WANT TO INTEGRATE EVERY PART OF YOUR LIFE? THEN FORGET ABOUT BALANCE

Exhausted, tired, distressed, stressed, unfocused, inefficient, etc. Do these words resonate with you in any reflection on how you might describe yourself today? It has become increasingly routine to hear from my clients, whether young or old, executives, teachers, engineers, entrepreneurs, consultants, salespeople, even stay-at-home parents, describing themselves with adjectives that indicate how close they are to their physical and mental limits. It’s no wonder that mental health issues have become increasingly common. Much of this has to do with the excesses of technological, social, behavioral, economic changes, the speed of things, the noise generated by social networks, or even job instability. What is evident is that everyone is struggling to have meaningful work, family balance, economic stability, and ultimately, it is about the relentless pursuit of a quality of life and well-being capable of meeting so many demands.

The problem is that people feel so tired that many have shown that they are almost giving up on the idea that it is possible to achieve a good life today. Indeed, there is a misconception that tends to recur in the thinking of my clients in counseling sessions, which is how committed they are to finding this so-called “balance between work and personal life.” It is clear that this occurs precisely because it is not clear to these people what this means, as well as that it is not the solution – dividing or trying to separate professional life from personal life is actually a utopia.

As part of my work and which I have written about in various texts and videos for a long time – professional and personal balance is a nonsense. It is a misguided metaphor derived from the uselessness of self-help. This is because the proposal of balance brings up the idea that we should always make concessions regarding the main aspects of our lives: work or study, family or private life (however we define it), human relationships (friends, neighbors, social), and ourselves (mind, body, spirit).

I believe that a more realistic and rewarding goal is to be able to perceive that there is a way to better integrate work and other aspects of life through the search for introspective reorganization of the Self, since the way we see life and its priorities can be redefined and with this we can improve performance in all dimensions that complement a good life, which we can summarize here in 4 of them: work, family, human relationships, and yourself.

This integration emerged, after so many experiences and so many studies such as those described in the book “Leading the Life You Want: Skills for Integrating Work and Life” by Stewart D. Friedman, which follows the same proposed idea based on the adoption of three key principles – Integrity of the Self, Plenitude, and Innovative. Of course, certain techniques and dedication are necessary to bring these principles to life. In my last 14 years as a Cognitive Behavioral Developer studying, researching, and serving thousands of people, I have been able to refine some specific techniques that promote greater alignment and harmony between the four domains of life: work, family, human relationships, and yourself.

In this article, I intend to bring to you reflections on some of these techniques and invite you to some exercises – drawn from the latest discoveries in behavioral and social psychology and related areas – to help you improve some of the capabilities that professionals generally tend to consider more difficult to master. Although there are more things we can do, these three principles described here along with other very interesting ones mentioned in the book, Leading the Life You Want: Skills for Integrating Work and Life, and of course my training, Leader coach 3.0, can help you expand your capacity for this reconnection with a quality of life where well-being becomes a priority.

1. Techniques for Integrity of the Self

For over a decade, I have been conducting a program called Leader Coach 3.0, which teaches, among others, the three principles to managers, leaders, entrepreneurs, and many others. In this training, I always seek to initially focus on the Self in an integrated way – how to act with authenticity by clarifying what is important to oneself – no matter where you are or what you do. This requires you to:

• Know what is important.
  • Incorporate values consistently.
  • Align actions with values.
  • Transmit values through stories.
  • Visualize your legacy.
  • Be responsible.
  • Provide continuous self-feedback.

The importance of being able to do the first two things is particularly crucial for every professional, regardless of the field of work. Let’s start by seeing how to know what is important. An exercise that increases this skill, called four circles, consists of examining the importance and congruence of your various roles and responsibilities in life. Let’s go:

• Step 1: Begin by drawing circles on 4 separate sheets to represent the four domains—work, family, human relationships, and yourself—varying the sizes for reflection. Here, I suggest using the online site www.myfourcircles.com. Remember that the size of the circles should reflect how much you value each one (be honest with yourself).
• Step 2: Then, move the circles to show whether, and to what extent, they overlap. Once done, describe on paper (like a table) in “ascending” order the columns of values, goals, interests, actions, and results you seek in each domain. Then, clearly define how compatible or opposed they are.
• Step 3: Now, describe how your life would be if your aspirations in all four circles—clarifying the means to achieve them—considered a perfect alignment of the circles. For most of us, this is an unattainable ideal, but realistically: What actions could you take to move towards this concentric overlap?
• Step 4: From there, it is necessary to proceed from this information to self-reflection, always putting them on paper. For example: Could you change your way of working, or even how you think about the purpose of your work, without reducing the personal value you extract from it? Could you help people you care about and who care about you see better how your professional life is important, so that they support it more?
• Step 5: Create triggers (agenda) to promote your self-reflection on what matters and makes sense for your life from time to time. For example, as a complementary exercise, called a conversation starter, can help you encourage others to consistently incorporate values into their lives. This involves bringing, for example, an important object from your personal life (like a family photo, a souvenir from a trip, or a trophy) to the office. If a colleague mentions it, you explain what that part of your life means to you and how it helps you at work. But don’t stop there; encourage them to bring their own conversation starter too. You can also take something from work home and discuss it with your spouse, children, or dinner guests. Tell them what you do and who you are at work, focusing mainly on what it might mean to them. The fundamental idea is to demonstrate the value not only of your work but also of your personal life.

