I Need Balance In My Life. The Dream Of The 21st Century

By James Cowley

I need balance in my life. “I want a life” “give me a break” “I’ll go mad if I don’t do something about this” “If only I had time to connect with people again”

How many times have you said things like these? Once a week? Once a day? Even more often?

Although we thrive on the pace and speed of business life, suddenly we feel that something is wrong.

Although we try many ways to achieve balance, we are in fact trapped by the lives we have worked so hard for and balance seems out of reach and running away from us. Dr Cowley spells out how and why we feel as we do. And he spells out the steps to create balanced lives.

The answer, he argues, is not in dreaming of a life, which is totally different, but in adjusting numerous aspects of the life we are living right now. Over time we become adept at walking the tightrope of life so as not to fall off either side. And therefore balance becomes possible.

If you are seeking work life balance, this book provides a range of down to earth strategies, which you can use immediately and into the future. And if you are an executive or manager in business or other organisations the book covers the critical things to address if you want to provide a workplace that can retain key managers and staff.

Dr James Cowley is a marketing and consumer behavior strategist. He was co-founder and Managing Director of New Focus Pty Ltd, the international marketing strategy and research company. His clients include major corporations and public organisations in Australia and overseas.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Cowley
• Release date: Oct 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311360427

James Cowley

Dr James Cowley C.Ed; B.A; M.Ed.; PhD; QPMR; CPM; FAMI; MRSAJames Cowley has worked across fields as diverse as health, education, innovation and business and in different parts of the world.His businesses and organizations have worked on many critical projects, products and services creating numerous jobs in high performance teams. He has been known for his pragmatic down to earth approach to helping people solve problems.He has kept in touch with people throughout his career by active involvement in research, listening directly to over 40,000 people talk about their lives, needs and experiences and also to numerous others via surveys and similar. As an external academic in his spare time he has also examined and supervised many Doctorates. He has a strong belief in rigorous but useable in the “real world” research.These days he continues to work on innovations and research themes which he believes impact us all with the aim of sharing this as widely as possible.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the thousands of people who have let me listen to them over the years and share in the way they see their lives. They are the source of the wisdom that I have tried to summarise in this book.

I would like to thank my original publisher Oliver Freeman for his vision and for his support of those who are trying to contribute through communication of important ideas for the 21st century. Also I thank my development editor Clare Moss for her considerable ability in working with me on the text.

I would like to thank my wife Annette and children Emma and Paul for what they have taught me and for all their support and love.

I would like to thank a range of people who have helped me overcome academic failure from when I was young by their positive encouragement at different stages of my career: Terry Newcombe; Ken Onions; Oliver Barnett OBE; Richard Barton; Mary Bevins; Kenneth David; Martin Evans; Marilyn Stephens, Chris Butler; Cherry Manfield, Professor John Merritt; Michael Bowden; Bob Taylor; Noel Tanzer OA , Graham Bean, Dr Barry Elsey, David Donnelly, Without their help I would never have gained an interest in becoming properly educated. Many of them also influenced me by showing a deep respect of other people. I also thank my friends, the 3 amigo’s outrageous young men Patrick Grier & Ian Oelrichs who never stop pushing the boundaries of life, work, belief that one can change the world and continue outrageous thinking throughout life.

Finally, I deeply thank my mother, father and sister. They had the belief that by many years of hard gruelling manual work and tenacity you could seek a better life. Without that I would never have had the chance to experience the privilege of education.

After direct costs, a sizeable proportion of the proceeds go to Medicins Sans Frontieres- the bravest people who enter war and disease zones often before anyone else gets there. MSF teams, often at huge personal cost, help those who may not even get a chance of a first or second 30 years of life. The remainder goes into a fund for the next research project/book

The author can be contacted through www.30yearbonus.com or www.balanceandconnect.com.au.

Introduction

I really need to get more balance in my life. I really need friends, a group of people that I feel I really matter to … that if the chips were down they would still be there … I would connect with them like I used to be able to do. I need time to do the things I want to do … all I do is rush from here to there.

These are a range of desires felt strongly by a growing number of people in Western society. They are expressed at those rare moments where we get a chance to breathe and think what do I really want?

