Last week, I had one of those life changing therapy sessions that only people in books and movies seem to have. It was filled with “ah-ha” revelations and a lot of self-reflection. One of the conversations that I’d like to share with you from the session was about how much of my identity is tied to work.
It started with simple questions: If we remove work from the equation, what are you striving towards? How do you envision your future? What do you value? I was stumped. In my long pause, my therapist started to run through other meaningful categories of life to nudge an answer out me - Family, home, hobbies, romance, friendship?
It’s not that I don’t want or care about those things, it’s just that my entire life has been centered around work. Whether it was getting good grades or hitting quarterly sales goals, I’ve always centered life - and success - around my outputs and productivity.
“I’d like to have a beach house”
“I would also like a husband who values travel and adventure as much as I do”
“I don’t have a strong opinion on kids but I’m open to them”
Saying those things out loud was harder than pulling teeth because I don’t spend much time thinking about them. Are you familiar with the Wheel of Life? It’s a tool that coaches use to help clients reach balance in their lives. The Wheel is broken down into categories like health, home and family and clients are supposed to estimate how much energy they
put into each category.
While no one has a perfect Wheel, the problem with mine is that about 65% of it is dedicated to work leaving just 35% for the other important areas of life.That means that when I have a bad day at the job, it feels like my entire world is falling apart. I begin to question my self-worth and wonder if I’m adding any value. This ultimately leads to downward spirals that can sometimes take days to come out of.
After our session ended, I thought a lot about the steps I needed to take to change this relationship and add more balance to my life - including being a better friend and daughter, trying new hobbies and spending more time on things that aren’t tied to productivity.
, have you ever found yourself centering your energy around work - or any one single category of life? If so, you’re not alone. While I wish I had an answer to help us change our ways overnight, I'm looking forward to the journey of adding more balance.
