Life Balance
Ben contacted me when the overwhelm of life as a new father and a recent promotion at work had just become too much. After weeks of very little sleep, a huge learning curve in his new role with a department looking to him for direction in an important new project he was starting to resent the impact his job was having on his life at home with his family.
Ben sheepishly admitted that he had absolutely no idea just how much life would change when his baby daughter arrived. Only days before her arrival, Ben had applied for a promotion at work and was successful. Over the moon with the increase in income, Ben felt he had taken a very positive step towards securing a more comfortable year ahead whilst his wife was on maternity leave.
Ben assumed he would be able to juggle the inherent learning curve to step up and lead his department on his return from paternity leave without too much difficulty. What he had failed to see on the horizon were the sleepless nights looking after a newborn and a greater amount of responsibility around the home whilst his wife was recovered from a caesarean delivery.
Feeling stressed and overloaded Ben was beginning to resent the way his work was eating into time with his family and how his lack of sleep and general exhaustion were having an impact on his new role at work, causing him to resent the promotion he had waited so long to secure.
Ben had opted for a few parent coaching sessions in the hope that he could fast track his ability to get back on top of home life and work life and admitted that in his mental fog, he was looking for someone who could facilitate a bit of productive thinking and get him past certain mental obstacles.
So, we started by clearing his emotions regarding fatherhood and these included frustration and impatience at finding fatherhood so much more demanding than he had anticipated. We also cleared feelings of shame and guilt for accepting the promotion, despite the fact that this was a wise move in the long run and that these first few months were a period of adjustment. We dissolved feelings of guilt and shame for thinking and worrying about work matters when he was at home caring for his newborn and involved in family life, typical ‘chicken and egg’ scenarios.
On the work front, Ben knew deep down that he could step up to the mark and do a great job but he had a great deal of anxiety about his overall performance levels since returning to work after paternity leave. So we cleared these anxieties and a few beliefs which were no longer serving him in his new role. Then there were feelings of intimidation and lack of control over certain business decisions. Many other minor issues surfaced for clearing and Ben was continually amazed at how quickly he was shedding his worries. Once we had cleared all his emotional concerns, we moved onto looking at a workable plan for the next week, which would enable him to get on top of matters at home and find time to enjoy his family and feel more in control at work.
Ben admitted that one of his biggest issues in his new role was comfort in delegating project tasks and trusting that his team would complete them to his high standards. We explored this issue, cleared the emotional stumbling blocks and looked at how delegation could be handled in a way that would make keep his team members accountable, give them the freedom to use their own creative input and check-in regularly to ensure that the project as a whole was congruent and heading in a direction Ben was happy with. We also reviewed how he managed his day-to-day business activities and organised his tasks according to his energy levels and streamlined his list of actions so that tedious tasks were completed when he was functioning at his best and unnecessary tasks could be culled.
Similar attention was given to his home life to ensure that he completed the most essential activities and employed a cleaner for a month or two to free up time to enjoy his family. By finding more creative ways to manage his responsibilities at home, he made it possible to get more rest and find some time to exercise a bit which he found a great way to relieve work stress and feel better too.
So, if you would benefit from parent coaching support to address work-life balance issues, visit the Parent Coaching Programme page for more information. Alternatively, you can drop me a line using the form at the foot of this page or call and speak with me directly on 01276 21386.
Conception & Birth Services
Pure Therapy Programme Brief therapy to dissolve your fears, phobias, anxieties and any emotional trauma. This programme focuses on calming your mind, restoring your confidence and self-esteem, giving you back a sense of control in your life as well as the clarity to make important decisions.
Essential Support Programme Regular, short check-in sessions by phone to keep you calm, relaxed, optimistic and positively focused between significant milestones from conception to birth. The therapeutic toolkit enables sabotaging emotional wobbles to be dissolved in an instant.
HypnoBirthing® Classes The ultimate in birth preparation classes to teach both you and your partner how to use hypnotic relaxation skills, special breathing techniques and endorphin releasing massage to manage the physical demands of labour and feel calm, relaxed and confident during the birth.
Parent Coaching Programme No baby arrives with a manual and few parents have endless hours to devour a ‘how to’ book. Parent coaching is a supportive route to helping you create your own practical solutions to whatever parenting challenges you are facing, in time sensitive short sessions.