Juggling the Work-Stress Balance
A lot of people talk about work-life balance, meaning balancing a challenging career with other life issues, especially family and raising children. However, recently, all of my conversations have gravitated toward work-stress balance where many people are considering switching careers, shifting to part-time work, or doing something entirely different due to an overabundance of stress.
When I was in my corporate job, I saw people around me succumbing heavily to the stressful environment. Not only were there health issues, divorces, anxiety attacks and the like, but I saw that the stress seemed to affect job performance, exactly the opposite of what would have been helpful. At the time, I remember engaging in a lot of reading and activities about stress management. Here’s some of what I found useful:
–Pay attention to health — It’s easy for health matters to take a back seat when very busy, but this is precisely the time when an illness or deteriorating health would be sorely unwelcome. I recommend prioritizing things that you can control like what you eat, exercising (which is great for stress management).
–Try to segment some time just for yourself — perhaps a whole day isn’t possible, but aim for a couple of hours when you aren’t juggling lots of to-do lists. If you work a lot and have tons of things to catch up on, don’t let the errands crowd out all of the personal time.
–Keep a close eye on the budget — many people have massive stress at work because they know if they are laid off or their salary decreased, it would have very negative implications for the budget. Keeping a buffer emergency fund and control of expenses are good ways to reduce budget related stress.
–Think about making a change — if you are suffering from tremendous stress, sometimes it makes sense to pare back responsibilities or make a real change. Planning for these things can be very good for your mental health
–Don’t burden yourself with too much choice stress — one of the things that I found troubling was thinking of ALL of the possible options of things that I might do of course with the grass greener on the other side. If you are staying at a job you don’t like solely to pay bills and keep health insurance, sometimes acknowledging the job’s role in your life, and finding things that make you happy outside of the job might be a good option.
shared at this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance
