This week I led a webinar for the University of Chicago “Mind Your Career” series entitled, “The Work/Life Myth: 3 Ways to Feel More In Sync With Your Life.” Many of us are actively seeking a way to find work/life balance, and to determine how and when work/life balance discussions and efforts are appropriate.

Most material and presentations present work/life balance as a zero-sum game. One takes from the other. A winner and a loser. To some extent there are zero-sum aspects, but I contend that we aren’t talking about the zero-sum game of work/life balance.  It is not work or life or work vs life.

In fact, we often aren’t thinking about this important topic with full information; studies show that when people are asked to track their time, they dramatically over estimate work time and under estimate sleep time.

The reality is that we all have 168 hours in a week.  Tim Cook has 168 hours, the Uber driver you rode with yesterday has 168 hours, Warren Buffet has 168 hours, and you have 168 hours.  We must decide how and where to spend our time.

The question isn’t really the balance between work and life. It’s how will you spend your time to be in sync with your values, goals, and passion?

So if work life balance isn’t a zero sum game we are striving to win…what is it?

And how do we figure out how to most efficiently and effectively spend our 168 hours?

I believe the answer is called Whole Life Synchronization.  That is, in effect, to make sure your career is in sync with your values, goals, and overall passion.  When you achieve Whole Life Synchronization, you actually “make the pie bigger.”  Meaning you aren’t taking from career to salvage your life or giving up on your life to succeed at your career.  You essentially grow the overall outcome of both your life and career, winning and achieving more than you thought possible at both.

So how do we achieve Whole Life Synchronization? I discuss three steps to move in this direction in this webinar available free now:

[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7u9S5_B91A&w=854&h=480]

Additionally you can look into some of the resources I discuss at the following links:

Brigid Schulte, Harvard Business Review, Preventing Busyness from Becoming Burnout.

Michael Hyatt, Free To Focus, 2019

Brené Brown, Dare to Lead, 2018

By following the three steps outlined in the webinar, you can stop aiming for an impossible goal of work/life balance and instead develop a career and life in sync with each other. Whole Life Synchronization allows you to live without the constant push and pull between being great at your career and having the life you want.

We help our clients develop careers and lives they love, whether that’s in their current position or a career transition. We can help you do the same. If you’re ready to stop striving and tolerating, contact us today.

Keith R. Sbiral is a certified professional coach with Apochromatik specializing in executive coaching, career trajectory coaching, and career transition coaching.  Keith has nearly 20 years of experience working with employees to help them find their best career path.  Contact Keith directly at keith@apochromatik.com.