Career Truth #3: It’s About Finding Your Life’s Work

In our book, Don’t Dread Monday, we highlight ten career myths and their corresponding truths. For the next ten blog posts, we will be exploring these myths/truths more in-depth as we continue to tackle how you can find true meaning and success in your career.

Myth #3: It is important to have a work/life balance.

How many times have we heard this phrase the past few years? It’s been a vogue idea for a while, merging with the culture of self-care. The idea behind it is simple, easy to support—don’t overwork yourself so much that you don’t have time for your “real life,” like socializing, family time, vacation, hobbies, etc. While this idea makes sense, it is fundamentally flawed.

The logic this idea is based on assumes that work is just a task to be completed for money, allowing you to live your real life outside of work. Your career becomes something you must grin and bear. However, this separation of life and work is relatively new within our modern economy.

Let’s flip this idea on its head. What if work was your real life, meaning your career aligned with your interests and passions, allowing you to live happily and work simultaneously? I’ve seen organizations that encourage this have happier, healthier employees. When this idea is put into action, you’ll find that the idea of work/life balance becomes unnecessary because putting more time and effort into one does not take away from the other.

Take, for instance, Serena Williams. Widely considered to be one of the greatest athletes of all time, she has won 39 Grand Slam titles in her 25 years of playing professional tennis. This level of excellence requires hours of training nearly every day; she molds her lifestyle around staying fit enough to play the game. This is not a typical nine to five job—this is a woman who has found her passion and has embraced it. I’m certain she doesn’t look at her life as a separation between life and tennis—it’s one and the same. Training more doesn’t take away from the rest of her life and vice versa.

We won’t all be professional athletes, and that kind of all-encompassing lifestyle isn’t for everyone. However, the principle can be applied universally. This is the third, critically important career truth:

Career Truth #3: It's not about work/life balance. It's about finding your life's work. 

It can be difficult to find your life’s work. We’re here to help. Schedule a free, 15-minute consultation with one of our experienced career coaches today. They can walk you through your career problems, from a simple resume and LinkedIn consultation to a career 180. You can contact us or call us at (800) 680-7768.