Family life and work are compatible. The important thing is to give both the right space and to adopt strategies that help to reconcile them and that guarantee a better quality of life.
Last update: January 13, 2022
Sometimes we have so many things to do that we overlook some important aspects. Reconciling family and work is often not easy, especially if you take into account the numerous commitments to be completed. It seems like a complicated matter.
Sometimes the working hours are longer than necessary, the holidays do not last long enough and in some cases we are forced to do more than one job in order to enjoy sufficient financial resources.
Both the work context and family life seem to ask us more and more, so we find ourselves in no man's land; we don't know how to reconcile family and work. Still, it is possible. Here's how to do it.
Always leave some time in your life to do something that makes you happy because that will affect your financial well-being more than any other factor.
-Paul Hawken-
How to reconcile family and work
Reconciling means "making them compatible". Work and family often seem incompatible, yet it is possible to reconcile them. Let's see how.
To begin, it is important to live in the present. It's about not getting stuck in the past when analyzing events, because this will make us feel overwhelmed by fueling negative thoughts like “What if I acted differently…?”, “Why didn't I…?”, Etc.
Of course, it's also about not anchoring yourself to expectations, i.e. avoiding thinking about everything that might happen next. If not, we can fuel anxiety and frustration. We can never be sure what will happen, so why bother?
Living in the present moment is living the "here and now", is to take full advantage of what is happening every moment, second by second. It means enjoying our children whether we are with them, our partner or the family outing, but also the work obligations during working hours.
Thinking about work while playing with our children is past or future, but not present. It is stealing time from our family life for work problems that we can hardly solve at that moment. Living in the present moment helps us to reconcile family and work.
Learn to delegate
Sometimes we think we are all powerful and we put everything on our shoulders. By doing so we sign our sentence e over time we feel overwhelmed because we can't do everything. Frustration builds and sometimes we explode on an emotional level.
learn to delegate, to assign some tasks to others to make our life easier
It might seem complex at first, but once you get started it will be easier. Some useful information on this are the following:
- Adapt responsibilities.
- Ask for help if we deem it necessary.
- Get to know colleagues to know what responsibilities to assign to each person. The same goes for the family.
- Trust the people to whom we have delegated responsibilities.
- Distribute tasks and activities in a realistic way.
To know how to delegate you need to know yourself. Knowing yourself means knowing your limits.
Establish routines to reconcile family and work
Routines may seem boring, but they certainly have a virtue: help us organize our time! Thanks to this, it will be easier to reconcile family life with work life
On the other hand, setting priorities is also helpful. For this purpose it is advisable to ask ourselves what needs to be done and eliminate as much as possible that which deprives us of energy and does not make us happy.
However, it is important to be realistic, so we must not think that we will be able to do everything and set ourselves unattainable goals.
Learn to manage emotions
Managing emotions is essential to reconcile family and work. Don't get carried away by impulses and understand how we feel it is crucial in our relationships. Because it is often not how we feel that determines our well-being, but what we do with our emotions, how we respond to them.
James Gross, director of the Standorf University psychophysiology laboratory, states that learning to manage emotions can prevent illness such as depression or borderline personality disorder. Here are some pointers to better manage emotions:
- Relieve tension through exercise or an artistic activity.
- Practice active listening.
- Resort to breathing techniques.
- Seek professional help.
- Relegate worries to a single moment of the day.
- Reflect and find a solution to our fears.
It's not the stress that makes us break down - it's the way we respond to stressful situations.
-Wayde Goodall-
Managing the emotional sphere can be a good ally against stress, frustration and nervousness. Other ways to reconcile family and work can be to change profession or find a job closer to home, read up on the regulations to understand if we are entitled to more holidays, etc.
Psychologists AndrĂ©s JimĂ©nez Figueroa and Emilio Moyano DĂas stress that the balance between family life and working life guarantees a better quality of life. What can we do when this balance seems impossible to achieve? The answer is simple: look for alternatives.
Reconciling two distinct spheres such as family and work is not impossible. Setting your priorities, taking time for yourself, getting to know each other, enjoying every moment, establishing routines and, above all, taking care of others and yourself is essential.
