Success Happy - What extreme choices have you made to keep your work-life balance intact?

What extreme choices have you made to keep your work-life balance intact?

As the latest example of How Good Grows on Yahoo!, our Power Your Future program highlights stories of real women, both everyday and powerful, who are finding success in their work and personal lives. Gina Drosos, this week’s featured woman and the head of Procter & Gamble’s global beauty division, took a 24-hour flight back from a business trip in Asia to coach her daughter’s basketball team in their league’s championship game. Share your memorable experiences in balancing your work life and personal life, then listen to Gina’s full story to hear her advice. Visit our blog: http://yanswersblog.com/index.php/archives/2011/07/21/power-your-future/ Hear Gina’s Full story: http://shine.yahoo.com/event/poweryourfuture/this-beauty-queen-is-no-girly-girl-2510638

Public Comments

I just stay cool, relax while working, I dont mind pressure during work, I just take it as challenge since everyday we encounter pressure :)
When I have gone through tough times on the job, I fast and pray. Once I fasted for 6 months and yes the Lord worked it out.
Laughing @ "...Gina Drosos, this week’s featured woman and the head of Procter & Gamble’s global beauty division, took a 24-hour flight back from a business trip in Asia to coach her daughter’s basketball team in their league’s championship game." Big deal considering Drosos probably makes $1.9 Gazillion a year, meaning she has the financial resources to manipulate her 'work-life balance'. Quote someone working three jobs because her husband got laid off while coaching her daughters softball championship team at the same time, then I'll have some respect for this question.
I saved heavily and stopped working in 2005 to devote my time to church, family and community.
Being hardworking and patience.
She is very lucky to be successful for raising billions of dough in the Beauty and Fashion industry, I originally thought that Proctor & Gamble produced washing powder in my country. As for me I try to manage my Asperger's Syndrome and undiagnosed OCD, I've yet to achieve myself getting a full-time job, so my work life is yet to come....same goes for my balance.
I didn't make any "extreme choices" because I have no problem "balancing" life & work. Those that do obviously have time management problems and screwed-up priorities.
DAILY exercise. I do aerobics for 5-15 minutes when I wake up. 5-15 minutes before I go to bed. Usually a stationary bike and/or 'The Step.' Once a week, I do heavy weightlifting.
I gave up alcohol to have more money and time to spend doing things I love. That way, I gain time spent on drinking with friends, and now spend that wisely doing other activities.
just trying and to believe in myself :)
I taser my staff until I feel better.
When I think back on my life, I have to say that I have had a wonderful, exhilarating ride! While I have had many of life's ups and downs, the downs have been few and even in them, I have found wisdom, strength, love, and the ability to mature and learn from those negative situations. At the working stage of my life, I began right out of college - teaching, a position I believe I was called and prepared to do. To my surprise, though I knew I loved singing and music, and could play a piano and organ since the age of 7, I never dreamed of a career or life in this field - but it was to be. For ten years, between Motown's Detroit, and Los Angeles, and Berkley, Fantasy Records, my life as a musician, singer, and eventually television and film 'person' (I was not a star), I evolved into something that I never dreamed could or would happen to me. After ten years, I made a choice. A husband and family was more important. I eventually left the harried halls and freeways of Los Angeles with my family and relocated to Tennessee - a place I felt that would spring forth the real and true idea of home, family, culture, seasons, and fun. My heart began to yearn for more children - which was not to be - however, my first love of teaching came back to be stronger than I ever imagined and I began to teach again. The extreme choices I made were not so much extreme as they were necessary and right. To rear a family in my mind, was to embrace the south with open arms - from where I came. To have the ability to walk peacefully in a place where horses and animals roamed, where the colors of the fall sprang forth with their vibrancy, to talk with neighbors over a fence, that would separate in other communities, to be able to love and embrace a relatively small town and still do all the things I loved to do - teach, read, write, plant, grown, love, work, experience and share. There have not been extreme choices for me - they have been right choices which have only enhanced my life and made it all that I could ever imagine or hope for.
