“The early bird gets the worm”.
“You move; you lose.”
“I will rest when I am dead”.
“I don’t want my clients or colleagues to know that I am off today”.
All of these sound far too familiar!
Work/Life balance is difficult, but not impossible. As your career progresses the two sometimes merge indistinguishably. At the end of the day, it is up to us individually to take charge of our most valuable commodity…..TIME!!! When we take on life’s challenges, be it a new job, promotion, or venture….we must weigh the costs.
What is most important to us at the end of the day? Being in touch with your values will help you to make a sound judgment call. Ask yourself some questions? If I were taking EXTREMELY good care of myself, what would I be doing on a regular basis? What kind of life do I ultimately seek to create? Who is most deserving of my best? If I were to die tomorrow, what do I want my headstone to read, # 1 ( ? )
A philosophy professor once used pebbles, rocks, and sand to illustrate this point.
Rocks- Important things like God, family, health
Pebbles- Other things in life that matter on a smaller scale like your job, house, and car
Sand- The small stuff (everything else)
If you put the sand or the pebbles into the jar first, there is no room for the rocks. The same applies to life! If you spend all your energy and time on the small stuff (material things) you will never have room for the things that are truly most important. Pay attention to the things that are CRITICAL in your life. The things that if they disappeared tomorrow….you would be completely devastated and they could NEVER possibly be replaced….you couldn’t even imagine anything even coming close to replacing them.
The moral of this story is to take care of the big rocks FIRST! There will always be time to go to work, throw a dinner party, watch a movie, etc. Set your priorities, for the rest is merely pebbles and sand…….
-Jamie
Jamie Durity 