now? Better or worse? Probably worse! So is there any way at all, you may ask. Let me tell you there’s not one, there are many ways out.

Possible Ways Out

I offer a transformation and change programme at my centre. It shows you how to balance work and private life (work-life balance).

Here I share some key guidance aspects of my programme to help regain balance.

• Understanding the importance of being mindful of your actions and feelings
• Figuring out what suits you (your own style of working)
• Assessing how to separate work and home
• Finding a way (or getting coaching/training) to communicate your feelings with your managers/team members, your life partner and family instead of bottling them up
• Identifying what is really important for you (your values) and letting go, without worrying too much
• Sharing suggestions and providing training on techniques to help finish (knowing when is enough enough) and switch off from work
• Helping manage “stress” and making it work for you
• Knowing the dos and don’ts at night (e.g., staying away from alcohol, any kind of screen, working and heavy discussions and instead using the last 2 hours before sleep for self-reflection, happy conversation with your loved ones, reading or taking a walk)
• Learning how to recharge the inner batteries (doing something you love that energizes you)
• Recognizing the need for frequent and enough me-time and being aware of what to do during that me-time
• Prioritizing and communicating what you can and can’t do (i.e., saying no in a beneficial and helpful way)
• Becoming aware of your individual hurdles and what to do with them or about them

In the sessions I consider all important fields and guide the participants across all four pillars—mindset (coaching), meditation, diet and physical fitness. I discuss how they can make changes in their life to make it more interesting and how compelling change can be.

You might ask me now what is in it for you if you do some of those things above.

In short, the benefits are incredible. You will be able to lead a satisfied, healthier, more fulfilled and successful life. Not only will you be able to harness and conserve your energy, you will also be emotionally well balanced. The quality of almost all of your relationships will be improved, making your home and work life smoother. Your time management will become much more efficient, which will enable you to spend more time (quality and quantity) with your loved ones. This will enhance your ability to concentrate, which will fuel your performance, which in turn will help you find success more easily. This will work wonders for your entire team and your company, which means you will be able to make more money! Your fitness goals will be achieved sooner, and you will look more attractive, which will help you feel positive in your mind body and soul. You will transform into a happier you.

Happy transformation,

Read also: Make A Bucket List to Live your Dream

Jasmin Waldmann is a well renowned international life coach and can be your coach for life. She is amongst the best life coaches in Gurgaon and is helping people to become great self-leaders, find their path in life, strengthen the inner self and guide how to become better in business, more successful, truly fulfilled, happy and healthy. Jasmin helps in a team-character way to a life full of joy and satisfaction.

Jaico Publishing house published her book “Change Me” in February 2018. It is available in the stands, Flipkart and Amazon.in.

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