Practicing Presence
When it comes to work-life balance, I could tell you some horror stories. My first job was as the sole employee of a wellness company whose founder, upon hiring me, promptly took a two-month vacation and left me alone to do the day-to-day operations. Most days would start at 4:00am with a Skype call about logistics and end with me crying in my car because I didn’t understand a complex legal document that was due the next day. My husband found me sleepwalking one night. When he tried to get me to come back to bed I started screaming about him about the “missing files.” I was not in a good headspace.
My next job was in customer support at a company whose values included the motto, “Work hard, play hard.” Despite that, I was afraid to take days off and was even looked down upon for taking short breaks during the day, especially after being told that a security camera was going to be installed behind my desk to make sure I was constantly working. To top it all off, I was let go from that company the day I returned from bereavement leave.
To say the least, I have never had a great relationship with the philosophy of work-life balance. Even though it’s become a more common concept, I’ve found that many companies struggle to put it into practice. It’s easy to put a few table tennis tables in the break room, but it’s much harder to create an environment where employees feel empowered to take a mental break or enforce personal boundaries without being perceived as slacking on the job.
Ultimately, my career path led me to a job in human resources, where I get to be part of creating a culture of work-life balance for my peers. As the Talent Manager at CallRail, I am responsible for our company’s benefits package, so keeping a pulse on what our employees really need and value helps me work towards providing the best plans and perks. Because I spent years working in difficult environments where I was often stretched too thin, I’ve realized how damaging it is to be constantly pushed beyond your limits. Overworking employees to the point where they feel like zombies only leads to decreased productivity and burnout, which eventually leads to high turnover for the company. You can’t be expected to work for eight hours straight five days a week without a way to recharge. I love that I am allowed the space for a mental rest in the office, and that I get to help hold that space for others.
Beyond my official role at a company that really tries to encourage a healthy professional lifestyle, the thing that has taught me the most about work-life balance was the birth of my son last year. Before becoming a mother, overextending myself at work mostly only affected my life. Now, with a husband and a son, I’ve had to find a new way to approach my professional life. What I’ve realized is that striking a healthy balance between my time at work and my life outside of the office comes down to the idea of being fully present at any given moment.
When I returned to work after leave, I found that I wasn’t able to approach my professional duties in the same way; I’d added a whole new full-time job as a new mom. After months of giving my full attention to a tiny human’s schedule, transitioning back into a work schedule and talking about something other than growth charts and diapers was a bit jolting at first, and that wasn’t even accounting for the other unexpected challenges of caring for a newborn. My son came home on a heart monitor that would loudly beep every time it came loose, and after one such instance, I sat and cried and thought about how I would never be able to handle motherhood if it meant being this stressed out all of the time. How would I be able to manage dealing with a heart monitor on top of going into an office five days a week? I was able to practice being present by easing back in with a part-time schedule for the first four weeks before coming back to work full-time. This allowed me to prioritize balance and slowly find ways to be fully present both at home and at the office.
Now that I’m back to working full-time, I have plenty of opportunities to practice being intentional about bringing my full self to work and to time with my family. Sometimes, I catch myself thinking about tomorrow’s calendar during the bedtime routine or worrying about missing my son’s little milestones when I’m at the office and I have to refocus. It’s not easy. I feel guilty when I have to decline a meeting that is outside of my usual working hours, or when something important requires me to stay at the office late. I’m learning to accept that I will miss out on some things — some personal, some professional — but that it’s okay to set boundaries. Those are the struggles of figuring out how to be fully invested in the present.
I think about what my maternity leave experience would have been like at my last two jobs. I don’t expect that I would have had much room to think about what I wanted my transition back to work to look like. My palms are sweating just thinking about the thought of how they would have treated a mother who needed more time to recover from a C-section or parents who are dealing with a lengthy NICU stay. Transitioning into parenthood is already hard enough and the bumps along the way can make it even harder. As a parent, an HR professional, and someone who’s lived in a state of burn out, I have an even bigger appreciation for the consideration that companies give to their parental leave policies, as well as to other policies such as bereavement leave and even PTO. It’s easy to disregard the idea of work-life balance as idealistic or lofty perk, but finding a company that tries to understand and care about personal well-being is a huge win in my book.
If you’re struggling to pursue work-life balance in your life, the best advice I can give you is to think about what you really value. Hustling at work isn’t a bad thing. Sometimes, to build your career, you may have to put in long hours and make sacrifices. However, that’s not the same as being in a professional situation that keeps you in a constant state of burnout. Maybe balance for you looks like leaving the office right at 5:00pm every night to be with your family, or finding time to take short breaks during the day to check in with yourself. Maybe it looks like advocating for yourself when it comes to taking leave for a life milestone, or finally taking a week-long vacation. If you’re at a company that allows you zero room for pursuing balance, know that you have the power to advocate for yourself, whether it’s talking to HR or starting to look for a new job. The discomfort that you may experience in the short term will all be worth it when you find a job that serves your life instead of requiring you to sacrifice everything for a paycheck.
Chelsea Michael is the Talent Development Manager at CallRail. She lives in Atlanta with her husband, one-year-old son, and two cats.
