The Truth About Work-Life Balance
It’s all just life if you allow it to be.
‘Work-life balance’ is talked about a lot.
So many of us are constantly striving to find this ‘balance’; existing on a never ending journey of ways to do less work and have more ‘life’.
We seem to be constantly striving for ways to have more fun, do the things that actually mean something to us and generally be happier.
So, surely that can’t include work, right?
The majority of us spend a significant part of our lives at work — one third on average. We see our lives as linear journeys — A leads to B, which leads to C, etc, and what we all want at the end is happiness, and as the term would suggest; ‘balance’.
But what about all of the parts in between?
Don’t we want that third to be just as meaningful as the rest?
Are we forgetting that actually all of this is just life?
My career in dance and wellbeing has led me to work with lots of people who are really struggling to find their ‘balance’ – particularly those who I work with through our workplace programme. Many of them have complicated issues around stress, physical pain, and lack of energy.
I too have had my fair share of difficult times, and I have to practice daily how to manage my different responsibilities, stress and energy levels.
I also regularly meet lots of other professionals in the wellbeing arena and I’d bet money on ‘work-life balance’ coming up as something most of them help people with.
But what does using this term actually make us feel? (And therefore think?)
Removing the boxes
By creating separate boxes called ‘work’ and ‘life’, and by talking about ‘balance’ we automatically create positive and negative, with work always coming out as the negative. Then, somehow, we have to find this perfect balance between the two.
In general, I think it’s really just a way of saying “I want to do more of the things I love and less of what I don’t” – something that everyone wants.
But does separating ‘work’ from ‘life’ actually help us?
Does work have to be the part we don’t like, and is putting everything in boxes the best way forwards?
For many people, work is the worst part of their day – it causes immense stress, takes up time that they would rather be spending with their family, and is unfulfilling. Not to mention issues around underpay and inequality.
I’ve even heard friends of mine say:
“the thought of doing my job for the rest of my life makes me feel sick”
But they’re doing it because they have responsibilities – children, family, a mortgage, bills, etc.
I get that. Financial reasons often outweigh our own desires – money makes the world go round and often it dominates our decisions. We feel we have to take a job, and stay in it regardless of how it makes us feel. We feel out of control of our own destiny.
My work as a freelancer produces a rather precarious income, and not a month goes by where I’m not carefully watching the pennies.
When I was younger and had just graduated from professional dance training I did everything I could to just make sure I had an income – retail, serving coffee, bar work, ushering at a local theatre, flyering, admin, etc.
Living in London meant huge expenses (let’s not go into the rent prices alone!). But being there also enabled me to study for my Masters and get a foot through the door in the dance world – something I wanted more than anything else at that time. I recognised how important this was for me and so I took on whatever hourly paid job I could get to make sure the bills were covered, whilst I tried my utmost to build on my professional dance experience too.
Some days I really hated it – standing for hours in a freezing cold shop to serve people who didn’t even take the courtesy to say “hello” as they came in or “thank you” as they left. My feet would be killing me from all the standing and I would cycle ten miles each way every day because I couldn’t afford to get the tube (great for my fitness but no so much for my time or energy).
I spent almost a decade doing all sorts of unfulfilling jobs. In this time I did everything I could to also get some dance work – I went to as many auditions as possible (and got rejected from them all), took work for ‘exposure’ rather than pay (I wouldn’t recommend this to any aspiring artist — it doesn’t benefit anyone), and taught a load of after-school dance clubs where I was brought in more for the convenience of having someone to keep an eye on the kids for a while, rather than for my professional skills or to ensure the children were given creative opportunities for their own growth and development.
I also witnessed lots of other people in the dance world (including my friends) get their ‘dream job’ or get much further in auditions than I ever did.
I could so easily have perceived these experiences negatively — sure, I felt a lot of disappointment and frustration but it’s what I did with this that counts. I could have let the disappointment and frustration take over, and given up after the first six months of continual unsuccessful auditions and unfulfilling hourly paid jobs. I could have gone down an ‘easier’ route to give me a more stable income and a ‘safer’ way to find a life worth living.
But I didn’t.
Instead I kept going because I needed to — I didnt consider work as separate from the rest of my life.
The thought of looking back on my life and regretting giving up on dance terrified me much more than the thought of continuing on this unknown path.
My work was (and is) part of who I am in a way that helps me feel fulfilled, grateful, happy, and it gives me purpose. It is a key part of my life, and by recognising this I was able to take the risk and focus on the value of the experiences work gives me if I let it.
