5 Steps to Reset Your Work-Life Balance

Whatever work we do—paid or volunteer, working in the home or outside the home—the boundaries between personal, family, and work life can often run together.

Many of us struggle to juggle our responsibilities, wants, and many facets of our lives. Working and attending meetings remotely; hybrid schedules; and personal, volunteer, and work activities frequently blend into each other, leaving little distinction between them. This dissonance compels many of us to push our personal well-being to the sidelines.

As a music lover, I have come to appreciate the phrase work-life harmony. Our lives are symphonies in progress.

Creating a full, rich integration of life’s various components can be beautiful, yet challenging to balance. The term work-life harmony recognizes the realities of contemporary life—that for many of us, our work, family, and personal lives intersect, overlap, and flow together. How can we compose a harmony that empowers us to meet needs, demands, wants, and goals across work time, family time, and personal time?

Consider your own life. How satisfying is the harmony in your personal, family, work, and volunteer life? Of course, opinions about what constitutes harmony are different for each of us, but all of us need to make discernments, priorities, and choices about what truly matters.

It can be useful to take into account what you have direct control over, what you may have some influence over, and where you have no direct control (Covey, 2020). Many of us expend a lot of time and energy trying to impact things over which we have little or no control. If you intend to create greater harmony, you might want to center your attention where you have the most control—for example, your words, mindset, attitudes, priorities, choices, and actions.

Living in greater work-life harmony is an ongoing process, not a once-and-done. Yet some of the answers to better work-life harmony can be quite simple. Here are a few practical strategies to help you compose greater harmony from the inside out.

1. Consider how you’re feeling about your current work-life balance.

• What is your biggest challenge to work-life balance?
• What are one or two areas where you have direct control that could benefit from change or improvement?

2. Your values are guideposts that can help bring greater balance and meaning into your life.

Your values are essential to who you are, who you want to be, the decisions you make, and the actions you choose. Identifying your values can make life easier and more meaningful, helping you discern your true priorities and how you want to direct your decisions and time (Clear, 2024).

There are many kinds of values. Examples include order, service, reliability, learning, spontaneity, fun, perfection, security, tradition, challenge, holiness, positivity, love, belonging, structure, ambition, excellence, money, fame, sensitivity, relationships, teamwork, equity, quiet. Ask yourself:

• What are some of your most important values?
• Where are you living into your values and where are you off-key from what you truly value?

3. Lead your life with wise choices.

It can help to engage in strategies that help you plan and prioritize thoughtfully.

• As you make choices, consider your values and what matters to you.
• Determine your top priorities for the day. Ask yourself: Which choices will bring me closer to my goals and/or strengthen my relationships? What’s the best use of my time? Which choices may have negative consequences if left undone?
• Break big goals into smaller, manageable chunks.
• Set reasonable expectations for yourself and others.
• Ask: Where can you empower others? What can you say no to?
• Enlist help from family, friends, colleagues, and professionals.
• Practice gratitude (Emmons, 2016)

4. Restore your personal well-being.

What do you need for self-care and personal wellbeing? How can you begin to include more of what you need or want in your life? Even moments can make a positive difference.

• Pay attention to your needs and wants. What is your inner voice whispering?
• Give yourself brief intermissions to experience an emotion, pleasure, or activity that feels positive for you—for example: reading, walking, singing, cooking, laughing, talking with a loved one, meditating, or dancing.
• What is one small change or positive step you can experiment with?
• Consider starting with simply a 1 percent change and then you can build from there (Clear, 2018).

5. Make time for relationships.

Another key to work-life harmony is relationships. Loneliness and social isolation affect many of us these days.

The U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, M.D., has identified loneliness as an urgent public health issue, releasing an advisory stating that “social connection is a significant predictor of longevity and better physical, cognitive, and mental health, while social isolation and loneliness are significant predictors of premature death and poor health” (Murthy, 2023). Dr. Murthy’s report recommends cultivating a culture of connection—paying attention to values including kindness, committing to others, service, and social connection (home, schools, workplaces, communities).

How can you increase your opportunities to interact with others?

• Engage in shared hobbies or activities.
• Take a walk or run together.
• Plan a fun, simple family activity on the weekend.
• Call a friend or family member.
• Help someone or volunteer somewhere.
• What’s one way you can tune up your work-life harmony? What do you want to reflect on? What would you like to experiment with? What is your next right step?