Alternatives to Work Life Balance
Work-life balance as a term seems to have been dead in the water for some time now. A quick search on Google will reveal hundreds of articles claiming the idea is no longer a good reflection of what we need in today’s modern world. There are also those sharing numerous alternatives to work-life balance.
And yet, people are still searching it, writing on it, Tweeting and Instagramming about it, and generally seeking work-life balance.
Personally, I’m in the ‘dead in the water’ camp. In my experience speaking to clients reimagining their work-lives, balance a doesn’t accurately capture what most of us are seeking these days. Or even if we are seeking it, it doesn’t seem like a realistic possiblity.
So what are the alternatives to work-life balance? Which ones should we really be aiming for? And what do they all actually mean? Below I’ve captured some of my favourite (and not so favourite) work-life balance alternatives. Hint: The last one is my cream of the crop and the one I think we should all actually be working towards.
Let’s start by defining the good old trusty…
Work-Life Balance Definition
Wikipedia (source of all truth - note: hint of sarcasm) says “Work–life balance is the lack of opposition between work and other life roles. It is the state of equilibrium in which demands of personal life, professional life, and family life are equal.”
To that I say ‘Pffft’. Clearly and utterly unrealistic. Probably impossible. So what else have we got?
What are the alternatives to Work-Life Balance?
Work-life integration & work-life blend
Work-life harmony
Work-life congruence
Work-life wellbeing
Work-life flow
Work-life fulfilment
Work-life [insert your work here]
Work-life design
Work-life integration & work-life blend
These two terms are pretty much interchangeable. The central idea behind them is we are not trying to carve up our days into equal parts of work, family, hobbies etc, but combine all the different aspects on our plates more fluidly. We mix everything in amongst everything else - sometimes letting it overlap and bleed together.
Some examples might include:
Taking that meeting on the phone while picking up the kids from school.
Creating a flexible working arrangement that lets you fit in your part-time study.
Living two days a week at your property in the country and working from home.
Fitting in your gym session in an extended lunch break and making hours up later.
My issue with blend and integration as concepts is that they’re not particularly inspiring. Maybe for some organisations this seems pretty interesting, but for many, this kind of thing is just the norm. Particularly since Covid completely changed how we live and work. What it doesn’t do is say anything about what the quality of our work and life should be. Only that we’re managing to fit it all in together. Um, yep. That’s what we’re already doing. We don’t have a choice. We’ve done it for years. Next.
Work-life harmony
Another alternative to work-life balance (and perhaps a slightly more aspirational alternative to work-life blend or integration), is work-life harmony. In this concept, all the different aspects of our work and life, come together to make beautiful music. Just like a choir, with different people and different voices, it’s the unique way those voices are combined and work together that make a deeper, richer, more textured sound.
Work-life harmony builds on blend and integration, but ups the quality. It’s also not just about the “what and with what”, but the how and why.
Some examples might include:
Starting your own business so you can pick your kids up from school, but also show them a more purposeful, motivated and healthy version of you.
Fitting in that yoga class before you come home from the office, so you can show up with more presence for your partner when you get home.
Collaborating on a business project with a friend, so you can not only help each of your companies do great work, but also build on and deepen your friendship and trust (hopefully).
Work-life congruence
Work-life congruence wasn’t part of the original version of this article, but when I came across it, I just had to add it in. It captures something a lot of my clients are seeking – a feeling of alignment or consistency with who they are.
The concept of work-life congruence, builds on harmony. Aspects of work and life could be congruent with each other, in that they are compatible and work together well. But this term also integrates ideas from the work of Carl Rogers on personality theory. Rogers (1959) states congruence is when we achieve a state of consistency between our desired self and our actual self - based on our feelings, experiences and behaviours.
Some examples of work-life congruence might include:
Creating a portfolio career, because you deeply value the aspect of yourself that thrives with variety and feel most in flow when you have lots of things on the go.
As a person with ADHD or ASD, working in an organisation that not only accepts, but sees your neurodivergence as a super power and fully supports you to find ways of working that work for you.
Creating an equitable child care/work ratio with yourself and your partner to align to your family’s feminist values.
Work-life wellbeing
Work-life wellbeing is an alternative to work-life balance that starts to focus a little more specifically on what we are actually trying to achieve in our work-lives. When people are trying to achieve work-life balance, what they’re often really seeking is work-life wellbeing.
