L. Sudmann, K. Baumgarten, March 27, 2008

Life Balance can be impacted by different factors.  How much and what you eat, for example, defines how you feel at any given day.  However, there is also the 'strategic' side of life balance, living and planning your life according to your own personal style as well as your strenghts and weaknesses.  On this strategic, long-term level, one very important factor is knowing yourself - what you like and dislike, what you are good or not good at.  Especially knowing your strenghts is extremely important with regards to a balanced life.

Here one example: Your career development talk with your boss is coming up. The decisions coming out of these reviews can have a great effect on your future life, on how much you will like your work and how good you will be at it.  Research shows that what we do for a living plays an important role for our overall balance and satisfaction, and most of us spend the biggest part of their waking hours on their job, so spending some time on what we want to do is time very well spend. 

Unfortunately, very often people go unprepared into those kind of decisions and meetings.  However, for these discussions you need be very clear what you want and what you are good at - what your strengths are - to make a good decision towards a balanced life.
  

Our society is unfortunately often focused on overcoming weaknesses. The question is whether you should continue working on your weaknesses or rather focus on building your strengths. As Markus Buckingham says in his best-selling book "Now, discover your strengths", you might be better off focussing on your strengths as these are the areas where you can become truly exceptional, and where you can have most likely more moments of deep satisfaction and feelings of balance. Working on your opportunity areas, however, may get you only to 'average' in these areas, never to exceptional performance.

Here now your key actions steps that can help you bringing this tip to life :

1. Identify your strengths (for example with the Clifton Strength finder, comes free with a purchase of any book of Marcus Buckingham, see below)


2. Define for yourself how you could leverage your strengths better (what job / assignment would leverage my strengths)


3. Identify ways how to circumvent your weaknesses (e.g., can you find someone in your team / network to do the things you are not strong in?)


4. Identify areas which you need to do yourself and cannot give to someone else. If these areas are in your way to progress your career, you need to work on this opportunity area and get it to a level that it will not be a barrier anymore.


5. Have an open discussion with your boss purely about your strengths.  Ask for feedback only on strengths. Discuss how you can leverage your strengths further.  If you have a company or are self-employed you need to have the discussion preferably with a trusted advisor or coach. Contact us at http://www.lifebalancemasters.com/ for further details or more in-depth advice. 

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