Who Needs Work-Life Balance When You Have Purpose
Find True Life Balance When You Live Your Purpose
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Hey Peeps!
Welcome to all, but especially those that need an escape from the daily grind.
I'm Amy B, the writer, editor-in-chief and HBIC at Change N Focus. My mission is to inspire each of you to travel & explore the great outdoors, empower you to be the best YOU and truly LIVE the life of your dreams!
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Check out About Amy B to read more about my journey.
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Work Life Balance Defined
Work Life Balance is a phrase commonly used today to describe the balance that working individuals need between time allocated to work and personal. Anyone else feel it is a useless term created by society?
I have always believed in the concept of “work-life balance” and often preached about it to those working for me. I always urged my employees to take “mental health” holidays and use every day of paid leave available each year. In my life, I would balance the stress of work with traveling on an almost monthly adventure. And while vacation time helps, I wanted and needed more.
Finding My Purpose
I do not believe that we were meant to work at a desk staring at a screen for a large majority of our lives, but somehow many out there are doing it daily. A few years ago, I took a job in a non-profit agency that mentors at risk children thinking that a job that allows me to help others would be fulfilling and less stressful.
Let me tell you, matching each child with one adult mentor and allowing them to spend time alone together in the world we live in today is beyond stressful. While we heavily screened adult volunteers, there was always this little voice in my head saying one of your volunteers could hurt a child. And while that didn’t happen in my three years at the agency, the children were already from broken homes with little hope to change their circumstances and the large majority of adult volunteers were inconsistent and did not last past the recommended one year commitment. I often felt we were doing more harm to kids than good.
My boss was a waste of space and with her salary my team could have served hundreds more kids. She was the ultimate reason that I could not remain in that job. When I went to resign, she ended up firing me and while that’s another story all together, it would ultimately be a huge blessing in disguise.
But now that I’ve buried you in negativity, let’s move to the optimism and creative mindset that came out of my work experiences.
Most of my life, I believed there was good in everyone and had so much hope for the future. As an adult however, I felt that those feelings had soured through my work experiences. I had to change that!
I am and have always felt incredibly blessed to live a life with much less trauma and drama than most people. For a few months after being fired, I traveled to see family, went skiing with friends and spent time traveling by myself to national parks. I wanted to remind myself about all the good things that life has to offer and find my inner voice of hope again.
Travel and spending time in nature always helps me do that!
Through this time, I discovered that I wanted to help others overcome the stress and anxiety of life by traveling and exploring the great outdoors. And the journey to start my own online business had begun and Change N Focus was born. Through vulnerability and honesty, my mission is to inspire others to travel and spend time in nature in order to find themselves and then empower each reader to find their purpose and live the life of their dreams.
Live Your Purpose
Finding your purpose in life, whatever it may be, and living that purpose, will make the need for work-life balance disappear. People have always told me to find a job that you love to do, and it won’t seem like work. I think “they” got it wrong.
I believe that my purpose in this life is to simply make life better for those around me. That is not a job, but again my purpose. However, if I can find a way to fulfill my purpose through my work than I will be living my purpose.
Running an online business takes just as much effort, if not more to achieve my goals and reach more people. But when I’m driven by my purpose to help others and make life just a bit easier for them, every ounce of effort and any stress is well worth it.
In moments that I want to be lazy and not take steps forward, I remind myself of a quote I’ll never forget from Jon Gordon, “if you don’t want to get up for yourself, get up to help others!”
Now that I have true purpose and a platform to help others, I must constantly work on my mindset to maintain or improve my “mental hygiene”. Your mind is a powerful thing and when you fill it with positive thoughts and aspirations, you will see changes.
I am a true believer in the power of positive thinking and self-talk. If you genuinely believe that you will fulfill your purpose and empower others to do the same, it will happen! From that belief, your inner grit will come to life and be inspired by your vision and purpose. Grit is the ability to work hard and persevere when things get tough and each one of us has it inside our souls, we just have to give it purpose and let it shine!
