With so much going on in the world, and with the rapid pace of change that characterizes the fourth industrial revolution, it can all seem a bit overwhelming. I'm not immune to this. I love what I do and yet I still have times where I feel weighed down by the length of my to-do list, stunned by the pace of change, or just plain worn out. You probably have similar moments. Maybe those “moments” are becoming more common or prolonged amidst the crazy pace of life today. This is precisely why you need to look after yourself, take care of your physical and mental health, and find more balance in life.
Let me state up front that this is an area I'm constantly working on. I can't pretend I've achieved the perfect work–life balance. (Because I love my job, I sometimes struggle to step away and leave work behind.) I can't pretend that I never feel stress or worry. Nor can I pretend that I'm always in tip-top physical and mental shape. Looking after myself is a journey, just as it is for most people. And that journey isn't effortless. Prioritizing self-care, making time to look after myself, being strict about my work boundaries, spending more time with my wife and children, and all those good things requires a conscious effort on my part. So rest assured that I'm not going to preach things I don't do myself. But I will share the tools and techniques that I find helpful.
Of course, not everything in this chapter will resonate with you, so I encourage you to explore other areas and habits that I perhaps haven't mentioned but that interest you personally. (For example, maybe watercolor painting is your ideal stress-reliever. Or boxing. Or decluttering your house with Marie Kondo–type rigor.) Feel free to design your own self-care journey, and discover those steps that help you live life with more ease. Think of this chapter as a jumping-off point.
All these notions of looking after your mental and physical health, lowering stress, having more time for the things that matter, and so on come down to one thing: finding balance. There's a common misconception that “work–life balance” means spending equal amounts of time on work and nonwork life (like balancing out two sides of a measuring scale), but that's not true. Balance may mean working four hours a day to you, while others thrive on the structure of a longer workday. Finding balance simply means being able to separate your work and nonwork life, and, crucially, feeling fulfilled in both areas.
In general, when I talk about looking after yourself and finding balance, I mean:
This is the ideal. You may be a long way from this at the moment, or you may put more effort into some areas than others. That's okay.
The idea behind looking after yourself and finding balance isn't to pile on further stress and goals, or to make you feel like a failure for not doing certain things. Rather, it's about taking small, practical steps towards a more balanced, more content life. It's about understanding what you need to do in order to feel fulfilled in both areas of your life—work and nonwork—and then committing to those steps.
You'll notice that the word “time” crops up a lot in this chapter. But let me stress that balance isn't about packing more into your day or being more productive. That's not to say time management isn't an important skill (it is; see Chapter 17)—but it's not the secret to finding balance. Balance is about feeling fulfilled and content.
Easily said. Not so easily done. In fact, it feels like modern society is setting us up to fail at this whole balance thing. Gone are the days when (most) families could live on one income, which means many of us are juggling a full-time job alongside the responsibilities of caring for a family (and/or other caring responsibilities). Finding time for things like hobbies or exercise may seem like a pipe dream! However, true “balance” means taking care of yourself as well as others. In order to show up for others, be a good carer or parent, be a good partner, and perform well at work, you have to show up for yourself as well.
As part of this, you may need to make some tough decisions. You may need to say no to certain things, assert stronger boundaries at work, have a more disciplined morning routine, or whatever. I'm not saying it's a piece of cake (remember, this is something I have to work at, too). But a more balanced, more content life is certainly worth striving for. And like all journeys, even tiny steps add up over time.
Before we move on, it's worth assessing where you are right now in terms of balance. Ask yourself:
When I came across the SHED Method, developed by performance coach Sara Milne Rowe,1 it immediately struck a chord with me. SHED stands for Sleep, Hydration, Exercise, and Diet—and according to Milne Rowe, building positive routines in these areas helps us to feel more in control of life. But she also talks about tapping into our five key energies, and this is the part of the book that I found particularly interesting.
The five energies are:
Milne Rowe says that managing these five energies has a huge impact on your ability to be and feel your best. It makes sense when you think about it—making any sort of sustained change in life (in this case, finding more balance and building lasting self-care habits) requires commitment. And commitment requires energy. If you can increase your energy by building good SHED habits, doing things that boost your mood (and mind), spending time with the right people, and connecting to your bigger purpose, it'll be much easier to make lifestyle changes stick.
For me, this is a topic that feels particularly timely. Our world is unpredictable and changing fast. There are so many big issues facing society. Technology brings new challenges and, very often, a pressure to be constantly connected. And the lines between home life and work life are becoming increasingly blurred, especially if you work for yourself, or work from home. Now more than ever, we need the skills to look after ourselves, so that we can perform well at work, achieve our personal and professional goals, be there for our loved ones, and feel our best. After all (as far as we know), we only get one bash at life. That in itself is a compelling reason to look after yourself and live a more balanced life—there's no second chance to come back and do it all again.
But let's explore some more earthbound arguments for self-care and balance.
Stress can have a negative impact on your body, sleep, emotional state, and even your behavior. It can contribute to health conditions such as high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes.2 And even comparatively mild physical effects—things like chest pain, fatigue, muscle tension, headaches, upset stomach, heartburn, and poor sleep—can take a significant toll on your physical and mental well-being. You may feel depressed, or go off sex. You may catch cold after cold after cold, because your immune system has been weakened. You may experience relationship problems, because you're snappy and distracted. Stress can leach into every facet of your life, making it difficult to get even a moment's peace.