A little over 10 years ago, while my kids were still small, I was offered a promotion at work which would likely have resulted in a salary increase of several thousand dollars a year. Normally that would be a great thing, but in this case the new position required a significant amount of travel. I like to travel and had been on quite a few business trips to various places in the world, but after the kids were born most of those had been for just a few days and only a few times a year. If I accepted the promotion, my new job was expected to take me away from home for a few days almost every week. I didn't want to be away from my kids that much and didn't want to put all the significant responsibility and work of raising them on my wife. She had chosen to be a stay-at-home mom but needed some time to herself so I would often do things with the kids in the evenings - but if I was 1000 miles away I obviously couldn't do that. I had heard that turning down a promotion would likely stall my career (and that was right - after more than 10 years I've never been offered another promotion), but my family was important enough to me that it really wasn't a difficult choice at the time to decline the promotion. Though that decision has cost tens of thousands of dollars over the 10+ years since then and the prestige of the bigger title, I do not regret the choice at all. Some might consider that an extreme choice, but to me it was just simply the right choice.
dont have kids or marry and be really cheap so you only have to work part time to pay your bills -_-'
In Africa we work 24/7 in the fields raising cows and growing crops.
i don't have to work.. i am disability.
If you have work-life balance, you don't need to do anything extreme. Many years ago, I gave up work, and gave up balance for that matter. I gave up everything, job, home, car, bank accounts, credit cards, clothing, all my worldly belongings and even family, and entered a convent--to do my "real" work in life: pray for the world and everyone in it. I also gave up speaking. That was the hard part. I did not stay in that convent. Now that experience lends balance, insight, perspective, tolerance, patience, and love to all I do in my life and in my work. It makes all I do balanced, and light, no matter how hard the work is. No amount of work for a worldly purpose will ever be sufficient to soothe one's soul, so it's easy to let go of it at the end of the day. No amount of belongings or "busyness" can soothe one's soul, so it's easy to give those up too, and re-focus on the only thing we take with us for eternity: closeness to and communication with God. So, I've done some extreme things to accomplish good in this life and the next. To me the balance comes now from knowing the things of this world--both work and the rest of life have to be balanced with eternal life, and getting it.
I believe very strongly in monitoring your work habits and work style, and your productivity, and taking great care to see that you are at your best. I call this "working intelligently" which is very different from just putting in hours. I actually wrote an extensive guide on one of my blogs about how to work intelligently rather than just working hard: http://zorach.wordpress.com/2010/10/27/working-hard-vs-working-intelligently/ The big three points I make in that post are to maintain focus, cultivate creativity, and have purpose in your actions. I find that those three things, which are all related, help one to be much more productive. If you're working at your best, you don't need to put in as many hours. Unfortunately, many workplaces have a culture that is driven by hours and "putting in your time" rather than productivity. In these workplaces, you may not be rewarded for getting more done--your boss might just put more work on your desk and still expect you to work late. My advice to you? Change jobs. If necessary, start your own business or be self-employed. Right now I am self-employed doing a variety of different things. While I often miss the social atmosphere of a workplace, I have found I am able to work shorter hours and be more productive (thus earning more) when I am self-employed. --- I think though that working intelligently can greatly help the work / life balance. Having a good work / life balance is part of working intelligently, as I explain in my post. Having a healthy, vibrant, interesting life outside of work can be a source of creativity, and can give you perspective which can lead to greater purposefulness in your work, and being well-rested when you come to work can help you focus more! In the end, you will often achieve much more if you work less, both on the job and for other sorts of work in the rest of your life, like work around the home, or other projects you work on!
Relax and do my best every time...
i put on some 80s music and tune everyone out.. well besides the phones of course. lol
Think only about work in working time, and think only about your family while you are at home. smile always. you should find the happiness of life other than the sorrow of it.
I read the Bible and meditate.
I don't let things get the best of be anymore. If a customer wants to be rude, let them be rude. I just get a higher up co-worker to help them if they try to get on my bad side. I just know that the person that's rude probably has it worse then I do and that's how I've kept my job and my sanity.
i got lazy to do work and maintained the balance..
I showed my x girlfriend the door found another moved away from a crappy suburb into a nicer one had our first child even though i never wanted children but i thought what the heck Changed jobs for a better one LIFE is good now :) I learnt not to be afraid of change regardless if it turns out worse because you just keep trying NEVER give up!
I take one day at a time and pray for strength for each passing day.
antidepressants
Who says I have a balance? Some of us just have to go through life like drones, unless we want to starve, which doesn't sound so bad sometimes.
