It doesn’t matter if you are a college senior set out on your career journey or a freshman who worked throughout high school, most of us have probably held a part-time – or maybe a full-time – job at some point in our young lives. Maybe your mom, dad or both worked more than one job to help make ends meet. Perhaps you worked to help make ends meet for your family. Whatever the reason was for holding that job, “Am I working to live?” or “Am I living to work?” has most likely crossed your mind.
Having a work-life balance that is healthy and manageable for each of us can be a struggle. It can be especially hard if you have to juggle school, work, children or a family. There is no right answer or right way to make this balance happen, but it is important to know what works for you and how to achieve it.
After graduation, the goal is to secure a job, learn the ropes, succeed and be promoted, right? The way to that promotion may be to work 12-hour days, answer emails even when you get home or travel on weekends to prepare for a conference. When is it too much? Many times, employees just go on about their routine not giving this question a second thought. However, the lack of sleep, lack of social life and lack of down time starts to chip away at your livelihood and cause a lot of unneeded stress.
James Caan, CEO of Hamilton Bradshaw Group, said in a BBC article, “No one can survive for long if they are completely obsessed by work. That route will only lead to increased stress levels and can ultimately be counterproductive.”
At the same time, stress can lead to an array of other issues such as depression and sickness. According to the American Psychological Association, stress can affect all systems in the body. Too much stress can cause muscle pain, as muscles become tense when we are stressed. Stress can make breathing harder, put more stress on the already hardworking cardiovascular system and cause gastrointestinal problems among a variety of other health complications.
What can we take away from the effects of stress on the body? It’s bad. This is one of the main reasons to ensure, as we embark on our career journey, we keep in mind that we want to work to live, not live to work. We want to be able to go to work, rack up those vacation days and travel the world. Later on, when you are ready to start a family – if you choose to – you don’t want to miss important moments in your kids’ lives like dance recitals or little league games. It’s important to find healthy ways to make sure you are not only the standout employee at your job, but also know when to take a mental health day and unwind.
Fortunately, the new wave of CEOs and millennial start-ups have realized this need for work-life balance and have great programs in place to keep employees motivated to come to work every day. Many of these same companies offer very competitive vacation and PTO packages. Facebook offers their employees onsite healthcare, a chiropractor and acupuncturist, as well as a gym according to a Forbes.com’s article “America’s Top Companies for Compensation and Benefits.”
While not all companies offer top-of-the-line vacation and PTO packages or healthcare services like Facebook, many do offer vacation, sick days and 9-to-5 work hours. Keep these factors in mind when you are researching companies you want to work for after graduation. Does that dream job let you take time off for a trip to Hawaii? Or will you be living to work for the next five years and be too busy to take a vacation or even too tired to leave the house?
