Work-life balance- the 5 balls

Posted by Tony Ozanne  at February 13th, 2013

Recently when driving back from Melbourne to Canberra, I was listening to a talk back radio discussion on business and work life balance, which was interesting. Various business owners were calling in and saying how long they work and never see their families etc, etc. This was all a bit sad, but I am sure this is very true for lots of business owners- they get so tied up working in their business or their job, and fail to plan to work on it, or work on other aspects of their life.

A caller then came on and referenced a quote by former Coca Cola CEO Bryan Dyson which was so very relevant and true.

He said something like this, and I am paraphrasing here…

Let’s assume our life was represented by 5 balls- Work, Family, Health, Friends and Spirit.

If we were to juggle these balls it would be difficult as 5 balls are certainly hard to juggle. Lets say something changes and we lose our job (or our business), sure it might be bad, but you will soon find that the ball is in fact made of rubber and it will bounce back up- you can start again.

Let’s assume now you neglect (or drop) on of the other 4 aspects or balls….that is you neglect them, what you will find is these balls are in fact made of glass and they will shatter. If you drop the family ball due to too much work serious damage can occur- breakdown, grief, trauma, relationships, etc. the same with your Health, Friends and your Spirit. Drop them and they will break and take a lot more effort to put back together, if at all possible.

The message was this. Dont’t spend all your time with just one ball- work. Spend equal time on all 5 to have balance and harmony. Don’t become a slave to work or your business, at the end of the day the Work ball is rubber and will bounce back- the others won’t.

A nice representation of this is in the attached You Tube link here

Is it time, you re-looked at how you juggle your 5 balls of your life?

Tony Ozanne

www.tonyozanne.com