Harmonize Your Work/Life Balance

calm responseA recent survey found that 66% of workers in the US struggle with finding the right work/life balance – and they aren’t all parents. With our 24/7 culture, even employees without children find it challenging to keep work and home priorities in reasonable proportions. The real issue isn’t the continual balancing act between work and home; rather, it is the fact you don’t know what the balance is all about.

When you are clear about what’s important to you, choices are easier to make, and you are more content with your decisions. In contrast, when you aren’t clear and find yourself struggling with decisions about where to spend your time and energy, your feelings of stress and guilt go up and your energy plummets.

To get back more energy and to counter the stress and guilt of where to focus, re-frame the idea finding “work/life balance” by harmonizing your personal identity and purpose with your current employment.

How Compatible is Your Personal Vision /Mission with Work?

Start with creating a big picture vision for how you want your life to be. Your vision includes what you want to experience and/or contribute throughout your lifetime. Your corresponding mission goes into more detail about what you want to do to make your vision come true as you use your talents and gifts.

Once you have a broad personal vision and mission, notice how compatible they are with those of your chosen career and current employer. For example, if your vision is to create a world where you help others express themselves uniquely, using your ability to empathize with others, see how that dovetails with your career. I’ll assume it is possible to fulfill you vision and mission in all careers, while it’s easier to do so in some versus others. The more you can live your own vision and mission through your career, the less you’ll struggle with work/life balance and the more you’ll be in flow.

Also, compare your personal vision and mission with those of your company. They don’t have to match up 100%. However, the less overlap, the more likely you’ll experience the dissonance between them, causing those feelings of overwhelm and lack of balance. If the disconnect is great, you may want to consider finding an employer that is more in line with your personal vision and mission.

How About Your Personal Values?

As with your vision and mission, work and home harmony is easier the more your personal values are in line with your employer’s values. To assess this, determine your top 3 personal values — the conceptual principles that are critically important to you and by which you act and make decisions. Seek commonality or connection between your personal values and those touted and lived by your company. For example, if one of your core values is “honesty” and you work for a company that is deceptive with customer and employees, then you might routinely feel conflicted at work – even if that company purports to value “honesty” or “integrity”. In contrast, if the company goes the extra mile to be honest and keep its promises with customers and employees, you’ll experience more harmony and flow.

Again, you don’t need 100% alignment between your core values and those of your employer. Yet, the more synergy there is between them, the less tension, overwhelm, and guilt you’ll have about spending extra time at work or taking time off for personal priorities.

Harmonizing Goals, Projects, and Tasks

Based on your vision, mission, and values, you probably have set some aspirations for yourself, personally and professionally. Compare these personal and career goals/aspirations with the goals you are currently charged with at work. Is there a way to further your personal goals through your work goals? Often, work goals give you opportunities to receive training and make connections that are beneficial personally.

In turn, focusing on the relevant projects and tasks that further your work goals can also harmonize your schedule between work and home. When you intentionally schedule the work tasks that further company goals, you may realize you’ve been caught up in a lot of “busy” work that has sapped your time and energy, leaving you with the stress and guilt of not attending to things at home.

That’s why it’s important to align your personal and work priorities. Doing so, can clarify the personal and work choices presented to you. When your career and current employment fit within your personal vision, mission, values, goals, and priorities, the balance or harmony between them is greater.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR NEWSLETTER, BLOG OR WEBSITE? You can, as long as you include this information with it: Beth Strathman works with women in leadership who want to have more positive impact within their organizations, by gaining greater composure, focus, and influence with their teams. Learn more at: bethstrathman.com.

3 Things Leaders Must Do to Bring Company Missions To Life

maze strategyWithin months of the June 2016 investigation into a Tesla vehicle crash due to malfunctioning autopilot, CEO Elon Musk showed his commitment to Tesla Motors’ mission to “accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy”. He broke ground on a battery plant in Nevada and announced a bid and recently acquired a solar products company that has a similar commitment to sustainable energy.

What kept Musk going after this crash setback? He (and by extension his company, Tesla Motors) has a compelling mission that he lives and breathes.

This same commitment to accelerating the transition to sustainable energy drives Tesla Motors’ Patent policy, which states the company will not . . .

initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use its technology. Tesla was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport, and this policy is intended to encourage the advancement of a common, rapidly-evolving platform for electric vehicles, thereby benefiting Tesla, other companies making electric vehicles, and the world.

Allowing your competitors to compete against you using your own proprietary information? THAT’s living your company’s mission!

Make Your Mission Statement Mean Something

Some have opined that mission statements don’t really matter but that companies create them anyway because, well, that’s what you do. Yet, just because some companies are not good at creating compelling mission statements and actually using them doesn’t mean that mission statements are “dead”. To the contrary, they are a necessary and valuable component of a well-run corporate strategy.

61% of employees in North America don’t know their company’s mission. – Achievers Survey, September 2015

In fact, your company’s mission statement is part of the guidance system that focuses you on what you are here to do. It keeps your company on track, so you remain focused in a general direction and are less subject to the distraction of every bright, shiny opportunity in the world. Used effectively, your mission should inform your vision, your values, and corporate goals.

To what degree is your mission statement a vital and compelling guide for your business? Here are 3 critical ways to make sure you and your employees are living your company’s mission:

1. Assess How Well the Mission is Resonating

According to a recent survey by achievers.com, 61% of employees don’t know their company’s mission statement. Whether you do a formal or informal survey, find out if your employees know your company’s mission and how much passion there is for it. On a scale from 1-10, where are you? Where is the executive team?

The level of awareness of and passion for your mission is not only an indicator of how well you’ve built the mission into all aspects of the business, but it might also indicate whether you need to punch it up to make it more compelling. Also, take stock of what’s working and what’s not working with respect to how your mission is showing up in your company daily.

2. You Go First

To make your mission statement come alive, you of all people must embody it. How are you and the rest of the executive team helping it come alive or hindering it from doing so? Do you mention the mission statement often? What do you convey to others that shows you used the mission when making a decision? creating a vision for the foreseeable future? or setting a goal? In short, you must intentionally and consistently make others aware that the mission is embedded in all that you do and say.

3. Build the Mission Into Every Aspect of Your Business

In addition, you can ensure employees see the mission in action by using it as the foundation for all work practices, policies, processes and standards of conduct. Here are some ways to do that:

  • Make your mission explicit in policies, processes, team charters, etc.
  • Ensure each employee knows how their job furthers the mission.
  • State it regularly in meetings to set the tone and work it in to every project and assignment.
  • Ask employees how their current work furthers the mission.
  • Incorporate it in all decision-making regarding products, services, customer service, employees, community relations, etc.
  • Be explicit about how new goals, a new vision, new policies, new products, etc. align with the mission.
  • Reflect regularly on how well you live it.
  • Recognize and adjust obvious practices that are contrary to it.
  • When giving feedback, acknowledge the employee’s actions were consistent or inconsistent with the mission.

Your mission serves to keep you on the right track. It is the foundation of the alignment of everything in your company. Make sure you’re getting the most out of it.