How to harness your ambition to improve your work-life balance
Plus another shout out to EASY goals and the backstory of how I became a runner.
Hello and welcome to Academia Made Easier. I am so glad that you are here.
On the podcast Work Appropriate, author Rainesford Stauffer recently made a counter-intuitive point about creating work-life balance. She said she has observed that for many people:
the focus had to shift from “doing less at work” to more “what am I going to add in?” As a result of adding more things in, it kind of automatically took care of the overwork that was unmanageable .… Sometimes the solution isn’t always to do less, it's to add more of the things you’re feeling you’re missing that you could be ambitious about.
Her argument is that many of us isolate our ambition to the career realm of our lives. This limited range for ambition allows work to creep outward, occupying more of our thoughts and time. The solution, she suggests, isn’t rest or boundaries or productivity systems. It is to have a non-work ambition that serves as a counter-force to your work ambition, claiming some of your thoughts and time back.
This idea has been rolling around in my head for weeks. I don’t have hobbies, unless you count binge-watching television and eating my feelings. I don’t craft, crochet, camp (God, no!), cook, or collect stamps. I don’t play sports or watch sports or mask my Resting Bored Face when other people talk about sports.
But Stauffer’s point resonates with me. I like the idea of creating non-work ambitions to put work ambitions into their proper place in my life. And I do have things I like to do that it is possible to be a bit more deliberate and even ambitious about. So this is what today’s small thing to try immediately is about.
One Small Thing to Try Immediately: Set a non-work EASY goal
In January 2022, I introduced the idea of EASY goals. These are goals that are Energizing, for which you have Agency, that are Small, and that are Yours. When I revisited my descriptions of the EASY goal categories, I was struck by how they map onto the idea of ambition. “You want to cancel other obligations to have more time to work on it.” “It is a goal you want to achieve. … It is personal.”
When I look at the EASY criteria and think about my favourite non-work activities (run, write, read, travel, learn new things, play games with my family, hang out with my cats and my neighbours’ dog), an ambitious EASY goal immediately occurs to me:
I want to run the Stanley Park Seawall this spring.
Some backstory: Vancouver’s Stanley Park Seawall is why I became a runner more than three decades ago. I was visiting Vancouver and chose to walk the Seawall. I was not in great physical shape at the time and I was on the record as hating running. I used to regularly say disparaging things like “Have you ever seen a runner smile?” and “If I am running, it means I am being chased by a bear” (an unlikely but still real possibility in Canada). As I walked that beautiful seawall on that beautiful day, runners kept passing me. Some were smiling. None were being chased by bears. And I felt a weird longing to be just like them.
I have been running for over 30 years now but have only had a few opportunities to run the Seawall. This spring I have a very short trip to Vancouver and I want to run the Seawall again. It will require some training and planning. It will require me to address a looming running injury. And, more than I would have expected, the idea excites me. Having a non-work ambition pleases me.
Chances are good that you have your own non-work interests that could align with an ambitious EASY goal for the months ahead. A kayaking or biking expedition. A crafting project. A family adventure. A camping trip (ugh, but you do you).
People working in academia are often goal-oriented and ambitious. This is great and can be channelled in non-work directions to create more balance in your life. I encourage you to give some thought to finding something outside the work realm that could activate your ambition in the months ahead. And if you do decide to set a non-work EASY goal, I would love to hear about it!
Until next time…
Unrelated to any of the above, if you teach students who need the ability to work successfully with people whose backgrounds are different than their own (which includes, I suspect, almost all students), you may be interested in my most recent Skills Agenda column, “Why universities need to include intercultural skill development in curricula”. I argue that human skills are increasingly important in the face of technological development and societal polarization and that universities can play a role in helping students advance their intercultural skills. I provide some specific ideas for faculty and instructors, so please give the column a look and share it with your network.
Stay well, my colleagues.
P.S. One ambitious EASY goal that I learned of recently: a woman I know retired from her government position. She is currently turning the material from her old business suits into beautiful rugs and other forms of art. Something I would have never thought of, but an inspiring and original idea!
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Loleen Berdahl, Ph.D.: I am a twin mother, wife, runner, cat lover, and chocolate enthusiast. I spend far too much time binge-watching television and my house could be a lot cleaner. During work hours, I am the Executive Director of the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy. I am the author of University Affair’s Skills Agenda column and my most recent books are Work Your Career: Get What You Want from Your Social Sciences or Humanities PhD and Explorations: Conducting Empirical Research in Canadian Political Science.
This other goals piece resonated with me. Just finished two writing projects that, well, had proved challenging. I might be having memory problems, but who knows. Next up was a paper for a seminar in Denmark in May. Zero energy, poor focus. I started to make travel arrangements that included the seminar and a short stay in London to evaluate whether/how much archives time I would need in the future. I thought I'd left plenty of time to get to Denmark. But in the end the arrival in Copenhagen after getting to London was 9:30 pm...then a train to a university I'd never visited..... I just couldn't and pulled out of the project. If I've ever done that before, it must have been years ago--I don't recall it. I almost cancelled London. But I decided 8 days or so in London, by myself, and going to archives or the British Library regularly might reawaken my interest in my academic project. I had already set up a plan with a friend to hike some places in E Oregon. That's in April. My mind will not also be on the paper for Denmark, a plus. The "other" thing is to spend my time before London on editing my two draft novels. Whatever the potential for memory problems, narrative writing feels different in my head. I've been happier and most of the anxiety and vague confusion is gone.