Lessons From The Mountain #3: A Mountain Lesson on Work Life Balance

Over the last few weeks, I have been highlighting the lessons that have been learned through my mountaineering experience that are applicable on the ground in the business world. Each week, I have discussed a simple little truth that hopefully allows you to maintain a positive perspective; regardless of what you are going through at work. I hope you enjoy week three. Feel free to comment and share. 

Lesson #3: 

Save some for the return. While on the mountain, it is so easy to set your sights on the top and convince yourself that the summit is your goal. But what any seasoned mountaineer will tell you is that the summit is only halfway. Your goal is always making it back down and making it home. In every case of climbing, the return trip is the hardest and most demanding but the most overlooked. You have expelled your energy on the way to the top and now, with your energy depleted, you run the risk of a misstep, a simple error or a fall that could cause serious injury; possibly death. You need unbelievable focus despite what you have just achieved. This is often the part of the climb that is overlooked while driving forward, step after step towards the top.

It struck me as I was making my way down Mt Rainier this year that this is a great analogy for the balance between my home life, and my professional life. For way too many years, I focused almost exclusively on the "summit" of my career, be that a title, a project, or a dollar figure. And the return trip, my time at home, was neglected. I hadn't left enough in the tank for the ones that loved me. For those of us that are naturally prone to "workaholism", this can be easy to do and, if we are honest with ourselves, this is a common pitfall of all of us. 

All too often, we get tunnel vision around our careers, and we forget that we are to be just as focused on the return; our personal life. Emails creep into dinner. Conference calls interrupt our kids' soccer and baseball games and and our thoughts are filled with the dealings of our profession while they should be focused on the beautiful (or handsome) person we are walking through life with. We have distractions and those distractions erode into the focus that we should be giving to those that we love. As in mountaineering, this lack of focus and weariness is where the injuries can and do most often occur. 

This is not to say that our professional goals should be decreased and our drive should disappear. In fact, for those of you that are christian, it is written in Colossians 3: 23, "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men." It is a biblical principle that we are to be motivated, and driven, and that we should seek excellence in all that we do. We should still drive for the top, but we need to learn to train ourselves to achieve our own professional summit while leaving enough for the personal trip home. The return trip should not take away from our drive towards the summit. You just need to prepare adequately for the round trip; the full package.

Here are a couple quick ways that you can save some in the tank for those you love. 

1. Quiet your world for 5 minutes before walking through the door. Give yourself 5 minutes of time with no traffic, no calls, no email, no distractions to think about the things that you are most looking forward to as you walk through the front door, our out of your home office. Communicate what you are most looking forward to, to your family. "Tonight, I can't wait to....  .... with y'all!"

2. Invest and train in your personal health. If you are going to operate at your best in all you do, you can't do it without proper training. Exercise is not just about looking better in your suit. It will calm your mind, increase your stamina and allow more focus into your life. Summits can never be reached without proper training. 

3. Talk openly at home when you have a heads up that work will increase for a time and that times of stress will be coming. Explain why you need to take this extra work on and align personal goals through this season with professional ones. Often, we know in advance that a season of extra work is coming, but we fail to communicate that at home in advance. We see that budget season is upon us. Or that a new client will be coming on board, or that someone key is off work and we all need to step in to assist in the extra work created. Get your spouse involved in the process and communicate those times in advance and together as a team you can manage through the rough times. 

4. Practice your profession. Just as I was the weirdo jogging up and down the hills of my neighborhood with my pack on while training for the mountain, so you should be practicing your profession. Not great at reading a P&L, ask for help. Don't have the product knowledge you feel you should? Take someone out for coffee that knows. Don't know how to manage an Excel file properly? Take a class. The list of opportunities for training and improvement are everywhere and an increase in knowledge will decrease the emotional energy you expel on stress of the unknown leaving more for those that are at home. The longer you operate as if you are not living up to your true potential, both at home, and at the office, the more emotionally drained you will be. 

As you go through your day today, remember, the time you spend at your desk, on the phone, in the board room or with your customers, is just half the journey. You need to have balance in your life. If you use up all your energy during your day gig on your way to the summit, you will have nothing left in the tank for those that you share life with at home. What are some best practices you have learned to keep some energy in the tank for your return trip?

Keep climbing and check in next week as we end this series with the importance of a positive perspective. 

John

About the author:

My name is John Constantine and I am a sales and marketing executive living in suburban Atlanta. Throughout my career, I have been able to drive growth repeatedly in a variety of capacities. As a sales leader, I have built, expanded, and improved high performing teams to promote expansion and profitability. As a marketing executive, I have led teams in the creation and launching of new brands and products. I have managed inbound lead generation campaigns and created online and print branding standards that stand out from the pack and engage employees to take pride in their organization. As an executive of strategic initiatives and a field operations leader, I have implemented programs and processes that have differentiated my organizations and provided predictable revenue forecasting to the C-suite; all the while increasing productivity and accountability of the front-line team members in the organization. 

 To learn more, go to http://www.johnaconstantine.com/