Chaotic deadlines encroach on personal commitments. Working from home blurs the lines between work time and family time. Capture managers in different time zones make urgent requests on their schedules.
These scenarios are commonplace for a proposal professional. However, they do not exactly lead us to healthy work-life balances.
Balance between our professional and personal lives is critical to maintaining mental health, personal happiness, and a sense of accomplishment. This type of balance is, unfortunately, difficult to establish. Forming boundaries that keep you happy, healthy, and motivated in both professional and personal environments feels a little like trying to capture the Triple Jovian Eclipse (Google it—it is cool) on film. It is nearly impossible but can happen in the right conditions.
I have looked at a few articles about how to achieve work/life balance, and here is what I have learned:
- I should prioritize what is important to me
- I should simplify my life
- I should enforce clear, concrete boundaries, and not feel guilty about it.
Identifying what needs to be done is the easy part. Altering priorities, simplifying things, and not feeling guilty about it seems ridiculously hard.
For me, I have had to look at small slices of my professional and personal lives to achieve some balance. I have always been the type who checks work email on my phone even at home and on the weekends. I will always stay late to meet a deadline. So how have I worked around this to find a personal oasis of mental happiness?
When I get home, I make sure that my time is focused on segments around things that give me joy and time to reflect. My son is into LEGO and Star Wars. Every night we spend some time, with phones set aside, building or playing LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga on Xbox. This time lets me connect with my son and enjoy how he is growing into his own amazing person.
I also segment time for me. My wife and I have both found a passion for art over the last three or four years. I take an hour or two most evenings to put on my headphones and draw or paint. As our walls have filled up with random abstract scribbles or landscape paintings, I have felt a level of contentment.
These are small things and I know I can continually add to them and improve the things I do to segment work and personal responsibilities.
My call to action for you this month is this: If you are finding yourself burning out, stressed out, or just generally grumpy at work, force yourself to dedicate some time to something relaxing. Wake up 30 minutes earlier than usual and enjoy the calm and quiet. Set time aside for a hobby you have been setting aside. Go play Pokémon Go on a walk for 20 minutes. It does not really matter what the activity is if you can connect with yourself and those around you. If you do this, you may just start slowly feeling a little be more positive and confident at work as well.
By Marcus Hammond
Marcus has been a proposal manager for six years. Prior to jumping head-long into a life of go/no-go conversations, Marcus taught English at several Kansas City area community colleges and wrote content for a pop-culture website. Marcus has a master’s degree in liberal arts from Baker University with an emphasis in literature and a bachelor’s degree in English and communication studies from the University of Kansas. His free time is spent sharing a love of Legos, Pokémon, and comic books with his son and traveling, reading, and creating art with his wife. You can reach him at marcus.hammond46@gmail.com.
