Success at work brings its own stress and risks to health. The status and the money can be good, but they can come at a health and time cost. A conventional approach to balance the hard, long workdays is often with full-on relaxing breaks such as spa weekends. However, this doesn’t really deal with the root causes of the stresses at work and results in the gradual deterioration of our health and wellbeing.
Familiar?
“We can manage for years with this on-off approach to pressures of work and life but often over time this can impact our health and wellbeing, and if left uncontrolled, we can be at risk of disease and burnout.”
Examples of red flags could be;
- Increased weight and maybe even diabetes
- Poor cardiovascular fitness – blood pressure or heart trouble
- Reduction in strength and muscle loss [sarcopenia]
- Immunity and gut issues like IBS
- Mental health concerns such as stress, anxiety and depression
- I believe that our bodies and minds give us “red flags” to an imbalanced life that we often choose to attribute to other reasons or even simply ignore.
- It doesn’t help that is it’s often a gradual phenomenon that can be bracketed as a “normal” for the age or position you are in.
- We can choose to take action and turn away from this well-trodden path.
- Success at work can include success in health and this can lead to more success at work.
Our career and financial successes bring us real life challenges too, for example
- Little free time to self-care
- Added responsibility for others
- Bigger financial challenges and responsibilities
- Leadership and team challenges
- Break down in relationships with family or partner
I challenge these norms.
- We can choose balance, health and wellness at any stage of our life and career.
- We can over time develop conditions that are often treated by medication the reality is that around 70% of this is down to lifestyle.
We learn many things as we climb the career ladder, but balancing life’s challenges is mainly self-taught.
I have witnessed time and time again that it takes a serious health event like a heart attack or depression that forces us to stop for us to look at, and question, the balance of our lives. It doesn’t have to be like that.
When we are well life is generally easier and we can get more done and feel more in charge.
We can thrive in the same working environment and get better outcomes. We begin to spiral up.
Coaching can help support you create these significant changes in a busy life and career where doing it alone can be too much of a challenge or take too long.
Time is the commodity we cannot get back – coaching is all about creating outcomes that keep accountable with time.
If you want more information on whether I can help your own situation, please click here
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“I believe all success must start with us, we are our main asset – without us we don’t exist and so we can’t succeed.”
“Optimum career success is possible with optimum health – you deserve it. Together the two can be unstoppable.”
Dr Sue Smith