Erik Erikson, the renown Danish Developmental Psychologist believed that balance in life was dependent upon paying attention to three critical areas of one’s life: Work, Play & Love.
Erikson argued that maintaining a balance in these three areas was essential for the healthy negotiation of the latter stages of one’s life. It is a nice and simple framework through which to examine one’s life. Each of these areas poses its own relevant questions that once articulated need to be answered and I suspect should be subject to constant revision. It is the lack of balance in these essential areas of life that leads to burnout, stress, fragmented relationships and a general dislocation of purpose and fulfillment. The long-term consequences of this can be devastating. I suspect that there are no simple answers or formula to follow, although many may peddle such. Such peddlers promote easy access to the secret of balancing these life domains and I think that suspicion here is not merely warranted but advisable. Doubtless there are reliable guides who can help point the way and finding such guides is the reward of an intentional seeking and openness to learning.
Leaders would do well to shape the questions that they need to be asking in these three life domains: Work, play and love. Perspective is such an important aspect of effective leadership and finding a workable framework which will help achieve and maintain the desire perspective is well worth exploring.
