Does Work-Life Balance Hinder Your Success and Happiness?

Work-life balance (WLB) has become the gold standard that everyone seems to chase. It’s the mantra of a comfortable and ‘healthy’ life, emphasizing a strict separation between work and leisure. But is it really the golden ticket to happiness and career growth?

Here’s an unpopular take: Work-life balance may be costing you more than you think — in ways that affect both your personal and professional growth.

A Different, Win-Win Approach to Happiness

Work Should Be a Hobby, Not Just a Duty

We’re often told to pursue WLB as if work and life were two intrinsically conflicting forces. But what if your work was something you genuinely loved? Something that gave you the same joy and purpose as a hobby?

No one talks about “Hobby-Life Balance.” When your work feels like a hobby, there’s no strict need to compartmentalize it from the rest of your life. Instead, work becomes a fulfilling part of your identity, and you’re constantly energized by it.

No one talks about “Hobby-Life Balance”

WLB has decreased the percentage of people who view their work as their passion. With a rigid separation of work and life, it’s harder to foster a sense of belonging. People stop seeing their jobs as a space where they grow, learn, and contribute beyond “just doing the job.” Work becomes something to escape from rather than something to immerse yourself in. This is especially true in the high-tech industry, where many people are privileged to have work they studied hard to attain, rather than something they ended up circumstantially. For such individuals, restrictive work-life balance can lead to an unfortunate missed opportunity for self-fulfillment.

The Lost Art of Serendipity and Creative Fertilization

When we dilute work out of life, we lose something precious: serendipity. That spontaneous exchange of ideas that happens when colleagues connect, brainstorm, or simply share thoughts during a kitchen coffee break.

The push for work-life balance has discouraged after-hours collaboration and interaction. We no longer stay late or feel motivated to work from in the office to solve a problem together or brainstorm over a casual outing. This has come at a cost to creativity and innovation. The best ideas don’t always emerge during scheduled meetings — they happen when different minds fertilize each other through spontaneous, real-life exchanges, in-office, and often outside traditional work hours.

The Excellence Kryptonite

Work-life balance promises comfort. It’s an easy choice. But comfort isn’t always what drives greatness. If your goal is to achieve more than the average success, to excel beyond expectations, then choosing comfort over growth may hold you back.

High achievers often prioritize learning, exploration, and pushing boundaries. They’re the ones who stay a bit longer, who allow work to integrate with their lives because it’s not about logging hours — it’s about maximizing impact. The truth is, if you’re prioritizing career success over comfort, strict work-life balance might not be the choice for you.

Is WLB Really the Path to Happiness and Success?

For some, work-life balance might be the key to contentment, but for those who seek more, who want to make work a meaningful and fulfilling part of life, maybe it’s time to rethink the narrative. Are we sacrificing passion, creativity, and deep fulfillment for the illusion of comfort?

Passion and joy are diminished when comfort becomes a primary goal, hindering an environment where employees feel truly engaged and motivated to innovate.

Introducing Work Life Harmony (WLH)

Maybe it’s time to consider an alternative: Work-Life Harmony (WLH). Unlike constrained work-life balance, WLH allows work and life to complement each other, emphasizing flexibility and integration to create a more fulfilling and enabling experience where both work and personal life can be enjoyed whenever they naturally arise. This means creativity isn’t restricted to certain hours, and life’s demands aren’t boxed to ‘non-work’ time. Instead of compartmentalizing, WLH fosters an environment of radical flexibility, where growth, comfort, and innovation coexist — empowering individuals to thrive both personally and professionally.

Happiness diminishes when comfort becomes a primary goal

Work and life are both dynamic, for both of them to thrive; flexibility should be enabled. We should have work that feels like a hobby, complementing the essence of life.

Executives, take note:

Many companies have jumped on the WLB bandwagon as a selling point to attract talent. But are you aware of the hidden costs of this decision? Rigid work-life balance can create a culture of complacency, where employees may unwillingly and unknowingly end up focusing mainly on meeting the minimum requirements, which can reduce opportunities for growth, creativity, or innovation. Companies that emphasize WLB as a cultural beacon may take the easy path to secure clunky retention, but at the cost of a sense of belonging (akin to patriotism), creativity, performance, and the nurturing of strong interpersonal relationships.

If your workforce is culturize to be more concerned about separating work and life, they may not be invested enough in their roles. Work-life balance isn’t inherently bad — it’s necessary for many people at different stages of their life. However, in industries like high-tech, where creativity and passion are often the driving forces, outlined and enforced work-life balance might actually hinder the potential for innovation and fulfillment. As a decision maker, be cautious — by vigorously promoting WLB, you may be inadvertently discouraging the type of retention and employee happiness that drives your business upward.

Establishing an environment that allows a WLH kind of flexibility can lead to a more engaged, innovative, and passionate workforce. People should be able to work from home whenever it’s needed, arrive late, leave early, or take a vacation whenever necessary; but they should not be culturally encouraged to WLB their mindset.

Prioritize a culture of flexibility and ease off the WLB pedal. Offer a work-for-life rather than work — life balance.

If you found this article helpful, please 👏 and follow!

Interested in delving deeper into this topic or need personalized guidance? Reach out to me at orenykb@gmail.com for dedicated consultancy tailored to your specific needs. I’m here to support you on your journey.