Life balance analysis (by Awa DIALLO)

Causes of stress are numerous, and in the working environment, it is often caused by unqualified managers. Lewin (1951) suggested that stress can be considered as a force field where the restraining forces have more power than the driving forces.

Stress at work is mainly a consequence of a bad working environment. However, it can also come from a malaise felt at home, or from a personal uncomfortable feeling; when we have that inside feeling of failure somewhere. Stress does not always involve work, but also other aspects of our lives such as physical wellness, social belonging…

To build stronger driving forces in a stage of stress, one has to be able to balance his life by Improving the way he satisfies the need of other aspects of his life. Indeed, as said in the textbook, we often privilege some sides of our daily routine to the detriment of others. For example, we know that it would benefit our body and mind to do a bit exercise (take the stairs instead of the elevator) but we would not do it because we are lazy, or because there is too much work to do to think of exercising, and so on.

The life balancing analysis proposes a list of the different aspects of life that should play an important role in our social, mental and physical wellness. Then, considering the different aspect where we do not invest enough efforts, we make a list of the activities that should improve the way we take care of those aspects. The goal here is to not spend the whole following week without performing one of the activities that we listed before.

After performing the analysis of my day to day activities based on the life balance analysis tool, I realized that I do not perform enough physical activities. Also, even if I live far from my parents and most of my friends, I do not here from them as often as I should, and just a phone call to my best friend really influences my good mood. Usually, I professionally perform well when under pressure. But what stressed me is solitude. I knew that before but I was not really doing anything to work on it. This exercise really helped because I did almost everything I listed: I started walking 45 minutes instead of taking the bus to come to school, I contacted almost all my friend I did not have news from for almost a year and it all felt very good.

As a future manager, to reach conscious competence, I think I would need to use this tool as part of my daily routine. Indeed, it would allow me to know how to influence my performances at work by improving my “not work related” behavior. As a coach, I would suggest this methods to my clients as well, as it really gets you to analyse what is important for you, makes you think about what should be more important. Also, this method helps in determining how to improve your daily routine in order to reduce the risk of being overwhelmed by restraining forces.