All work, no play?

[Priya]

All work, no play?

It helps to get your priorities right when balancing career and family

The worst feeling in the world for someone who is working hard to create a better life is the realisation that what they consider to be the most important element in life, their family, is getting pushed down the list of important things and being ignored altogether.

It's only when one realises that their parents, partner and children have distanced themselves from them that they wake up to the fact that their family life and personal relationships have taken a backseat.

However, not all is lost if they wake up to this fact in time and take concrete step to change the situation. Yes, damage control is possible, and here are some suggestions as to how one can about it.

GOAL SETTING

You can improve the quality of your relationships by leaps and bounds by investing more time with them. Money and wealth alone is not the mark of a truly successful human being. Your ideal outcome is to have both financial abundance as well as healthy, loving relationships.

Where do you start? You must start setting your family goals right now, immediately… Do not wait! Here are some questions to help guide you. Grab a pen and paper and answer each question with full honesty.

• How much time each day to you share with your children? How much time would you prefer to share with them?

• Do you begin each day feeling positive or negative when you first see your family members?

• On a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the highest, what score would you give yourself in the "communication" department when it comes to handling family problems and interacting with them?

• How many days out of the week do you have dinner with your entire family?

• Do you take advantage of the weekends with your family or friends?

• Do you spend the amount of time that you would like to with your spouse?

• What are some things that you feel are missing from your relationships, whether with your family or friends?

Take your answers and write down everything that you would want to change about them. Write down all of the situations that you would change for the better within each question. Now you need to find out how you can achieve all that you wish for. To start with, here are a couple of suggestions:

ENHANCE THE QUALITY OF FAMILY LIFE

Building and maintaining strong and loving relationships, especially within your family life, is one of the great hallmarks of successful living. No amount of money, wealth or fame can replace the value in raising a nurturing family life.

Anyone can make a lot of money, anyone can work harder and attain more success within their career, but it takes someone special to create and hold on to the trust born from a loving and deep meaningful relationship, be it family or friends.

• Prioritise and remember:

Always keep in mind what is most important in your life by making the needs of your loved ones a top priority. Strive to put your relationships, especially your family, ahead of everything else. Of course there may be times when sacrifices have to be made, but never at the expense of diminishing the quality of your family closeness.

• Don’t bring work home:

All too often we tend to bring our work home with us. Although this practice may be good for business, it can be detrimental to the attention of our spouse and our children. The best way to overcome this obstacle is to work harder at work, so that we do not have to ignore our family by taking our work home from the office.

• Learn time management:

The next time you are trying to decide how much time to spend at work verses your time at home with your family, keep this in mind: It is the quality of time at work that counts but it is the quality of time spent at home that matters. In other words, the time you spend at work is measured by results and productivity and the time spent at home with your loved ones is measured in terms of contentment and love.

• Interact with your family:

Watching television, browsing the Internet, or reading a book does not constitute spending time with your family, even if they are in the same room with you. It is easy to fall into the idea that it is, but remember that while you may be occupied, you are missing out on precious time to interact with your loved ones. This is not to say that you should not have time to yourself by doing the leisure activities that you enjoy, just keep it balanced.

[Vinod Gopani]

Thanks for Advise priya. And for me Family is the most important thing in my life coz everything i do is for them

[Anu]

Very good post Priya..

There always has to be a balance in everything, only then life will be smooth..

[wmc26]

Thx for sharing......