A huge thank you to everyone who attended the first in a series of live webinars on the 19th October, focusing on mental health issues. Covering the theme “How do we maintain a balanced life in the new normal?”, we’re proud to say this was a hugely successful event with a great turnout.
Introduced by Guy Outram, Co-Founder of MindSpace 247, accredited Psychotherapist and life coaches Tracey Phillips and Ellen White shared invaluable advice and guidance on balancing your work/homelife and brought to our attention why it is essential as employers and employees we feel seen and appreciated.
Why is it difficult to get the balance?
In the first part of the webinar, Tracey Phillips took us on a journey of exploration, discussing how we balanced work and life post covid and the challenges we now face of striking the right balance in the ‘new normal’ taking into account hybrid working and balancing this with life activities and social activities so we can ultimately feel more balanced in life.
Tracey Phillips holds a Master’s degree in business and Business and is an Accredited Member of the British Association for Counselling Practitioners. She has provided mental health guidance and support to many heads of industry and sports personalities. Having successfully worked as a wellbeing trainer and coach with organizations’ such as IBM, Avis, Dell, Standard Chartered Bank, State Street, Microsoft and Southern Water.
So why is it so difficult to get our work life balance right? How often do we check in with ourselves to consider if our balance is right? In current times, many of us feel we are spinning so many plates, especially with a shift towards a ‘24hr, always available’ lifestyle. We’re all trying to manage longer hours, whilst trying to balance the demands of a work from home culture, financial stresses and working more as part of a global team. It seems, as the boundaries begin to blur, we are moving towards a ‘living to work culture’ rather than a ‘working to live’ culture.
In her interactive part of the webinar, Tracey got us to consider our own work life balance and how we can work towards getting our equilibrium back in life to ultimately improve our physical and mental health. When we get out of balance, we are set on the road to burnout, starting with issues with sleep, moving through physical pain and depression, and eventually to exhaustion and total burnout.
Before we can re-address our balance, Tracey bestowed invaluable insight into the things in life we may want to consider to move towards positive change:
- Current Life vs Desired Life: What do you really want out of life? Take some time to create 2 charts, one showing your current life and the other your desired life. By splitting these charts up showing how our lives are split up compared to how we actually desire our work life balance to be split, we can start to take small steps to reframe our behaviours and work towards the life we truly desire.
- Managing Your Time: What takes up most of your time? Are you taking enough time out for yourself? It’s important to take time to stop and pause. Thinking about our choices and using SMART Goals can help us figure out what is achievable. When we start making changes and choices that work for us, we can gradually reframe our behaviours and move towards a more balanced emotional and mental state.
- Set Boundaries: Learn to boundary your time. Setting a time limit on tasks in key areas of your life will help you focus your mind, time and energy.
- Practice Emotional Hygiene: Are you checking in with yourself? Take a few moments each day or before starting a new task to check in with yourself and consider how you are feeling. You’ll become much more aware of yourself and your emotions, helping you to stop transferring negative energy so you can be the best version of yourself. By being more mindful of your energy levels, whether positive or negative you can work towards making choices that work for you, making you more resilient.
Employers, Employees, Clients – What We Really Want
In the second part of our enlightening webinar, Ellen White considered the perspective of the employer, employee and client when creating balance and harmony in the workplace.
Ellen White is a successful entrepreneur with a significant business background and is the founder of 3 successful businesses, one of them employing more than 300 people. Currently she working as a Therapist, Ellen is also a certified Life Coach and holds certificates in Crisis intervention, Interpersonal Dispute Resolution and in Addiction Care and Treatment.
More and more employees are walking away from their jobs, which is a great concern for many employers. Employees are stressed to capacity, working from home whilst trying to juggle everything else simultaneously and at times feel undervalued and unappreciated. When thinking about their employment situations, many employees are now thinking “My employer may own the company, but I own my career”.
Changing the way employers treat their employees and celebrating their achievements when employees do something right costs nothing. Ellen not only brought to our attention the importance and value of complimenting and encouraging employees at every turn, but also keeping them challenged by rotating their routine. In doing so, this will help to not only inspire them to make your company greater, but also create a fun and rewarding company culture.
Some of Ellen’s key pointers for employers and employees to achieve harmony in the workplace included the following:
Employers
It’s important to make it clear to your employees that they are appreciated and valued, and that they play an integral part in the success of your businesses.
- Look for ways to make everyone you work with happier and stronger. These things cost nothing but can increase your sales, productivity and employee retention.
- Compliment and encourage your employees.
- Be kind, but don’t be a pushover as your team expects leadership.
- Show your employees you trust them and try not to micromanage them.
- Ask your employees opinion to make sure they feel invested in the company’s growth and success.
Employees
Employees are just as vital to ensure harmony in the workplace. It’s therefore important to make your employer aware that you can be depended on and trusted to carry out your role with commitment, honesty and excellence. Ultimately employers want to feel confident their team is authentic, mindful and present.
- Take ownership of your career.
- Take pride in what you do.
- Don’t suffer in silence – if you are not happy with a workplace situation be assertive and discuss this with your employer to work towards a solution but remember to always be kind.
- Take responsibility for communication with management in a timely, open and authentic way.
Clients
Clients are the lifeblood of a company and the reason for the company continuing to operate. Employers and employees need to remember this regardless of the size of the clients account and always treat them with gratitude and appreciation to continue to ensure workplace harmony.
Key Tips: Striking the Right Balance
It’s important to take time out to consider your balance and identify the resources available to help us move forward in life.
- Seek Happiness: Laugh and find what makes you, you
- Habit Stack: Put new habits on top of old ones. Eventually new positive habits will become part of your routine.
- Take Over What’s in Your Control: Worries don’t change anything.
- Normal is Overrated: It is subjective! We have the choice to choose to embrace whatever we want to embrace.
- Be Kind, But Don’t Be a Walkover: Employees, employers and clients all want the same thing, to feel appreciated and valued.
By recognising our triggers, we can work towards achieving greater balance in our work and life. As a result, we will ultimately feel more rested, energised, get greater career success and feel more fulfilled in life.
Let’s Talk and End the Stigma
Once again, we’d like to thank everyone for attending our webinar and hope you all found it to be insightful and thought provoking. It was a real honour to have Tracey and Ellen make a valuable contribution to our first live webinar. We hope you can take away some useful tips and strategies to help you achieve that important balance in your daily lives.
MindSpace 247 provides trusted and highly skilled therapists 24 hours a day to help guide you through life’s daily challenges.
For more information on how MindSpace 247 can support you and your employees, please call us on 0207 553 5010 or contact us via our online form here. Calm your mind, get some MindSpace.