With the aim of slowing down in order to reecharge over summer vacation, our company hosted an internal ReeTalk at the beginning of this summer titled Health, Habits, Motivation, Happiness, and Work-Life Balance.

Our speaker for this purpose was Christian Malström, an Optimize Coach and Founder of IronCoach. Privately Christian is an IT guy and a father of three kids. 

We spent the hour with him talking about what research shows when it comes to these topics, how to motivate oneself to get up again after a failure occurs, and what it means to create good habits and how to stick to them. 

„We should chase the best version of ourselves as if it was an actual person“ – Confucius

 So what happens when our private and work lives are not well balanced? It can be a pretty slippery slope! We don't exercise, we don't spend enough time with our families and friends, we are frustrated at work and perhaps our team members are not satisfied with the quality of the work we are doing. A combination of any of the previously mentioned can be detrimental to our mental and physical health and well being if it continues for a longer period of time.

 The take away from the ReeTalk was that if we want to achieve work – life balance, we have to take care of ourselves.

Research says these four things are key in accomplishing that.

EAT – Natural ingredients as much as possible: Fruits, vegetables, natural fats, decreasing the amount of fast carbohydrates that we intake. According to the Japanese, the key to living longer is to only be 80% full!

MOVE – Movement, not exercise is key. Break the sitting. Stand up, walk around, stretch daily

SLEEP – 1 in 10,000 people can sleep less than 6-7 hours per night and get away with it. Sleep is individual, but power naps do make a difference when sleeping less than this

BREATHE – Stop. Reflect. Take a micro break during the day, calm the system down (body and mind)

 So to sum it all up:

#1 You have more potential within than you think
#2 It is in challenging situations we develop as leaders and individuals the most
#3 Keeping 100% focus on things within your control is the key to mental well being and better performance!

Personally, I have had a pretty hectic period with raising two small children, contracting Covid and changing jobs and industries all in a relatively short amount of time.

I stopped being active, I just couldn't find the time. What I've realized is that I have to start somewhere, it can be once a week for starters and I will go from there.

Just taking that first step makes a world of difference – I started feeling better physically, and that one hour of being disconnected from the hustle and bustle of home and work chaos did wonders for my state of mind!

So what should be the lesson - we can all try to take small sprints & steps in the right direction, and in the long run we will be able to achieve balance as happier, healthier and more productive versions of ourselves...