What I find really concerning is the sheer prevalence of stress these days. One UK study found that 74 percent of people have felt so stressed they were overwhelmed or unable to cope (this was pre-pandemic).3 And when we feel overwhelmed, even small everyday obstacles or decisions can feel insurmountable. The American Psychological Association surveyed Americans about their stress levels during the pandemic and found that a third were so stressed they were struggling to make basic decisions, like what to wear or eat.4
Stress can have many causes: ill health, the ill health of a loved one, financial uncertainty, global uncertainty, comparison to other people's (seemingly more successful) lives. But there's no denying that work is one of the biggest causes of stress. According to one survey in the US, a whopping 83 percent of workers suffer from work-related stress.5
The thing with stress is that we often turn to coping mechanisms that are exactly the opposite of what we should be doing to alleviate the stress. Almost half of people from that UK survey admitted they turned to unhealthy food because of stress, and around a third either starting drinking or drank more. It's a classic catch-22 situation; because we feel stressed, we eat crap, or polish off a bottle of wine, or laze on the sofa instead of going for a walk. Then we feel even worse as a result.
Since we're very unlikely to eliminate all forms of stress, we need to get better at lowering our stress levels. Taking care of ourselves and creating a more balanced life is the way forward, because it involves doing all the things that help us feel calmer, more focused, less prone to overwhelm, and ultimately less stressed. I cover these practical strategies later in the chapter, but we're basically talking about eating better, sleeping better, exercising, having firm work boundaries, and so on.
Aside from lowering your stress levels, there are other physical and mental benefits to creating a more balanced life. Looking at the physical side, the human body isn't designed to spend eight hours a day, or more, indoors hunched over a desk. We need to move, be outside, get fresh air. Part of leading a more balanced life is creating the time in your daily schedule to get away from the desk and move your body, whether it's simply walking around the block on your lunch break, going for a run after work, or indulging in whatever form of movement floats your boat.
Then there are the mental benefits. I know I feel calmer when I'm getting the balance right. And a calmer mind is generally better able to deal with anxiety, challenges, and negative thoughts when they occur (as opposed to a stressed mind, which might react with panic or catastrophize problems into a much bigger deal than they are). In other words, when you feel balanced and in control, you have the mental breathing room to recognize and process thoughts in a healthier, more considered way, as opposed to just reacting to them.
I'm not just talking about having more time for family and friends here, although that is a clear benefit of finding balance. More importantly, balance gives you the ability to be present when you're with others. You're not distracted by work emails on your phone. You're not thinking about work. You're not snappy or irritable. You're not tired. Of course, sometimes you will be these things. Nobody's perfect. But by implementing habits that help you find balance, the idea is you'll generally be less irritable, tired, stressed, and so on.
You know those entrepreneurs and business leaders who boast about only getting 4 hours sleep a night and working 20 hours a day? I mean, good for them, if that truly makes them feel content and fulfilled. But the rest of us should leave them to it. Because success doesn't require a one-track, all-or-nothing mindset. You can thrive at work, and still have plenty of bandwidth to thrive in all the other areas of life. (Again, achieving this may require you to prioritize carefully, delegate, or set firmer boundaries, but we'll talk more about the practical stuff later.)
I know for me, having a proper work–life balance and having clear boundaries between my work and nonwork life makes me more successful at work, not less. When I'm at work, I'm more focused. I can concentrate on getting the work done. And I'm more relaxed because I'm taking care of my body, mind, and mood.
Things like stress, ill health, lack of sleep, and other symptoms of imbalance all hamper your ability to think creatively because they take up so much mental capacity. This is a problem because creativity is an important part of living a successful, fulfilling life (see Chapter 8). By finding balance—by building some separation between your work and nonwork life, and prioritizing self-care—you make room for creativity. Think of it this way: have you ever been stuck on a problem, then gone for a quick walk and—bam!—the solution pops into your head? This is what happens when you give the brain space to imagine.
I can't emphasize enough that this is about building habits that work for you—that help you find your own version of balance. The following are tips that I've found helpful at various times, but you don't have to adopt all of these. (Besides, it's not a comprehensive list of every technique out there.) I encourage you to seek out your own self-care habits and routines. A good resource for this is the SHED Method book mentioned earlier in the chapter. Do give it a read and explore your own ways to look after your five energies (body, mood, mind, people, and purpose).
Starting with physical wellness:
A healthy body certainly feeds into a healthy mood and mind, but here are some other steps that have helped me boost my mental health:
In terms of these final two energies:
As I've said, building a more balanced life may require you to make some difficult choices and reprioritize. Here are some tips for making better decisions that support your journey:
Finding balance isn't just the responsibility of individuals; we need workplaces to step up and help people live more balanced, more content lives. The link between stress and productivity (or rather, lack of productivity) is argument enough for this; numerous studies have identified that greater stress leads to lower productivity.7
Bottom line, organizations cannot afford to ignore this topic. That's why I believe businesses must:
To recap the key points on finding balance:
This brings us to the end of our voyage through 20 essential skills for success. Now, let's round off with some final thoughts.