(This is part two of the first post in a series on the subject of balance. It being the holidays, we thought titling this series the gift of balance seemed appropriate. By “we,” I’m referring to the series contributors. Joining me in this series are Mark Stanifer and Tonya Waechter.)

Of the topics the rest of this series will cover, which one have you had to work on the most?

Mark: For me, it’s the work, career, job. I often use the analogy of a spectrum. At the tail end of my corporate career, I needed to change where I was on the spectrum. Too much work had become a detriment to my time, family, and even emotional health. So now I’ve shifted the pendulum to asking the question, “How much work should I be doing? Am I doing enough work?” My day looks so different. I’ve enjoyed a lot of personal time with family, but I have to balance the time to develop and grow a new business. Work is the area that most easily disrupts the other areas of my life. I’ve gone from placing balances on it, to trying to control, to asking what are my boundaries and what should I be doing. This one isn’t always a challenge, but it is the one that I need to pay the most attention to because it’s so influential to other components of my life.

John: Tonya, since you’ve counseled a lot of guys, would you say this is probably the case for most men?

Tonya: Yes, especially the “how much work do I put in” leading back to values. But this is my issue too. What I’ve had to learn, and learning to do all the time, is setting all my hours according to my values. My values have to be stated first. And then ask, “Do my hours reflect my values?” That helps me. If I don’t accomplish my tasks in the hours I’ve set, then I have to be okay with stopping. That was the biggest thing for me, being okay with not accomplishing everything that was on the list for that day.

John: I remember hearing Bill Hybels saying how he addressed that issue for himself. When the clock hit five, he gave himself an automatic stop. But before he left his desk, he’d pause and pray, “God, thank you for what I got done today.” Just a simple prayer that allowed him to leave and to leave stuff not done.

Tonya: That’s good. A professor once taught me that when I put my hand on the doorknob to leave to pause and say, “Everything that happened in this office today rest with you, Lord, and now I go home to my family.” Disconnect my brain from work and be with my family. Again, it comes back to values. We can give lip service to our value system, but do we live out of it. When we do, it’s a whole different dynamic because then I can be sitting with my kids and playing a game and have peace because that is a value for me, a higher value than my work.

John: My input on this question is coming from the backside of what’s been said on the work topic. The topic that goes hand in hand on this one is the idea of sabbath/rest/play. It’s not so much that I struggled with finding my identity in work. It was finding the balance between the idea that as a single person I can give more time to the job and the need to find balance between work and play. When I started running it wasn’t just because I enjoy it, which I do, but it was for that purpose to give me structure and personal accountability about the need for this balance. But even then, I had to work on not letting my play feel like work. The competitive drive or need to get better would mess with the balance. Injury is actually a good thing for me. It makes me slow down and pause to evaluate am I pushing too hard. Finding balance in play time helps correct any issues that are on the work side of it.

Suggested Resources:

Mark’s

• Essentialism, by Greg McKeown
• Living Forward, by Michael Hyatt
• Jesus’ message – “Store up treasures in heaven, rather than here on earth.”
• Quote by martyred missionary Jim Elliot – “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

Tonya’s

John’s

• Integrity, by Dr. Henry Cloud
• Awe, by Paul David Tripp