It’s the experiences that count.
It’s not about whether meaningful experiences happen at work or outside of work. In fact they can happen at both, and both are connected to each other. Just because it’s work, doesn’t mean it can’t be fulfilling.
Work, to me, is not a means to an end — a necessary evil that will eventually let me do the things I want to do.
Instead, work has the potential to enable us all to live a more fulfilling life. That’s not to say that fulfilling work is easy, or always enjoyable, but it is important.
True ‘work-life balance’ comes when you feel that you don’t need to separate the two, instead it’s all about experiences you value and how you are going to create them.
For me, this was choosing a career I’m truly interested in, and something that comes from who I am. I was always aware of the inevitable failure that would arise but nothing else felt right.
I did well at school, including in academic subjects, and I probably could have gone down lots of other career routes. In fact, I remember being called into the school library one day as part of a group of students who had been selected to find out more about studying at Cambridge or Oxford Universities. As I sat there, listening to a very well-meaning advocate for academic achievement, all I could think was “they don’t offer dance, so why am I here?” I understood that my grades were good and I had a good work ethic, but no academic subject gave me purpose or joy like dance did.
So work has always been a passion for me. I was (and am) never going to give up and choose an ‘easier’ path.
Today, this has given me so many rich and meaningful experiences — every Tuesday I work with a group of women in my local community who are new to dance, and through our sessions have found a new sense of confidence in themselves that they didn’t know they had.
On a Wednesday and Friday I work with groups of children who have so much joy, love, creativity, and talent, they give me hope and inspire me to be the best I can be, for myself and those around me.
I’ve also had the opportunity to experience new cultures and work around the world. Here I am dancing with staff at a local school for disabled children in Vietnam — myself and my husband (also a dancer) visited to provide some training through a very special organisation that I work for, Flamingo Chicks:
This was actually on our honeymoon! We had 4 hours spare to wait for the overnight train from Hanoi, and so we spent some of that time with these wonderful people. I have to say, and my husband would agree, that this was one of the most incredible moments of our entire trip — meeting local people and experiencing some of ‘real life’ Vietnam was very special.
Writing has come out of dance too — I’ve always found writing really useful and it’s now another creative outlet I use to help others make a bit more sense of the world.
Sure, I often feel stressed and under a lot of pressure. It’s not all positive. In fact, this year I organised an arts and wellbeing festival and in the process put my own wellbeing on the line — definitely not my intention but sometimes things are difficult. I definitely don’t enjoy every day.
But I’m realising that I’m the one in the driving seat here. Even on the bad days I have a choice as to how to deal with them. Work doesn’t need to be separate from the rest of my life unless I want it to be.
If I listen to my values and goals, work can offer incredibly valuable experiences, and ultimately be part of a fulfilling life for myself and for others.
So, I’ve chosen to make work part of my life. Instead of separating it, and putting more value on things outside of work, I am working on living a life that focuses on the experiences I value, rather than putting boundaries on where these experiences come from.
Dots and Circles
Work doesn’t have to be the bad bit, even if at the moment it is. You always have options, even when you feel like you don’t, and things can always change.
Eventually, after all of those years of unfulfilling jobs, I now manage to make a living from working in dance and it’s what I do full time. It’s still hard a lot of the time, and I don’t love every second of it, but it feels right — and this, to me, is the most important thing.
I recently read ‘The Courage to be Disliked’ by Ichiro Kishimi and this quote stood out to me:
“Think of life as a series of small dots. If you look through a magnifying glass at a solid line drawn with chalk, you will discover that what you thought was a line is actually a series of small dots. Seemingly linear existence is actually a series of dots; in other words, life is a series of moments.”
The ‘Philosopher’ in the book describes the moments as being ‘now’ — right now, in the moment. Life is what is happening right now, it’s not dictated by your past or determined by your future.
I also find thinking of life as more of a circle, rather than a line, really helpful — sometimes things come back around, and that’s ok. Allowing yourself to be ok with the unexpected, and not always ‘moving forwards’ is really freeing — it’s a relief from your own constraints.
So why not remove the boxes, focuses on your experiences, and try thinking of life as fluid, made up of dots or moments:
Inside some of these moments will be ‘work’.
What do you want these moments to be like?
How do you want them to fit in to the whole (your life)?
How are you going to do that?