Think of it this way, if you were to actually achieve the impossible goal of balance, would that actually make you feel good? Not necessarily. Everything could be nicely balanced out and you might still be miserable because you’re working in accounting and you really wanted to be a hot air balloon pilot, or because you’re longing for a greater sense of connection and community and instead you sit at home on your own each night watching Netflix.
There are many different definitions for wellbeing, but we could wrap it up neatly by saying it’s essentially a positive sense of self and life, driven by health, environment, purpose, relationships and community. So work-life wellbeing is where what we do and how we live combine to give us this.
An example of how someone might focus on work-life wellbeing could be:
A manager working with her team on emotional intelligence and how they can create stronger relationships and better mental health both at home and in the office
A workplace providing a program to employees to help them connect personal and business purpose.
Work-life flow
Like work-life wellbeing, work-life flow focuses on the goal. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the infamous positive psychologist, has defined the term flow as “…being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.” or “the holistic sensation that people feel when they act with total involvement.”
I like to think of work-life flow as this, but for life, rather than just a single activity. And what this requires, is all of the elements of our lives to be in flow individually, but also be in flow with each other. We want each to be flexible, agile, motivating and have a positive energy force behind them, moving each element forward independently and as one.
It’s harder to give a specific example of this one, because it’s not one thing. But if I were to liken a feeling to it, it would be just feeling like everything is humming. That you feel so energised by the different parts of your life and how they are all working together that you feel totally ‘in the zone’ of life.
Some aspects to focus on with work-life flow might include:
Doing more of the things you can totally lose yourself in - from playing with your kids, to walking in nature, to intentionally designing your workday to do more of the things that light you up and that you’re good at
Finding a place with the different aspects of your life where you feel neither overstretched (things are too hard, or too much) or bored (things are too easy or you’re being under-utilised).
Work-life fulfilment
Fulfilment is a term that has meaning layered upon meaning. It can be about achieving a goal or purpose, meeting a desired condition or need, a feeling of happiness or satisfaction, or to develop and utilise the full potential of something.
So you can see why I love this as an alternative to work-life balance. Again, it’s an aspirational term. Just imagine a work-life where you fulfilled your goals and purpose, met all your needs, felt happy and satisfied and lived up to your full potential. Sounds pretty awesome right?
Some things that might contribute to work-life fulfilment could include:
Continually working on your own personal growth, so you can develop your potential
Ensuring you’re really clear on your goals, so you can make any kind of work-life decision based on those goals
Understanding your unique strengths as an individual, so you can work from those strengths.
It could certainly include many of the other definitions within it, but there’s something here that brings out the individual a bit more due to the specific introduction of goals and potential into the mix.
Work-life [insert your word here]:
As you can see, some of these terms are more about how things fit together. Whereas others are about the result you are trying to achieve. I prefer the definitions that focus on the latter. I believe if we’re putting effort into achieving something, we should be focusing on a positive goal, rather than just a general state of being. You’ll also note there is a lot of crossover. While I’m far more partial to work-life wellbeing, for example, than work-life blend, achieving positive work-life wellbeing might in fact include some elements of positive work-life blend.
At the end of the day though, what is right for each individual is really up to them. Which is why we need to put more emphasis on people actually defining their own ideal for their work-life. Balance, blend, flow, wellbeing, calm, excitement, adventure, connection. What works for me, might not work for you. What might work for you today, might not work for you in two years time.
I encourage you to choose your own word. One that feels right for you and is going to inspire you to create the work-life you really want. You might even like to change the word on a semi-regular basis.
Work-life Design
The final alternative to work-life balance, is work-life design. Work-Life design is a richer, more holistic approach to our work-lives in which we intentionally plan out and create what we desire. A good design will include an aspirational outcome, which could include a definition of the kind of work-life we seek. But in work-life design, we take the emphasis off a single outcome and place our attention on the process as well. Alongside our role in the process.
We can look at the word ‘design’ as both a noun and a verb. The thing we create and the practice of creating it. A good design will include visioning, planning, strategising, prioritising and executing. It will look at the interrelationships between things and people with which it interacts. It may consider how our work life can be blended and integrated for greater harmony or flow. Or how flow and harmony might support wellbeing or fulfilment. But most importantly it puts us in the drivers seat as the designer. We define what we are creating. And we are not limited by a single word at all.
Whatever your work-life balance alternative, it’s time to get a bit more involved. A bit more creative. A bit more intentional. It’s time to be more conscious about the work-life we are trying to create and open up the space for a deeper, richer work-life conversation. For ourselves, for teams and for the people we love.