During a Ted Talk in Sydney, Australia, Nigel Marsh explained how to make work-life balance work, providing examples from his own experiences.

Marsh shared four observations with his audience that are the result of 7 years of analysing and writing about wok-life balance. The first observation is that if society wants to make any progress on this issue, an honest debate is needed, as many people talk about work-life balance and spread really useless ideas. As a matter of fact, to solve the problem, reality must be acknowledged and, according to Marsh, certain jobs and career choices are not compatible with the daily demands of a young family. Most of the programs and measures companies implement are simply not getting to the nub of the issue.

The second observation is that it is up to us, as individuals, to become responsible and take control over the kind of life we want to lead by setting and enforcing the boundaries we want. Neither governments nor companies will solve the problem for us. And if we do not become responsible for our own lives, someone else will do it for us and we will probably not be happy with the outcomes of that.

Third observation: we have to cautious with the time frame we choose to judge our balance, and seek for an equilibrium. In other words, we neither have to do everything on one day nor postpone having a life for the time when we retire as it will be too late.

Finally, the fourth observation is that we must approach balance in a balanced way. Life has professional, intellectual, emotional, spiritual and physical aspects. Balance demands working on each of these aspects and not to dedicate exclusively to one or two of them. For example, if you work 10 hours a day and decide to reach balance by going to the gym 2 hours per days, you will only be fit, but you will not reach balance.

Marsh understands this can be daunting, but a change of perspective is needed. The idea is that “the small things matter. Being more balanced doesn’t mean dramatic upheaval in your life. With the smallest investment in the right places, you can radically transform the quality of your relationships and the quality of your life.”

Besides, if more people start doing this, it is possible to change society, modifying the social definition of success, that “moronically simplistic notion that the person with the most money when he dies wins, to a more thoughtful and balanced definition of what a life well lived looks like.”

To watch the entire Ted Talk  click here.