7 Work-Life Balance Tips From Celebrities and Power Couples A successful career and great family relationships --- you can have both! Should I sacrifice my family responsibilities to become that independent, strong-willed, achiever I've always dreamed of? Should I give up my dream to become a career woman [or man] and focus all my time and energy to rearing a family? Or can I have both? Work-Life Imbalance Plagues the World The lack of work-life balance is a big problem for workers (and their respective companies) across the globe. For instance, in the UK, a Mental Health Foundation survey reveals: • A third of the respondents feel unhappy about the time they spend at work. • Because of work, 40% neglect other aspects of their life. • 27% feel depressed, 58% feel irritable and 34% feel anxious when working longer hours. • A person's feeling of unhappiness increase with increasing work hours • More women (42%) report unhappiness than men (29%) due to conflicting life roles. • About two-thirds of employees experience the negative consequences of work-life imbalance such as the lack of personal development, poor family relationships and physical and mental health problems. Finding that “sweet-spot” between work and life is a problem for all workers, especially parents. The time a person spends at work is an important aspect of work-life balance. More time at work means lesser time for personal activities, leisure and family relationships. Like most countries in the world, America is not an exception --- an OECD survey shows that: • 11.3% of employees are working 50+ hours a week. • Full-time workers spend 60% of their day (roughly 14.3 hours) to leisure and personal care --- less than the OECD average of 15 hours. If no action is done, this trend will continue to increase –-- putting the mental, physical and social well-being of workers at risk. Self-Check: Are You Deprived of Work-Life Balance? Many employees don't recognize that they are suffering from work-life imbalance (or choose to “endure” it for pay's sake). Identifying the problem early is crucial to maintaining a healthy body and rewarding family relationships. Consider asking yourself the following questions: • Do you feel burdened by work and family responsibilities everyday? • Do you feel that work is something that you have to endure until the weekend? • Do you feel completely exhausted every time you come home at night? • Do you think your life is out of control? • Do you find yourself wishing you had a clone to tackle all your responsibilities? If you've answered “YES” to any of these questions, chances are, you are deprived of proper work-life balance. It also means that you are more prone to health, mental and social issues that we are going to talk about later in this post. Lenmark. Read more at >>> cake.hr/blog