Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
GulfWeekly’s columnist Preety Praveen encourages ‘prioritising yourself’ as she shares her views on the topic ‘How does work-life balance affect your mental health’.
AS per the definition of work, it is an activity involving mental and physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result or in other words, it is an activity that a person engages in regularly to earn a livelihood.
But generally, these days it has been observed that to keep themselves ahead in the race, people tend to sideline many other aspects of their lives. Their personal lives become unstable, physical health deteriorates, mentally they become fragile. But before they realise the silent damage sliding in their lives, it becomes too late for them to reverse it.
Even though everything in life is important, the most important thing is to prioritise yourself intelligently and wisely. Both your personal and professional lives should hold equal, crucial space in your best interests and wellbeing. Many fail to create this organised aura and land up in the trap of frustrations, aggression, and disappointment.
Living a balanced work life is not a big task. One most vital mandate is to understand your work passably. Next step is to love what you do, not coercively but with utmost integrity and honesty.
Understanding your work schedule, planning your day in advance, creating a happy working environment, giving an ear to suggestions, believing in healthy competition, and weaving a disciplined lifestyle can bolster an impressive work life, and indirectly smoothen your personal life as well.
In the words of author Jana Kingsford, “Balance is not something you find, it’s something you create.”
Nobody’s life is perfect but finding perfection in your imperfect life might give you a clear vision to strike balance, harmony, and contentment. And this can only be procured by channelling your life adequately and with full acceptance.
One of the biggest mistakes that we tend to make is by amalgamating our lives between workplace and home. A proper plan can easily help anyone to understand and follow what should be done, and how and when. Discipline is definitely one of the key factors but what is more essential is to understand what you want to do and why. Once this conscious effort takes place in your life, everything else tends to fall in the right place and at the right time.
Don’t push yourself to work for a living but live to do work that makes you happy. Love what you do, respect those you work with and save yourself for whom you live for.
Preety Praveen is a psychologist and author.
