Work-life balance -> key to long-term career success
It's hard to do good work long-term if we are not feeling good!
Intro
December is the time to look back, strategize and see where we can improve. One of the things that is very important to have in mind is work-life balance.
I like to say that without good work-life balance, it's really hard to be doing good work long-term.
Everyone's work-life balance looks different.
It's important to find out what works best for you. Some people may feel energized by working long hours, while others may feel depleted.
I like to suggest to follow and do more what gives you energy and you feel refreshed after you do that.
That could be:
exercise,
reading,
socializing or something else.
In this article, I am sharing what works for me + my overall tips how you can find what energizes you and how to get closer to achieving work-life balance.
This is an article for paid subscribers, and here is the full index:
- Neglecting your life for exchange of work will not help your career long-term
- Finding the right balance between work and life is very important
🔒 This is what works for me in terms of work-life balance
🔒 Goals and challenges give me energy
🔒 I use the same mentality in all of the areas of my life and work
🔒 The goal of growing and continuously improving this newsletter, course and my overall solopreneurship journey is really energizing me
🔒 Exercising daily helps me to recharge and consistently do what I’m doing
🔒 All other things are very important as well and should not be neglected → family, friends, overall life goals, etc.
🔒 My advice to finding what energizes you
🔒 Last words
Resources mentioned in the article:
Course “Senior Engineer to Lead: Grow and thrive in the role”
From IC to manager (paid article)
How to become a CTO (paid article)
Book: Human Design: The Revolutionary System That Shows You Who You Came Here to Be
Let’s go straight into it.
Neglecting your life for exchange of work will not help your career long-term
It might have positive applications short-term or it can create a launchpad for you, but long-term it's not sustainable.
shared an interesting LinkedIn post regarding this topic, which got me thinking. Here is the post:
And here is my response:
It’s hard to be doing good work and progress in your career if you don’t focus on improving your life in general.
Going to the gym, social life, being healthy, gaining overall life experience, improving looks or at least retaining on a good level.
These are all parts of a good work-life balance.
You can do the best work possible as an engineer, but it will be hard to grow to Senior+ roles without it.
People need to look up to you and you need to be a role model for others.
It’s hard to do that if the only thing that you have is work.
Finding the right balance between work and life is very important
It’s easier said than done, but crucial for the success of our careers. Focusing on one too much may negatively impact the other, which will then negatively impact both. They are both connected.
Trying to find the balance is key and my recommendation is to focus on doing things that energize you and not drain your energy.
If you can connect your work to the things that energize you, that’s where you can spent long hours just working on that and not feel drained.
But even if that is the case, there will be specific things that you won’t like and won’t give you energy and that’s totally fine as long as you balance with things that does.