Life has become so busy that we are now de-sensitised from our real needs, emotions and thoughts.

Not the hours or moments, but days go by in a perpetual blur. The speed at which we experience events, thoughts, information, demands, crises, desires and worries, has increased out of all proportion.

We cope by using forms of temporary relief: binge shopping; short holidays; escapist and out of our mind experiences of partying, drinking, raving. Or we may develop many other strategies to provide some enjoyment amidst the hazy and stressful daily experiences.

At odd moments we feel a greater sense of happiness. Increasingly we feel that there must be another way of living; less stressful, less under the control of others, less fearful and worried.

Some people consider a sea change, a complete change of lifestyle – getting a life. Others, with an unease caused by loneliness or a sense of shallowness, wish they could connect to some friends or community in the way they did as kids. Some start to think about a different job or a different relationship; others admit to close friends that they really would like more balance in their lives.

Do I really need balance

Feeling stress is not necessarily a bad thing. We need to learn to distinguish between the normal levels of stress and pressure, and the debilitating stress that is caused by imbalance.

It is possible to enjoy the stimulation of competing demands and be driven by ambition and positive energy. I admire these traits in many people and choose to work in business teams comprising such people.

However, when a job or other aspects of life lead to imbalance, it takes away from the enjoyment of life and we crave something different. We realise that we have so few years on this planet. We cannot waste too many of them.

"I wake in the morning and I am not excited by life. In fact it’s quite some time since I was"

"I’m so busy all the time, I just don’t have time to breathe. But every so often when I’m alone or sitting in the car in a traffic jam, I realise that deep down I am missing something. It doesn’t last long because I get busy again within the hour! But it is there and if I allow myself to think about it then it does worry me that I’m not really content"

"I work with some of the most successful women. They love the facials and massage, as it’s that bit of time they have for themselves. But it’s interesting how much they talk. They need to confide. They are lovely people. And nothing ever goes outside of the room. But the one thing I’ve concluded over the years is that less than 1 in 20 is actually happy. In fact to the contrary, there are many who are deeply unhappy just under the surface. They are running through life at breakneck speed. And when they talk many indicate that their lives are a mess of work, stress, insecurity, travel without meaning, broken relationships, late evenings working and a few friends met during time snatched over a quick meal or drink."

This book is for all those who would like to affect a change in their lives, but it specifically applies to business people. The book is not anti business. However as a long-time successful business person I do take a tongue in cheek look at the stupidity of the way we sometimes run businesses and how we wear down our best people by the way we manage them.

This book is about how to be effective in work and life and deals with the current and future trends that affect both.

Getting in a knot – wanting the best of what you have but wanting something else also

The need for balance is not going to go away. It is a sign of deep societal unrest. In many ways we have never had it so good, but we experience a conflict: we feel a gap between what we have and what we want.

For some people, finding a way to change seems easy. Much new age literature has been written on stress, spirituality, feelings, self-concept. For some, much of this is very useful. But I have found for many, particularly those in business, such new-age writing can be a little bit over the top. This doesn’t mean its wrong; it’s just not suitable.

Instead we need something that resonates with our rational, business-like, professionalism. I know for myself that I have never been able to feel comfortable with crystals, pyramids and sitting cross legged on the floor – all that achieves is cramps and backache!

Many of us try to work life out logically; drawing up lists of goals; plans for the new year; new fitness routines; financial spreadsheets which will show us when we can afford to be free to live again.

But sometimes, all that logic just ties our mind in a knot, and we quickly bury these aims and thoughts back into a dark crevice in our mind.

The way we normally try to gain balance can never work!

The reason so many of us get no further than initial plans is that it is too difficult to relate our desired life to our current one. The chasm is too great.

In fact, apart from the obvious desires of wanting lots of money; a home; a loving partner, it can be very hard to work out what we truly want.

This is because we are starting with what we have, and thinking of improvements. We are building our lives from within the boundaries of that which we have already experienced.

The town I grew up in ended at a canal bridge. We stood there and watched the coal barges on the water. It was as far as we could walk. We did not go beyond it. It was as though the whole world was on our side of the bridge. Our sense of reality was constrained by its boundary.

