Winning at work and losing at home is not typically a life goal.
Ask Tom Brady!
Tom’s identity has become a household name for his legacy on the field, reportedly, his household is falling apart in front of the whole world.
The dilemma that Tom faces amid his fans and critics is one that we must all own…the tension between work and family!
As each season passes on the playing field of work, there are also new seasons at home. These chapters of our homes are often in conflict with the pursuit of success in our professional lives.
Pursuing Career Success
For most of us, ambition for championships early in our careers is absent of having a family in tow as the average age of marriage is 31 years old (for men), closely followed by having children within a year after marriage.
Where the rubber meets the road is when we say “I do”.
Our job descriptions double practically overnight when we start families. Our values shift. Work and home eventually become a source of conflict instead of a source of harmony.
Take out the trash or prepare a PowerPoint? Connect with our spouses or answer an urgent request from our boss. Read to our kids or numb out on social media from the pain of working. This wouldn’t be a big deal if we all knew how to win at both, but most of us struggle.
So what gives when both are pulling at us? What should we do when our teammates on the field are wanting more of us while our team at home is also needing us?
Identity Crisis (aka Midlife Crisis)
Identity has been ingrained into us in elementary school of the paths we are going to take. We dedicate our livelihoods to competition and success in our studies, workplace, resumes, and profiles. Work is the center of our orbit. The subject of work starts every conversation between two strangers meeting.
“WHAT DO YOU DO?”.
For family success, instead of intensive academic training, we rely on our upbringings and experiences to guide our values, beliefs, and rules for the home.
Between ages 30-40, an athlete will reach a point where they hang up the cleats and come off the road to pursue a journey that will allow them to focus more on the family.
Regardless of the timing of the new path, those that found extreme success on the playing field, go on to be celebrated with many other accolades like Hall of Fame and jersey retirement ceremonies. For non-athletes, the journey to a new identity typically comes without this type of fanfare.
Though we are programmed to pursue a good retirement by 65, humans are prone to reach a point in life before retirement where we assess the intersection of our older age and career paths resulting in reckless decisions that destroy our families. If you haven’t reached that point yet, give it a hot second…it’s a human condition called the MID-LIFE CRISIS where our values are challenged, our identities shift, and new journeys are born.
Pursuing Family Success
The mid-life crisis has a bad name due to the bad decisions born from it. But what about the people who are getting it right and redefining what success looks like? Where is the celebration for the men or women who commit career suicide by leaving it all behind to pursue the mission of the family? Where are the HR policies that support new entrepreneurial journeys for new parents wanting more time to nurture their kids? Where is the Hall of Fame honors for working parents winning at home and work?
If the tension of work, family, and life is at a breaking point in your life, I would challenge you with 3 suggestions:
- Perform a thorough evaluation of your career. Determine if and where there are opportunities to make a career move that suits a balance of your skill set that can be well compensated. Start working on a new entrepreneurial endeavor or find a workplace that insures your values at home aren’t being compromised.
- Audit and take action on your time management practices and productivity systems. I’m a huge fan of simplifying the to-do list, time-blocking and optimizing energy. Here are a couple of articles that go deeper into strategies:
- Create a Family Mission. Having a family mission helps drive an intentional family culture that is intentional. There is a myriad of ways to do this but start by dreaming big of what you and your spouse mutually want out of life. Next, assess your values, and create a path of how the vision will come to fruition. Observe your kids and insure your decisions are helping them thrive in their gifts. Lastly, make intentional decisions on your schedules, boundaries, habits, and decisions.
As you evaluate your current seasons and values, ask yourself if it is time to invest more at home or the office. Ask God for wisdom and discernment on all the big and small decisions about your career and family life. Ask yourself, is it time to become an assistant instead of a leader? Is it the season to mentor or coach those that may be a few years away from the current season you’re in? Ask yourself if a work-family-life integration plan is necessary.
In a world that elevates champions in our vocations, I challenge all of us to put even more emphasis on elevating the champions at home. Parenting is the hardest job and should be on the top of our LinkedIn pages and the first answer to “what do you do”.
Let’s celebrate the season when careers and home are being pursued in harmony.
Regardless of what is playing out in Tom Brady’s career and what’s happening with his home, it’s his business and not for us to judge. Let’s use this illustration to self-evaluate our families, careers, and values.