• Techniques for Fullness

The second principle addressed by Leader Coach 3.0 is fullness—or acting skillfully. What I intend to say here is to pay attention to how important it is to respect the fact that all the roles you play make up a person as a whole and this persona is capable of encouraging others to see you in the same way. This is identity personification. To do this, you must be able to:

• Be sincere.

• Clarify expectations.

• Help others.

• Build support networks.

• Apply all your resources.

• Manage boundaries smartly.

• Interweave different areas.

One of the most important differentiators to pay attention to is being able to know how to apply all your resources—such as knowledge, skills, virtues, and contacts—in the various domains of your life to benefit the other domains. An exercise that I can suggest here that will really help you do this is called talent transfer. Let’s go:

• Step 1: Make a list of all the abilities you have developed—training colleagues, organizing family activities, or preparing an event, for example—and describe how each one can be used to achieve different goals. Behavioral psychologists call this the strengths development approach: you identify your talents and apply them in new areas, further reinforcing them.
• Step 2: Write clearly and objectively about something that makes you feel good—an achievement at work, a friendship, your commitment to a hobby.
• Step 3: Given this information, define an area of your life that you would like to improve. How can the abilities you used to achieve something previously help you in this improvement?
• Step 4: Determine boundaries intelligently regarding the key challenge (area to improve). At this point, I understand it is important to practice what I call segmentation and integration and then decide which strategy works best on which occasion. To do this: First, think of ways to create separation (of time and space) between your different roles. You can try to set boundaries for yourself. At this moment, it is fundamental to create a realistic and practical schedule. For example, if there is an ambitious work project that you have been putting off, try dedicating the first two hours of each Saturday morning for the next month to deal with it, and then take the rest of the day to do something different that makes you feel good. Or, if your work haunts your nights, you can try a policy of “turning off from your professional self after work hours”; to do this, work ends, so say goodnight to your phone. By disconnecting from your work, do the opposite: think of opportunities to do important things for yourself. From being more involved in your children’s lives to promoting meetings with friends, family, or creating social events that can make you and the people with you feel integrated, write down your perceptions of what worked and what didn’t, both for you and for the people around you. Questions like: Were you more or less helpful? Did you become more or less distracted? How did others react? Did they seem confused, or did they seem to feel closer and more confident in relation to you?

In practice, you can start by reserving a few minutes of your day during work breaks for non-professional activities. To catch up on emails to family and friends, invest in your own development through reading and reflection — for example, outlining the factors affecting your sense of stability, including stress and energy levels, as well as feelings about yourself, your relationships, and your future. As an alternative to this introspection, even talking to neighbors, colleagues, and acquaintances sitting next to you on the train, exchanging ideas about everything from childcare to economic issues. This simple reallocation of commuting time — from doing something related to work to doing other things — paradoxically makes us feel more prepared for work and more proactive about our careers. The post-work period allows us to re-enter our homes less stressed and more receptive, and to develop new insights into how we could be better parents and partners, and believe me, this will also impact physical and mental health, like improving sleep time. Once again, the small change in boundaries significantly increases your productivity, well-being, and relationships.

• Igniting Our Innovative Sense

The third principle of Leader Coach 3.0 is to ignite our innovative sense, which in other words represents acting with creativity to identify and pursue more victories in the four domains — work, family, human relations, and yourself. For this, you need to:

• Focus on results.

• Resolve conflicts between domains.

• Challenge the status quo.

• Find new ways of doing things.

• Create cultures of innovation around you.

