Finding gainful employment is a significant goal for many people. Unfortunately, a well-paying job may come with invisible costs in other areas, such as personal wellness and time spent decompressing. Individual therapy is an invaluable tool for employees who feel they are not achieving a work-life balance that works for them. Without time to rest, recover, and enrich their spirits, workers are likely to experience burnout. They can become depressed, anxious, or physically ill.
A therapist can provide personalized strategies to help employees take control of how they spend their time. While most people will still need to abide by some rules laid down by their workplace and its rhythms, individual therapy can help employees set boundaries and overcome personal habits interfering with a lifestyle that brings joy, fulfillment, and financial security.
What Is a Good Work-Life Balance?
There is no one-size-fits-all answer for a “good” work-life balance. What each person should aim for depends on their current situation, their goals, and their preferences. Some are night owls who prefer to stay up until the early morning hours. So, a better work-life balance might not necessarily include getting out of the office at five, as long as they can start their workday later.
Some people can articulate what they want their work and home lives to look like in an ideal world. Others are unsure of their goals, and an individual therapist can help them establish benchmarks.
How Individual Therapy Can Help to Build Better Balance
Whether they are unsure what steps to take in pursuit of a better work-life balance or they do not know how to achieve the goals they are aiming for, employees can benefit from the help that individual therapy provides. Some of the most valuable services that a therapist can offer include assistance with:
Setting Boundaries
Many people’s main reason for poor work-life balance is their inability to set proper boundaries around the workplace. They may cave at the first sign of pressure from a manager or supervisor who requests that they stay late. They may not know how to turn down extra work they do not have time for.
Individual therapy helps participants identify areas where they struggle to set boundaries (e.g., staying late, taking on extra work). It can also allow them to practice exercising these boundaries in a safe space and wording them in a helpful and realistic manner. Sometimes, holding one’s ground takes practice!
Managing Perfectionism
Another reason many people’s work-life balance falls out of alignment is their perfectionism. It is easy to stay at work after hours if a person believes a project cannot be submitted until it is immaculate. The desire to do a good job and keep a project free from errors is reasonable, but perfectionism exceeds these goalposts.
Individual therapy often approaches this challenge by first helping participants become aware of how their perfectionism manifests. From there, they can develop tangible strategies to reduce its impact on their work without degrading its quality or threatening their employment.
Addressing Anxiety
Anxiety can pose many challenges in the workplace, and a poor work-life balance is just one. Individual therapists often address workplace anxiety in the form of difficulty with coworker relationships, stress about doing the work itself, or an obsession over making mistakes.
Therapy can assist with these anxiety issues and more, helping individuals to grow in confidence. Hence, they are comfortable taking fewer hours, asking for raises or promotions, and taking other steps to increase their overall quality of life.
Creating a Sustainable Lifestyle
Many work-life boundaries focus on goals such as physical health or creating enough time to handle responsibilities, such as grocery shopping. However, there is much to be said for achieving a better balance and creating a sustainable lifestyle in which one can feel enriched by pursuing personal goals, values, and mental health.
A therapist is often helpful for developing strategies to seek these ends and articulate them in the first place; people deserve to have the time to create art, enjoy music, partake in hobbies, or appreciate other activities with no justification beyond the joy they bring.
Focus on Your Life, Not Just Your Work
Work is an essential part of life, but it should not be the centerpiece. Individual therapy can help you draw boundaries between where your work life ends and your personal life begins so you can achieve your goals, remain healthy and happy, and avoid burnout. Contact Village Counseling today to sign up for individual therapy and see the difference it can make!