Business and Life: Sorting to Lower Stress

I’ve never worked with a life coach, nor do I wish to be one.

However, in working with and training people, one idea of life coaching is, or should be, important to any business person in any business setting. That is how business, work, job, career, figures in the way a person views his or her life. What I’ve found in those I know, and what I suspect is true of most, is that few people actually think about the relationship they have set up between their work and their life. With that in mind, I offer these questions.

• What percentage of your life is not spend working? Do you have a long-term plan?
• In what ways have you built a life in which things other than your work define you?
• How often do you choose your life over work when the two demand your time?
• How often do you hear you work too much?
• When was your last vacation?

An inability to separate ourselves from our work doesn’t seem to be that different from an inability to separate ourselves from our parents. It also seems about as healthy and produces a similar response when the relationship is no longer there.

Employers want strong vital citizens who contribute value, not workers who bring the need to be personally defined and validated. Overachieving in that way disrupts a team, tries relationships, and often burns out the employee who gives himself or herself away.

No one wins.

Work at work. Live at life. Keep them separate to be the strongest and least stressed. Quality of life supports quality of work.

Liz Strauss.
Behind every business is a Successful and Outsanding manager. –Perfect Virtual Manager