I think it starts from a early age. For some people they are able to know what they want, when they want it and how to achieve it. But life don't always go right so I decided since i did not know what i wanted to do i just did whatever i enjoyed and i made it.
ensurance
I remember that it's just a job, it's not my life. My personal motto is: My job is what I do to support my personal life. When my job starts to impact my personal life, it's time to either change what's happening with the job vs personal life, or time to find a new job. I've also found that "work-life balance" only applies to the corporate muscle who love to use the phrase in attempt to make you believe they actually care about "the little person". They don't care about the little person...so you'd better care about yourself.
Often women just can't have it all. e.g. investment banking does not = work-life balance and neither does unemployment which is probably more common then reported. Choices like who your partner is or whether or not you have a partner are key to achieving work-life balance I think. For example, if he mother was less senior at Procter & Gamble she may have to quit work to afford babysitting or miss out of the basketball game or more likely not have made it away from the children.
http://www.facebook.com/LadyAlma.virtual.supreme.commander Do I have a choice where I never had one? Some women live in Countries that support careers for women because the maturity in the forum and con census allow women to pursue a career. As I lodged a complaint against Child Care in 1996 and won 12 motivations out of 13 which should have helped system to change childcare from illegal Childporn into a Brave new World and new life for Newborn and Safe environment for our offspring and Highest Wroship made Flesh... I know that my worry that children are at risk of a system profiling a lie to stay popular on Wall Street and make tons while they keep women as slaves and forget that the taste of meat becomes bitter from suffering the ingrates keeping women in Coma on machines to live out pregnancies for a child that can only become barbecued or otherwise defiled by the High Authorities having all the keys to every bodies whereabouts and their Living Worship 7 days out of 7....
spend less and work harder. it is difficult but "the path to the heaven is full with thornes" sometimes you have to risk something to safe something else.
I keep my faith intact even problems arises!
find a job i like but still i have to work to death to stay alive. it's ridiculous that the rich and managers think that unhappiness and work must go together.
I don't have a job but my "work" is high school. High school is extremely stressful so I try to tackle one thing at a time. If I get stressed, I slow down, make some tea, and make my self realize I have time to get everything done.
Wow - that's awesome!!! She came all the way back from neglecting her child to coach her team.
I'm not working yet.
taking a 24 hour flight isnt extreme, i do it for vacation. you get to sleep on planes. if this woman flying for procter and gamble she flew first class. ohhhh how extreme, taking a first class ticket with all you can eat shrimp, vibrating reclining seats, and pajamas, a little TV on your seat, internet. poor thing, it must have been horrible. so whats up with this whole thing about highlighting stories of real women. last i checked, men have to work too, and we get paid less if you factor in the fact that even if we are dating a woman with a job, we still have to buy everything and even if we divorce a woman with a job, she still gets half my stuff. stop claiming feminism is about equality when you know its about superiority.
I just stay cool relax and always think positive for that.
work very hard
I dropped out of school to work, discovered there weren't any good opportunties for women. So I'm back in school at the cost of student loans.
stopped drugs, partying, and hanging out with almost everyone of my friends becuase they still partied every day, moved back home to save money, turned everything around in my life.
Well, if I made any *extreme* choices, that wouldnt be too *balanced* now would it
After many years of inner turmoil I finally realized that I do my best when I am true to myself and not to what others would like me to be. After realizing that is was "Okay" to be me, I then went after being the best me that I could possibly be - and not in an egocentric fashion. Everything fell right in to place after I made that Life altering decision. ♥ I also decided that it was "Okay" to Love myself, genuinely. It has made ALL the difference in my Life and surrounding circumstances. We can all become shining examples of how self acceptance and remaining true to your own heart can become productively contagious. Let's not forget 'healthy' as well. :)
I worked a boring job for a year saved some money. my last day is next week then im going to australia for a year :)
i killed a man... ok i didnt
This one time i was a young couple very much in love are married and have started their respective careers, she as a real estate broker, he as an architect. She finds the perfect spot to build his dream house, and they get loans to finance it. When the recession hits, they stand to lose everything they own, so they go to Vegas to have one shot at winning the money they need. After losing at the tables, they are approached by a millionaire who offers them a million dollars for a night with the wife. Though the couple agrees that this is a way out of their financial dilemma, it threatens to destroy their relationship.
Why just women? No none asks how men balance their work and family? It's just assumed women are the primary parent right? We're the only ones who have to make a choice? I'm sorry Yahoo but this question is extremely sexist.