The Professional Cost of a Family-First Life
“In life you often must choose between work and family. Choose wisely.”
If you’ve learned anything from me lately it’s this: your top priorities should take center stage in your life. This is where you direct your best energy and not just what’s left in your tank when you get home from work. To put it simply, (1) your heart getting what it wants is the key to waking up happy and (2) your heart tends to desire family / faith / morality above all else. Accepting this priority-realignment challenge also means that you will likely start to place your family / faith / morality slightly above your career goals. This is absolutely the right thing to do. But, it is a choice which may (and likely will) cost you something professionally. Why?
Think About the Typical Boss
Put yourself in the shoes of the “typical boss” – someone not totally in sync with all this authentic life / character matters stuff I’m peddling. Your boss, like most others, will assume that she is better off if you – her subordinate – are consistently burning the midnight oil, plugged in to all types of committees and meetings, and giving 110%. How you are doing outside of work is far less relevant. Her projects always feel critical (as she needs to impress people up the ladder too) and must be completed ASAP. In the end, in her opinion, your life is beholden in a major way to the place that allows you to feed your family. To a certain extent, this means that your presence is often required at odd times and for long periods. Sound familiar? To be fair, this is part of having a meaningful job – hard work and demanding bosses and all that. I get it. This is why none of this behavior surprises me. Acting from pure self-interest is a huge part of our human nature. Realize the place where this “leadership strategy” originates and you’ll be steps ahead of the game.
Your boss likely believes that the harder an organization’s people work, the better the organization will be. And that’s true . . . to a certain extent. However, let’s flip this somewhat short-sighted logic on its head. There is a strong chance that your boss / organization is actually BETTER OFF when you come to work authentically happy and fulfilled with your life; when you have the ability to dedicate quality time to your mate, kids, friends; and when you have some bandwidth to sleep well, enjoy you hobbies and manage your health. Think about it. People like that are more productive, creative, and fun to be around. They will also feel a greater loyalty to the organization too because it lets them prioritize some other important things from time to time. They will likely be more profitable for the business too because it’s tough to fake happiness in front of clients and on sales calls and it’s really hard to gin up energy and excitement when it’s just not there. The bottom line is: if your employer could become more understanding of why work falls a bit lower on your priorities list . . . everyone stands to benefit.
Problematically and perhaps obviously . . . not too many people in charge at work see it this way. This reality leads me to a critical point. Properly prioritizing your life will likely cost you professionally. And that sucks.
I Feel Your Pain . . . Literally
Believe me. I know first-hand how placing work fourth on my priorities list can cause professional pain. You will recall that my top priorities are: (1) Faith, (2) Spouse, (3) Kids, (4) Work. I have thought about this priority structure for hundreds of hours over my career. And, placing my career higher than number (4) is just NOT something that I am not willing to do – especially with young kids. This internal fight between work and family is what drove me out of the field of corporate law. The people I encountered just weren’t all that cool with my priority structure. To their credit, they never pretended to be either. Their “Job First” mantra was made very clear and reinforced on an hourly basis at times.
Even after moving on, I cannot begin to count the ways my priorities have cost me in my career. They have cost me jobs, raises, promotions, awards, lucrative stipends, and professional prestige. For example, there have been times in my career when I have been the only one nominated for an award and then I get to the ceremony and the emcee announces, “This year there is no award given in this category.” Wait, what?! It sometimes seems as if I can’t even beat myself.
And I am fully aware of why. I am not down at work at my desk as much as everyone else. My face time statistics are lower than others and I turn down some (not all) asks by my bosses. I keep a tight schedule and try to cluster meetings together. Why? I have young kids at home who want me present – at dinner, at their events, and to play with at night. And they deserve their daddy there as often as possible. They also have soccer practices and games which often interfere with late meetings and other work stuff. My wife works full-time too and so we split childcare duties. It’s just not so easy for me to do work-related stuff that gets me home later into the evening on some nights. And so . . . I must choose.
Important: Sometimes You Have to Put Work First
Keep in mind that there are plenty of times I choose work over family. That’s just part of the deal. Otherwise, my employer would be justified in terminating my position. I can’t always say no and neither can you. In fact, I often teach evening classes and get home at 10:00pm. Family doesn’t always win in my life and I still desire to be really, really good at my job. So please keep in mind that I am not telling you to phone-it-in at work.
Work as hard as you can – by all means. In fact, a fulfilling career is an important part of a person’s legacy and life. Work as hard as you can up until the point that it takes your best energy away from your family, faith, and morality. In my life, when work starts to pull my best energy, I jump back to my baseline priorities list. This means that I’ll push back on some travel or try and consolidate my meetings to a certain day. Perhaps I will call in or take on tasks that I can do on my own schedule. Otherwise I will burn out, get stressed, and otherwise be worse at my job. It’s a tug of war to be sure . . . just not one that my employer always has to win.
The Moral of The Story:
In life . . . you will have to choose between work and family. By choosing family more often than not, you will develop courage, discover other ways to kick butt at your job, and become a happier person, better mate and parent.
The next post in this series will cover how to be more efficient and work without losing your effectiveness. Do this and you’ll have more time for your top priorities.
More soon,
Corey
- Check out COREYSPEAKS.COM for more on popular keynote speaker Corey Ciocchetti. Corey has keynotes on happiness, integrity, ethical leadership, ethical decision-making, morale, stress reduction, and professionalism. Corey has spoken in 44 states and over 250 cities since 2007.
- Check out Corey’s other cool ethics blog posts on LEADERSHIP and HAPPINESS – you won’t regret it.
- Corey’s new book, INSPIRE INTEGRITY: CHASE AN AUTHENTIC LIFE is available now!
