What is Work Life Balance?

1. What is work/life balance?

Golden Door philosophy centres around finding a healthy balance of the mind, body and the spirit. To achieve a healthy work life balance often means acknowledging where we are currently positioned in life – how much time do we actually spend working or doing work-like things, versus the time we spend relaxing, being creative, enjoying laughs with loved ones. A healthy balance is finding your perfect combination of these two areas in your life.

2. Why is it important?

People will often talk about finding “balance” only after they have realised that there is a strong disparity between how they are spending their time and how they want to be spending it. There are some very telling signs, physically and mentally, when our life balance is out of whack. Often these signs show up in the form of injuries and illness in the body and a feeling of overwhelm in the mind. Understanding your own body and listening to it when it is asking us to regain a sense of balance is incredibly important for longevity of wellness.

3. What does a "balance" feel like?

To me balance feels like a taking a deep breath of fresh air, stepping outside with my shoes off from time to time, laughing with people I love, giving freely for the sake of giving, feeling empowered and successful in my work at Golden Door, making a positive difference to people’s lives and connecting with my own quiet sense of spirituality.

4. How do you know you have achieved an imbalance?

When you don’t feel guilty about not being at work!!

5. What are the mental/health and social repercussions of not striking a balance?

Becoming consumed with anything that takes all – or too much –time, energy and focus demonstrates a lack of balance and can create major stress. An overwhelming number of illnesses being presented these days are stress related including anxiety and panic related issues, depression, hypertension etc. etc. Is there a name for someone who’s forgotten how to laugh? Or how good it feels to laugh? That’s a huge repercussion

 6. What are the first things you need to do to learn to leave work at work?

 Haha....! That’s a good question! (As I write this on my “day off”) Time management... get good at prioritising your time and be disciplined in sticking to those time frames you’ve set. If you know you’re a procrastinator or someone who is a “yes” person and can quickly become overloaded, find a mentor to help. There is also an element of asking yourself “what are the consequences of leaving work at work vs not?” If I work 100 hours every week for the next 50 years, what other things am I going to miss out on and how is my body going to handle that? We need to take responsibility and know when to nourish ourselves for sustainability.