We often think of the world only in terms of what we know or have experienced. We can look over the bonnet of the car at the bumper of the car in front, rather than stand on a mountain and look at the road system laid out in front of us. We can miss a whole world happening around us.

So using a different approach to gain a real understanding of what we would find to be satisfying in our lives is to expand our concept of the world as we have learnt it and then see how far away we are from it.

Part of the reason for our micro-view of the world is that our attention span has become more and more limited. Ask any Internet designer, and they will tell you that unless they have grasped the attention of a prospective customer within the first three clicks, then the customer is gone.

Our brains have been trained to quickly discard thoughts that are too difficult – or too personal – leaving no room for resolution.

This training forms part of another reason for our limited concept of the world. It is called conditioning – and it relates to the predictability and conformity of human behaviour.

Our conditioning can blind us to opportunities.

So how do I achieve balance?

This book goes through a number of steps to achieving balance.

Signals and signs of the need for balance

There are many signs that show us we are ready for change. We look at some of these signals and signs that tell us that, at the very least, we need to rethink our current choices.

However, sometimes sudden and dramatic change, such as opting out, or choosing something totally different can be a disastrous step. The dream of a different lifestyle can be very seductive for a while. The dreams become larger than life, but they are just dreams – not necessarily the change we are looking for.

Once we have considered the causes of imbalance, the book takes you through numerous areas where you can look at achieving balance for yourself.

Instead, we need to ensure that life delivers what we actually want. For some it may involve gearing up into a faster lane, for others it may involve slowing considerably to find a different experience of life. For others it may even be a recognition that they are, in fact, happy where they are.

Much of this book concentrates on the impact of work on our lives, because work takes a central role in our life. Modern day work practices have produced enormous pressures on many of us, and while sometimes accepting these pressures, we don’t like them!

But to re-iterate clearly, the book is not anti-work or anti-business. Business produces much of the wealth that allows us choices. Nearly all of us have to earn an income, yet we are free to ask questions about meaning and purpose and balance in life because our income and the success of businesses within our economy provide the basic requirements of life. It is, however, quite open in being scathing about the many stupid, insane and unprofitable practices that occur in businesses which harm and scar staff, and also harm businesses and organisations.

About this book

This book will challenge your thinking and help you to decondition yourself using a wide variety of exercises. It examines the hazards of not having a reasonable degree of balance, and the impact on us as individuals, families, business and community.

In my capacity as both marketer and counsellor I have met many thousands of people over three decades, in numerous settings and in many countries. I have had the privilege of listening to numerous fast-moving business executives; business team members; consumers; small business owners; government workers; helping professionals.

I have been privileged to listen to and to learn from those whom life has treated badly and who are in great pain – the result of major imbalance and the choices necessitated by their situations.

I have studied education, psychology, motivation, perception, research, management, business and philosophy and knowledge drawn from these fields is applied to the suggested solutions for finding balance.

However, this book is not written as an academic textbook, using theories, references, names and direct quotes of how many people think x. This is quite deliberate; the text uses grounded theory extrapolated from numerous research and consumer behaviour projects conducted over the three decades in business and social research and numerous discussions with consumers, executives and others.

It tries to draw on the experience of numerous people who have generously allowed me to feel how they feel and see life through their eyes as they shared their experiences.

The book concentrates in detail on how to start to produce change. Achieving balance is not always easy. It’s not a simple A, B, C. I think most of us realise that life doesn’t work like that anyway.

It is also intended to be an easy read. The hard part is when you start to properly carry out the exercises suggested! The exercises are to help you apply what you are reading. Try the exercises, because if done properly, you will find they have a significant effect on your life.

The text also includes several stories. Read them slowly, imagining the people and the feelings involved. If you immediately respond too much mushy stuff! then this in itself is a signal. Denial of feelings is part of our conditioning and a major signal of imbalance and pain to come. Instead, read the examples and try to see if they relate to your experiences or those of your friends.

I try to describe very down to earth human experiences, particularly those relating to the huge numbers of people in corporations and organisations.

