Balancing Work and Life: 9 Lessons in Discernment and Fulfillment
On Sunday morning my phone prompted me to review a phone memory from one year ago, as it is prone to do. Sometimes I check the prompt, finding adorable photos of our youngest dog as a tiny baby. And sometimes I skip it because it’s probably just a picture of the column nearest my car in a parking garage to help me find my way. This time, I decided to check it out and discovered a photo of my feet next to a rock engraved with peace. This photo represents a different kind of marker that also helped me find my way.
Intentional Discernment
This time a year ago, I was outside Seattle, WA at Cedar Springs for the CCCU Leadership Development Institute. This was such a beautiful respite for me after so much grief personally and pondering professionally. I went to the event feeling very out of sorts and unsure what was next for me. I returned less out of sorts even if still unsure. I remain grateful to work at a university willing to invest in me at this level and for the gift of time to do the sorting of myself that needed to be done. I’m grateful for a good boss who made his own move and forced my hand in all my pondering and wandering.
I am not sure God is always so into “this is right and this is wrong” when it comes to choosing a path. More often than not in life, I find myself facing multiple good choices, any one of which could be “right.” The truth is I could have taken either path – staying in academic administration, seeking higher level roles, and committing myself to wearing suits more than joggers. Or I could have taken the path I did – returning to full-time teaching, finding my way back to my research, and coaching MBA students. All while wearing joggers.
I remain grateful for the privilege of options, a steady, supportive spouse, and my long and expensive education. I am also grateful for the confidence to make the right choice for me, even if others found it baffling.
Nine Lessons from Intentional Discernment and Transition
Over the last couple of years, I’ve learned nine lessons while focused on intentional discernment and adjusting to my life as faculty again over the last couple of months.
Some things are for seasons not lifetimes. I think the “seasons” language is massively overused (especially in Christian and adjacent circles), but truthfully, some things are right for now and not forever. I’m confident I made the right choice in accepting my role when I did and confident leaving it was also right.
Second guessing yourself can be painful. Nearly two years ago, I had a chance to consider a return to full-time teaching and made a start in pursuing it. My gut was speaking loudly, but I was encouraged to stay in my role and told how good I was at it, how needed I was, etc. I do not think that was untrue and it was not just one person pushing me this direction. But I also think I failed to listen to myself well during this time. There were significant stressors with my administrative role that started to feel less worth it during the time that followed, and quite frankly I was getting bored as projects and challenges shifted from high demand to stable and functioning (more on that later).
Temporary discomfort is okay. Once I decided to stay in my role, I had a gut feeling I’d made the wrong choice for me but was determined to remain a solid employee, kind manager, and conscientious member of my workplace. When my boss announced his future departure I felt more confident that it was time for me to return to what I personally discern to be my calling and purpose. Still, I used the in-between time of being less than thrilled with my situation to focus on ways I could learn and grow – and to help others do the same. I had some of the most rewarding months of coaching and mentoring with employees in the last 6-12 months of my role actually!
Being bored can create thinking space. I guess it might sound bad to admit I’d gotten a little bored, but most people who manage people experience some level of monotony and repetition. The frustrations of people being people can become exasperating and the daily schedule of nonstop meetings is untenable for most humans. When my boss and I took on our roles we had a number of major initiatives to accomplish and we’d either done or nearly done those major things. Of course, there’s more to do, but my role that once felt more like a constant opportunity for developing efficiencies, deconstructing processes, and mapping workflows was feeling more stable. That’s great – I did what was needed! And yet, my jam is more the de- and re-construction phases and I longed for a different challenge.
Our callings are our callings. There are plenty of jobs for people with a Ph.D. in organizational leadership that pay a lot more than I’ll ever see in a faculty contract at a smaller, faith-based university. But I’m confident that is not the life I am called to. The settling my soul has felt in the last 10 weeks has confirmed for me that the work I enjoyed the last four years was good and worthy and a side-call, not my primary calling. There is immense privilege in making a living doing what I feel is my call and fills my personal need to do meaningful work. (I’ve done some reading lately, too, on how there is benefit to a job that invokes no deep meaning but focuses more on the exchange of work for a paycheck.) For me personally, I have never been able to see myself in a long-term situation that did not contribute to my own sense of faith and calling. After wrapping up my job in administration, my body and soul have confirmed for me that I made the right choice for me – for my family in this season – to return to teaching and research.
