With apologies to all my sincere friends, no offence meant. If you take yourself so seriously that you can’t cope with even the slightest hint of criticism then you really ought to get out more (or find yourself a life coach).
I dislike the phrase “Work Life Balance”; it co-exists in that unreal world of “Life Coaching” where “Quality Time”, “Alignment” and “Fulfilment” are made to appear easy to achieve and where you “can have it all”.
Frequently used by people who have done a weekend NLP or correspondence course they give the whole of coaching a bad name.
I am a coach and I was a dentist. You cannot be a successful dentist (& I was) without considering the whole person. Am a successful coach? I’ll go with Thomas Leonard’s view: “‘The best coaches don’t think they are. And some of the weakest coaches think they are great“.
‘You can not coach an individual without regard for the whole person, so some of the time I must be considered to be a “Life” Coach but it’s not a phrase with which I am comfortable.
My belief goes with the opening words of M. Scott Peck’s book The Road Less Travelled, that Life is Difficult and the sooner you get used to it the better. I have no time for the “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” just read this one book, it’ll change your life, everything will be hunky-dory and we’ll all live happily ever after. Rees’s take is Men are from Earth, Women are from Earth – now just deal with it.
Work is a huge part of life, the most successful and happiest people I know work extremely hard, they spend large amounts of their lives doing what they call work. But (& it’s a bloody big but) they make sure they enjoy what they do whatever it is.
Regular readers of this blog know that I am a big fan of Hugh MacLeod his writings and drawings as featured in Gaping Void. So as we head into a new year this struck me as being an appropriate cartoon.
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