Achieving success may appear to be the dream goal for everyone but not all are willing to make sacrifices to achieve it. In international development and the aid sector, work can be particularly unpredictable with crises arising when all your plans have been set up, unexpected travel for work has to fit into your already tight schedule or late-night conference calls come tapping on your screen at the end of a busy day. You want an enviable career and a good work-life balance. How do you achieve this? Well, not by wanting to get the most out of every single aspect of your life.
Working 60 hours a week, having a vibrant social life, going to the gym every day, and being an involved parent and/or partner? Let that dream go. “Getting the full hundred percent out of it in all areas is simply not possible, one is at the expense of the other,” says psychologist and stress expert, Thijs Launspach.
The general formula for a work-life balance suggests that work and private life should be perfectly balanced but this is hardly ever the case. Launspach is therefore not charmed by the term. “It’s wrong to think that there always has to be a balance between the two. That’s not the point. It’s about having the flexibility to sometimes prioritize one thing and sometimes the other. If you need to step on the gas at work, you need to slow down in another area. And if your private life requires extra attention, for example, due to an extra care task, you should have some space at work to take it easy. If you have that flexibility, then things can be cheerfully out of balance as far as I’m concerned.”
Laura den Dulk, Professor of Public Administration, Labour, Organization and Work-life issues at Erasmus University also agrees that it is a misconception that the ‘balance’ should always be 50/50. “You just don’t spend the same amount of time on different areas of life.”
According to the experts, if the balance shifts more towards work, that is not a disaster. “It’s a choice,” says Den Dulk. “If you’re just starting out on the job market and fancy a flashy career, it doesn’t matter if you have less time for other things. The combination of work and private life then looks different than with someone who wants children and who wants to go a little less fast in terms of career.”
What feels good?
There’s nothing wrong with hard work in itself, as long as you don’t get ahead of yourself. “People think you should eliminate stress from your life as much as possible, but that’s not true at all,” says Launspach. “Your body can handle some stress. In fact, you kind of need it. But in between those peak moments, you have to recover enough. You also see this with top athletes: they train hard to achieve top performance, but in the meantime, they consciously pay attention to resting, sleeping well, and taking good care of themselves. That is part of delivering that performance. The same goes for a career. You can handle quite a bit of stress, as long as you make sure you have enough space at home for recovery. I think that’s the trick.”
Recipe for chronic stress
Don’t forget the importance of a social life, emphasizes Den Dulk. “After a bad day at work, you feel a lot better when you have a nice dinner with a friend afterwards. These two domains enrich each other. If you only focus on work, you lose it. It can also be lonely.” Launspach agrees. “Social support is super important. You have to have people around you with whom you don’t have to talk about work for a while, who stimulate and support you.”
Ring the bell
And don’t hesitate to speak to your employer if it all becomes too much for you, both say. Launspach: “If you notice that your private life needs a little more attention, communicate this to your employer. Be open about it to your manager in a good time. ‘I’m finding that this is difficult to combine, can we look at that?’ You may be able to take extra time or push projects back. In my experience, something is often possible, especially if you are clear about what is going on and indicate it in good time.”
Den Dulk: “People are often afraid that they will be seen as less ambitious as a result, but if you don’t discuss it, nothing will change anyway. In addition, employers often understand this, they are just not used to it. The funny thing is that the perception is that you can only have a flashy career if you put a lot of time into it, while that says nothing about the quality of your work. We all make it a rat race, but that is not necessary. You can also achieve a lot without working extremely long hours.”