We can be good at things and still not choose to do them. Related to the matter of callings, we can be good at a lot of different things and still not choose to do them as a career. I could be an incredible executive assistant to a CEO and I would be miserable. I could be pretty great at running a small business, but I don’t wanna. I could have been a good lawyer, but I read a book called something like “How to Know if You Want to Go to Law School” decades ago and ran screaming.
When I consider my faith alongside this, I generally think that we should use our giftedness in ways that serve others and honor God. But I also think there are pockets of Christianity that use that thinking to take advantage and lead others to burnout. I was good at my job – that does not obligate me to do it forever. I am also good at this job – and both can be true and worthy work.
My self-test for my own aspiration of meaningful work includes (a) is it worthy, honest work that allows me to honor my moral compass, (b) if it’s faith-based work, can I comfortably be a part of the mission and vision, (c) do I feel fulfilled and useful in this work, and, (d) can I honor who I am outside of work alongside the demands of this role?
Fewer meetings make me happy. In the last four years, I found myself genuinely joyful to meet with students, discuss their work, help them map a path forward, etc. (at least about 98% of the time). In fact, that feeling started the initial nudge of “I think I’m supposed to be teaching instead.” While I enjoyed my administrative work and delighted in developing a good team of people that were legitimately fun to be on Zoom with, there was a time where I could barely take a bio break between meetings. And I work from home – the bathroom is literally steps away. That’s not healthy.
I fairly quickly returned to my boundaries work and did better with this, but the pace of work and demands on my time – alongside caring for and ultimately grieving my momma – was an awful lot on one spirit and body. The last 10 weeks or so have included one formal meeting (that was actually for my old job!) and a bunch of student meetings. Student meetings take place largely during my blocks set aside for them each week. Jobs are different – it’s not reasonable for most people to contain meetings in the way I can student hours each week. Certainly my last job required more meeting time, especially considering the remote/scattered nature of our team. But where a meeting can be an email, let it. And where you can limit the time meetings take place so work can be done – do it.
Less structure to my days is a better fit. I have been dealing with some health concerns the last 18 months or so – nothing life threatening, but an annoying long recovery from an unexpected illness along with lots of signs that my body was reaching it’s max on stress and anxiety. My body’s warnings to me became a loud, clanging, alarm – the kind you can’t snooze – and I had to listen. I certainly had some flexibility in my last role, but the chance now to shape my days more intentionally – to ride bikes with my spouse early in the day while it’s cool enough, to grab groceries at 10 a.m. and grade papers at 7 p.m. because that’s what I needed? That’s an incredible boost to who I am as a human and to how our family needs to function right now. To run to a museum during the afternoon so I can see how an exhibit relates to some research I’m considering and spend Saturday morning grading over excellent coffee? I think it makes me a better whole person who is a better professor! (And frankly, for those of you managing people and still anti-remote/hybrid/flexible work? You’ve got thinking to do). That flexibility just about makes that student loan balance worth it…
We must be whole people and honor our whole selves. You can read a lot more about this concept in many places, including my dissertation. In fact, in my earliest days as a doctoral student, I connected with this concept and have not stopped thinking and writing on it since.
As a person of faith, I believe I was created to work and to rest from that work. There is value in both parts of the story – the creation and the rest. And I think it’s clear God was pretty intentional in how that story was presented (even if we can argue about timing and dinosaurs and science and all the things that aren’t essential to the core message of creation and work and rest and community…).
For me, rest includes a literal disconnection at least one day per week, with no work, no email, no interaction with a course shell. It includes honoring that my body is still in a long recovery from a tough go, that losing a parent creates a lifelong grief that rears itself on its own schedule, and includes stepping away from my computer to snuggle a puppy and an old lady dog as needed. And it is always ensuring I meet with my stitching friends for weekly stitch club meetings to focus on needle arts because that is how I am my best self for all the rest of it.
I believe in my work and in doing it with excellence – I am rarely late with grading unless I’m in a crisis of some sort or ill. I respond to students far more quickly than the required 24-48 hour window. I spend hours on videos and details for courses each week. I say that not as a list of why I’m great, but to show you the balance for me is excellence at work and rest. We are whole people when we respond to both demands – not one at the expense of the other.
I’m sure there are more lessons ahead of me still. And yes, I’ve had days where I was frustrated or annoyed (spoiler alert: that’s every human and every job). But I have a deep sense of relief and comfort in the decisions I made and a calm confidence that I’m doing the right thing for me to be the right me for right now.
I share my thinking on these kinds of things because finding someone who writes on this in a way I found connection was tough when I was attempting to discern my next move. I hope something I say might be helpful to someone else on a similar journey.
Okay, now back to grading the final projects awaiting me…