Home to Work – Work to Home

Our jobs are where we work, allowing us to support our families financially. Our homes are where we live, allowing us to raise our families, supporting them in many other areas. Developing balance between the two can leave us feeling overwhelmed and discouraged. We are inevitably searching for a needle in a haystack. The times we are living in have imposed greater challenges, both personally and professionally, and how that affects us and those around us is ultimately our responsibility.

Walking out of our workplace and into our homes should be a smooth transition. More often than not we create unnecessary issues either at home or our jobs that could easily be avoided if we would keep the two separate. Perhaps setting guidelines and priorities as a rule is the best place to start so that we can avoid additional problems at home.

We are living through very difficult economical challenges and leaving problems from work at work and problems from home at home becomes more and more difficult with each passing day. Our employers have raised the demand on our workload and productivity, and yet cutback on the necessary means in which to meet their purpose.

When we start loosing sleep because we are bringing home problems from their job, our family will suffer the consequences. Irritability will replace logic and reason, and small issues will become monumental. When work related issues become dinner conversation, bells and whistles should be blaring in your head that this is a problem. Do we choose the ignorance that says these tell tale sign’s are some one else’s problem?

Getting caught up in ones job is easy, and allowing ones job to define you is even easier. What’s missed however is the toll this will take not only on yourself, but on those around you. You are not your job. If you believe this is what truly defines you as a person then your priorities are completely out of balance.

When leaving your job at the end of a days work, start by focusing on what was achieved today and not what went wrong. Positive thoughts will allow for you to de-stress on your commute home, which will put you in the proper mindset of reconnecting with your family and the events of their day.

Pay attention to others on your commute home. You are not the only person leaving a job that’s demanding and stressful. On any given day, there is someone feeling the same things you are, and having to make the same choice as you do. Do you arrive home angry and disturbed by the days end or do you leave these issues in their rightful place?

We all have choices, and we are all responsible for these same choices. Your family role is so much more important than your job role. Be a good employee and do your job to the best of your abilities. It’s how you support the family; financially. One can’t ignore the importance of being a full time worker, as that’s how we support our families, but one should never be a part time family member. Or is that the price ones willing to pay?

How do I become an authority on this subject? Experience is a great teacher!

Next week we will look at the reverse. What effects do our problems at home have on our ability to be productive in the workplace?

Cheers

Grant Herbert
The People Builder