For most of my professional life I have tried to balance the commitments of my vocation to my relational commitments with other people such as my wife, son, and friends.  I tried to juggle the never-ending crises and requirements of life in a Marine Attack Squadron with the emotional needs of my wife and son as well as other interests I had outside of my vocation.

Inevitably, the harder I tried, the more frustrated I became and the more I saw myself as a failure at both.  Over time, I have come to see that the idea of a work life balance in terms of the hours we dedicate to our vocation vice our avocations or relationships is a fallacy.  Last year, I wrote a post on an integrating your work with your life, and I still firmly believe that our intent and purpose in our work is to integrate the work we do into the lives we live.  However, when it comes to our vocation alone, I do believe that there is a place for balance in our work.

“Work life balance has nothing to do with the hours we work or the stress we suffer.  It has to do with where we feel safe”  ~ Simon Sinek

Please understand that I am not talking about the “safe place” that has become a term for withdrawing and not facing adversity in the millennial generation.  Instead I am talking about the amount of trust we feel in those we work for and those we work with.

Trust is built off of relationships.  When we are in a healthy relationship, we feel safe to be our authentic selves.  We trust that when we make mistakes we will not immediately be forced out of the relationship, but will instead be shown grace and given another opportunity.  Likewise, in our vocation, if we work in a healthy environment we will feel safe to think critically, offer bold solutions and take grand chances.  In this environment of trust we know that even in the face of our solutions not working, we are safe from being fired and forced out of the relationship.

“I still firmly believe that our intent and purpose in our work is to integrate the work we do into the lives we live.”

As Simon Sinek states in Leaders Eat Last, “if we feel safe at home, but we don’t feel safe at work, then we will suffer what we perceive to be a work-life imbalance.” This idea is amazingly freeing.  If we feel that we are perpetually losing at our attempts to balance work and life, we need to evaluate the type of environment we work in.  Sometimes this means leaving the vocation we are currently working in – which is hard!  But sometimes this means we need simply need to understand what is causing our distress.  In this case, it’s not our inability to balance, it is simply that we experience a safe environment at home and an un-safe environment at work.

So as an employee, our choices in making our working environments are limited.  We can hope for the work environment to change or we can move on.  As an employer, the power to create an environment of trust and safety is in our hands.  So, my challenge to the leaders out there, whether in the workplace or the home, is this:  What are you doing to make your environments places of safety and trust in which critical thinking, ideas, and bold solutions flourish?