There is a very simple exercise that can help us ignite this innovative sense that we all carry, which I call the scenario technique, which helps increase your ability to focus on results, especially on the quality of your contributions, rather than the amount of time and energy you spend on them. Let’s do it:

• Step 1: Write down the specific goal that you really want to achieve, one that belongs to you, aligned with your will.
• Step 2: Clearly list three challenging alternative ways to get there, including the resources that will be needed if the challenges you will face are clearly and realistically laid out. This clarity encourages you to keep your eyes on the prize.
• Step 3: Restructure new patterns of behavior, such as trying to do activities at new times or in different places. Here, it’s worth changing from simple habits to those that take up your time in a useless or harmful way. It could be as simple as shaving at the gym instead of at home, or taking classes with that guitar that has been sitting idle in the corner of the room for years. Combining behavioral changes with clear goals helps the mind to restructure what matters, as well as to give other meanings to our habits. In addition to helping to realize that life needs to be taken as a true creation of art. Just like in music, writing, or playing a character, or even any physical activity, you can always improve with practice. That’s why it’s necessary to reconcile goals with changes in our routine, within a sense of self-challenge, continuously breaking the status quo, because these changes help to “oxygenate” the brain and allow the development of new synapses which in turn will be reflected in new thoughts, new ways of seeing life itself.

Notice that great achievements don’t start from big changes but from a continuous process of challenges to be overcome for the resignification of what really matters, putting your own beliefs in check. Start with these three big ideas: integrity of self, plenitude, and finally igniting the innovative sense. Put everything on paper, do your self-analysis, and delve into understanding the skills you need to incorporate each of these principles. And then engage in the fun and fruitful work of making them part of your self-leadership repertoire.

Finally, whenever you have the opportunity, practice crowdsourcing, or collaborative effort, which is an exercise that helps you practice seeing new ways of doing things. In other words, crowdsourcing, or collaborative effort, is a practice that fits perfectly into the process of instigating our sense of innovation, as described in the third principle of Leader Coach 3.0. This concept involves gathering a diverse group of people, in this case, your most creative friends, to share ideas and solutions for a specific problem you are facing. By soliciting ideas about potential solutions and recording what is heard, you are tapping into the collective intelligence and creativity of the group to find new perspectives and approaches to solving challenges. After collecting these ideas, you can select the most promising ones, develop a plan, and implement them strategically, thereby contributing to innovation and progress in your personal and professional goals. To practice, gather your most creative friends and describe a problem you are facing. Then, ask for ideas about potential solutions and record what you hear. Select the ones you find most feasible, prepare a plan, and try to make it happen strategically.

Don’t forget that a good coach always helps in this moment of redefinition, so hire a good professional and keep the sessions at least once a week. After a month, analyze your results with them. If the approach you tried didn’t work, or if you need more time to solve the problem, adjust your behavior or try another idea, leveraging what you learned from previous experiences and the coach’s knowledge. If they are really good, they won’t lack tools to always stimulate you for your transformation. But above all, don’t forget, make your life a continuous challenge of achievements to nourish life with value, with the best that we can be!

This article provides a solid and practical guide to integrating different aspects of life harmoniously and meaningfully. However, I want to emphasize the importance of self-care and self-compassion in this process. Often, we push ourselves too hard to achieve a perfect balance, but it’s important to remember that we are human and it’s natural to experience ups and downs on our journey towards a fuller life.

Additionally, the aspect of personal growth and ongoing development also deserves attention. Life is full of opportunities to learn and grow, and by maintaining a growth mindset, we can face challenges with resilience and adaptability.

Last but not least, connection with others and service to the community are crucial for a fulfilling life. By sharing our experiences, knowledge, and resources with others, we create a sense of purpose and contribution that enriches our own lives and those around us.

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Hello, I’m Marcello de Souza! I started my career in 1997 as a leader and manager in a large company in the IT and Telecommunications market. Since then, I have participated in important projects of structuring, implementation, and optimization of telecommunications networks in Brazil. Restless and passionate about behavioral and social psychology. In 2008, I decided to delve into the universe of the human mind.

Since then, I have become a professional passionate about deciphering the secrets of human behavior and catalyzing positive changes in individuals and organizations. Doctor in Social Psychology, with over 25 years of experience in Cognitive Behavioral and Human Organizational Development. With a wide-ranging career, I highlight my role as:

– Master Senior Coach and Trainer: Guiding my clients in the pursuit of goals and personal and professional development, achieving extraordinary results.

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– Consultant and Mentor: Leveraging my experience in leadership and project management to identify growth opportunities and propose personalized strategies.

My solid academic background includes four postgraduates and a doctorate in Social Psychology, along with international certifications in Management, Leadership, and Cognitive Behavioral Development. My contributions in the field are widely recognized in hundreds of classes, training sessions, conferences, and published articles.

Co-author of the book “The Secret of Coaching” and author of “The Map Is Not the Territory, the Territory Is You” and “The Diet Society” (the first of a trilogy on human behavior in contemporaneity – 05/2024).

Allow me to be your companion on this journey of self-discovery and success. Together, we will unravel a universe of behavioral possibilities and achieve extraordinary results.

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