Life is a Beach-Let's Live Like It!

Life is full of stressors includes family, work, finance, health, or any other sphere of our existence. We know that life is a “beach” but we can learn to roll with the punches and work our way through challenges in ways that are easy and less stressful. Living like you're on a coast beach will help you maintain focus and let the stress melt away.

Stress is part mental and part physiological. Sometimes you can conquer both by changing your perspective. One party may be psychological but the other part has  more to do with how you eat, sleep and take care of yourself. We can go through life like people who are on some tropical beach eating kale, jogging down the pier, and drinking freshly squeezed pineapple juice.

The first skill we should learn is to live in the moment by focusing on what is front of you now. Even though you make plans to obtain your goals and get the things you need out of life you should focus each day on that day. Living in the present will help reduce any worries or considerations that might eat at you.

Eating right will help your body stay at its peak performance which helps reduce long-term stress and raise energy levels. Foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, and the like are helpful in giving you energy and increasing your outlook on life. You won’t get that “heavy” feeling after eating a bowl of macaroni & cheese.

Exercise and enjoy the outdoors. Physical fitness and outdoor activities have a natural way of getting you relaxed. Find some hobbies and sports that get you in shape while getting you connected with nature. The more you take care of your physical needs the better off you will feel. You will also look better as well.

Stress management is a habit that integrates into your daily life. It is the way we think about life, how we live our life, and what we spend our time on. A few good habits practiced in one area can lead to many higher levels of habits in other areas. As you begin to reap the rewards of a happy beach mentality you will also come to put the rest of life in proper perspective. Our way of viewing the world is one important predictor of success.

Poem and Painting: Solitude at the Beach- Work and Life Balance

Dr. Murad Abel

The sands of summer,

subtle breeze of daylight hours. 

Whips of grass,

rustling in sway.

Salty sea of ocean blue,

A place to sit for a while.

On the shoreline grass,

Where noise is a soft hum.

The waves never stop rolling,
Always keeping the line of land and sea.

A few minutes of walking,
Life's problems step away.

A few hours a week,
Your focus will be at its peak.

The poem discusses the idea that each person needs to find balance in their lives, work life, and goals. At times that balance comes from spending time alone while other times it could be spending time with family or engaging in fitness activities. Each person should discover that which keeps them motivated about life.

Work is a process that is aesthetically pleasing for a great many high performance players. Yet life isn't only about work. It includes other things such as family, friends, goals, and hobbies. Professionals should round out their interests in life to include both work but also non-work activities.

In my experience I have met individuals whose only goal is to progress at work with little regard for the other needs in their life. They may eventually achieve their goal but must give up other things that also have importance. Too narrow of a focus takes away from the flavor of life and leads to burn out.

Find activities and hobbies that help you balance and round out your life. For example, if you like cars but never had a chance to put your effort into one go and find a classic junker to fix up on the few hours you own every weekend. Maybe you want to coach baseball, engage in art, or find something else of interest. The choice is yours!

Does Business Strategy Have an Impact on Work-Life Balance?

Work-life balance is a common HR program that attempts to balance the needs between work and home life. That balance can be difficult to find if one is working in the service industry, consistent overtime, or in a high pressure salaried positions. Taking time to find that balance will help ensure that employees maintain a well-rounded and productive life that takes into account the whole person. The strategy a company uses to manage their business may have an impact on their desire to implement their own work-life balance programs.

A regular schedule can help people find a level of consistency that doesn’t occur if schedules are randomly changed every week. The unpredictability of work situations impacts work-life conflict, time-based conflict and strain-based conflict as measured through employee stress (Henly & Lambert, 2014). As schedules move around employees have difficulties planning activities from week to week. 

Certain sectors of the labor market have more difficulty in finding work-life balance. This is often a direct result of either too much overtime, as seen in hourly jobs in construction, or inflexible work hours in low wage occupations prevalent in the service industry. At this level, employees don’t have much control over their schedules that can cause stress when problems arise.

Executives can also have difficulty managing the demands between work and home life. When a person is responsible for a team of employees, a substantial amount of assets, and the success of a department it can be difficult to simply ignore problems to spend time with family. When an important phone call comes in it is expected that they drop what they are doing and handle the problem straight away.

The type of business strategy a company uses to guide its decisions will have an impact on their work-life balance. Those companies that follow a product leadership business strategy are more likely to adopt work-life programs when compared to those that are focused on cost leadership business strategies (Wang & Verma, 2009). 

Product leadership strategies focus more on the holistic approach to creating and selling products. Culture is one of those important components to overall success and therefore decisions to encourage work-life balance can help in encouraging higher output on an organizational level. When cost strategies take precedence it doesn’t take long to find such programs on the back burner of corporate emphasis. Decision-makers should consider the long term needs of employees in addition to the short-term financial success of the business to ensure talent is retained and fully engaged.

Henly, J. & Lambert, S. (2014). Unpredictable work timing in retail jobs: implications for employee work-life conflict. Industrial & labor Relations Review, 67 (3). 

Wang, J. & Verma, A. (2014). Explaining organizational responsiveness to work-life balance issues: the role of business strategy and high performance work systems. Academy of Management annual Meeting Proceedings. DOI: 10.5465/AMBPP.2009.44257659