Thank you all for following along with the “My Journey” series. I hope my story has challenged and encouraged some of you along the way. I will pick back up with it in a week or two, but I wanted to take a break this week and discuss a topic that I think it’s extremely important.
You often hear people talk about “work-life balance”. Heck, I have even written a few posts on the topic. I want to dive a little deeper today as I think there is a flaw in how many people think about this.
Let me first say that work-life balance is significant to me and Quantify as a company. We have 3 core values that we base everything around and work-life balance is one of them. While we want to build a successful business, we all realize there are more important things in life. In essence we have sacrificed some business growth and income for time spent on other things we love outside of work. That is a conscious decision we have made and we will continue to operate that way.
Are you happy with your work-life balance? Are you satisfied with the income you are making? Are you satisfied with the time you are spending with your family or things you love outside of work? These are all legitimate questions that each of us needs to answer. We need to weigh what is most important for us and spend our time accordingly.
Let’s get even a little realer.
I hear too many people complain about not making enough money, yet they are working a 40-hour week. But then, I hear so many people wishing they had more time to spend with their family but aren’t willing to sacrifice some income. Let’s tackle each of these scenarios separately.
If you want to make more money, you need to work more. There are 24 hours in a day and you sleep for 8 of them. That leaves 16 hours a day to go and make money if that is what you desire. We should probably stop complaining about not making enough money, if all do we after an 8-hour work-shift is binge watch Breaking Bad. If you want to chill out and watch TV every night, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that! But if you are complaining about wanting more money yet are wasting time watching TV every night… the issue is obvious.
On the other side of the spectrum, I also hear people say they wish they had more time for their family or things that they love outside of work. I totally understand that there are bills to pay but if you place a higher value on time with family, by default you HAVE to place a lower value on making money. And while that may bother people to hear, that is the truth.
The only person holding you back is you.
I am sure some this will offend people. But I want you to go out and get the things most valuable to you: Whether that’s more money, better work-life balance, more whatever, go and get it.
If you want to call and wrestle more through this, I’m totally game. But it needs to be said: People are generally unhappy with their position in life because they are too scared to change it. Well now is the time to change all that. When you wake up tomorrow you will have 16 hours to make your life what you want. What are you going to do?