From this I interpret the signals and solutions for getting balance. I hope this helps. You may find some of the comments about business practices a little poignant. Some attempt to help you to laugh at the things we do. You don’t need to agree with me about them or my interpretation of them. But by challenging and starting to laugh at some of the stupid things we do in business you start to chip away at conditioning.

But I repeat again that it’s not anti-business. I am stressing this because many of us in business are shy of reading those things which seem the antithesis of the business culture we know so well. But in seeking balance we have to be able to take apart what we have grown to accept as normal, including business, and start to question it. I’ve struggled to run successful businesses for many years. The struggle has not been in the business practices. It’s been in getting the balance right between sound business practices and looking after people. It’s like walking a tightrope. It’s to do with balance.

Rebecca is still at work at 8 ‘o’ clock Thursday. She has just phoned her friends to tell them she won’t be joining them eating at L’Orangerie, the new trendy place to be and to be seen.

She was sure on Saturday when she said she could make it that she would.

There were going to be some new interesting guys there. Guys were in short supply today – either unavailable, or married and pretending not to be, or gay, or too old or dorks.

She was ahead on work, although that was a bit of a laugh considering the chaos in her company.

"Dammit! she said as she tearfully slammed her files down on her desk. Five weeks work getting this project off the ground and now suddenly its less important to someone somewhere who needs this new project costed and resourced before the weekend.

It was as though the Chief in Head Office had just thought it up. Yet it must have already had weeks of planning. But nobody had thought to involve her; even tell her that it was on. And now she had to sort out the mess.

And all that work she had put into the other project would be lost now, because this new project had to happen within this next month. She had actually really felt something about her other project. But no one even cared.

It was just an order for her to get the figures done and back to them.

As she stared at the lights outside she felt a nagging fear that she had lost control of her life. Nothing she did really mattered, because somewhere someone would change it. She was just a cog in the wheel. With no life beyond it.

Section 1: I need balance in my life – Achieving the dream of the 21st century

Chapter 1 Work – Signals of imbalance

She quickly smothered her fear as she concentrated on the task to be done. Computer screen. Spreadsheets. Dimmed lamp. Rough notes. Solutions. Her life.

The volume keeps increasing

Work is rarely ever finished. The in tray never empties and the list of emails requiring answers never ends. Multiple meetings take all the time needed for getting the actual job done, and multiple demands from multiple sources, bosses, supervisors or colleagues arrive in a constant stream.

The constant pressure of incoming requests, matched with limited time to respond, leads to an ever-increasing feeling of work not done as well as it could be; of jobs where no one has the time to teach us the skills; or of resignation to the fact that everything has to be done fast, and badly.

In numerous studies over the last decade, staff attending focus groups have constantly told me that the volume of work creates huge tensions within themselves and between them and others.

Many years ago I remember working with drivers of a transport company. The white-collar executives could not understand that when parcels couldn’t be delivered, the drivers didn’t return the documents to the document room and the parcels to the loading dock. Then they could be delivered the next day.

The drivers said they did do this. But after I spent a week joining them for coffee, bacon buttees and on their rounds, the conspiracy of silence was revealed.

Everyone actually knew that the parcels didn’t go back to the dock; the documents didn’t go back to the office and therefore delivery the next day often didn’t happen.

The white-collar executives were used to the in tray filled with papers at the end of the day, but for the drivers the sight of an empty dock was their motivation. Parcels messing the place up was the very last thing they wanted to see at the end of the day. So they left them in the truck.

They weren’t ignoring instructions – it was a difference in motivation and culture.

So we suggested that they leave the parcels in the truck with the paperwork, and one person would remove the returned parcels from the trucks into the dock again in the evening.

The cost of this was minimal, compared to the cost of follow up of lost parcels. But we had to accept that for this group of workers, a perception of completion of the job was critical to them … and they didn’t see completion the way the white collar workers did.

Most people want to feel they do a job well. Some people thrive on the volume of work. If you feel good about it – what you can achieve and a belief that you are doing it as well as you want – then the volume of work itself is not a sign of imbalance.

But when the volume starts to give us that feeling of being swamped, or feel that we are not producing our best; and that the very work, systems, bosses, structures make it impossible for us to do well, then this is one of the signals of imbalance.

The dominant belief arising out of our studies with focus groups is that organisations have now cut