Internet Explorer is no longer supported by Microsoft. To browse the NIHR site please use a modern, secure browser like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Microsoft Edge.

Home > About us > Document library > Work-life balance and resilience

Work-life balance and resilience

Contents

Published: 19 December 2022

Version: December 2022

Print this document

Work-life balance is the relationship between work and other areas of life; it is personal and unique to everyone. Typically, areas of attention in our lives need continuous care to maintain a sense of work-life balance include work, social, community, private/home life, finances, and health. Work-life balance requires the ongoing assessment and evaluation of all areas of our lives to achieve well-being. Well-being – the state of being comfortable, healthy, or happy - is an outcome of work-life balance.

There are a number of tools and models that mentors, and mentees can apply in the context of mentoring to support the mentee’s exploration of their work-life balance. The tools and techniques can also be used by mentors to examine their own work-life balance.

In this topic guide, we explain the ‘Wheel of Life’ assessment tool, the ‘Four Stage Model’ of Work-life Balance, and the ‘Six Masteries of Resilience’.

Wheel of Life for Work-life Balance

The Wheel of Life is a popular visual tool or worksheet used in mentoring to help mentees and understand how balanced or fulfilled their life is in this moment. It can help mentees to become more self-aware and provide focus and direction for the mentee and the mentoring relationship and it is a tool that can enable insightful conversation, to address the current and desired situation.

The Wheel of Life was created by the late Paul J. Meyer who founded the Success Motivation® Institute in 1960.

The wheel usually consists of 6-10 categories or dimensions considered important for a whole or balanced life.

Mentees will rate their level of satisfaction with each area, then map this onto an image of a wheel. This gives them an immediate overview of their current ’life balance’.

The Wheel of Life consists of three stages:

  • Stage 1: Identify life dimensions
  • Stage 2: Exploring the current level of work-life balance and ideal
  • Stage 3: Moving from current to desired work-life balance.

Stage 1: Identify life dimensions

With support from the mentor, the mentee selects 6 to 10 areas of life to represent the dimensions on the wheel. With the centre of the wheel representing ‘0’ and the outer edge as ‘10′, mentees rank their level of satisfaction with each area by drawing a line to create a new outer edge. Dimensions might include:

  • Family and friends: Or "family" and "friends"
  • Significant other: Or "life partner"
  • Career: "work" or "volunteering"
  • Finances: "money" or "financial security"
  • Health: "emotional" and "physical"
  • Home environment: and/or "work environment" for career or business mentees
  • Fun and leisure: "recreation"
  • Personal growth: "learning" or "self-development".

Join up the marks around the circle. With this new perimeter for the circle, how balanced or ‘out of sync’ is this wheel?

Stage 2: Exploring the current level of work-life balance and ideal

Mentees can re-plot what they think their ideal satisfaction level would be in each area. In the context of the mentoring relationship, mentors and mentees might explore the following questions:

  • How do you feel about your life as you look at your Wheel?
  • Are there any surprises for you?
  • How do you currently spend time in these areas?
  • What influences your degree of satisfaction in each area?
  • How would you like to spend time in these areas?
  • Which of these dimensions would you most like to improve?
  • What would make that a score of 10?
  • What would a score of 10 look like?

Stage 3: Moving from current to desired work-life balance

Moving to the next stage, when mentees have a visual representation of their current life balance and their ideal life balance, mentors and mentees can then explore what are the areas of the mentee’s life that need attention? Once the areas that need attention have been identified, mentors and mentees can explore what things the mentees need to start doing to regain balance. For example:

  • How could you make space for these changes in your life?
  • What help and support might you need from others to make changes and be more satisfied with your life?
  • What change do you want to make first?
  • What is the smallest step you could take to get started?
  • What negotiations need to happen, with who and what to make the changes happen?
  • If there was one key action that would begin to bring everything into balance, what would it be?

Summary of the steps

  • Step 1: Identify 6 – 10 life dimensions of life that are important to you for a whole or balanced life.
  • Step 2: With the centre of the wheel representing ‘0’ and the outer edge as ‘10′, you rank your level of satisfaction with each area by drawing a line to create a new outer edge.
  • Step 3: Join up the marks around the circle. With this new perimeter for the circle, how balanced or ‘out of sync’ is this wheel?
  • Step 4: Re-plot what you think your ideal satisfaction level would be in each area.
  • Step 5: Now you have a visual representation of your current life balance and your ideal life balance. What are the areas of your life that need attention?
  • Step 6: Once you have identified the areas that need attention, what things do you need to start doing to regain balance?

Four-Stage Model of Work-life Balance

The Four-Stage Model of Work-life Balance was developed by Dr Julie Haddock-Millar and Eliot Tom (2019) to provide a holistic approach to exploring work-life balance in the context of coaching and mentoring. The model focuses on four specific themes, each of which are essential in supporting mentees as they work out how they want to live their lives. The stages are interconnected and mutually beneficial:

  • Stage 1: Positive view of self
  • Stage 2: Success and life satisfaction
  • Stage 3: Resilience and coping with setbacks
  • Stage 4: Decision making and negotiation.

Stage 1: Positive view of self

Stage 1 focuses on the importance of developing a positive view of self and the relationship this has with work-life balance. This stage explores:

  • self-insight – knowledge, skills and behaviours
  • self-esteem - the overall value one places on oneself as a person (Baumeister et al., 2003)
  • locus of control - the extent to which one believes they have power over events in their lives.

Mentors might ask the following questions in their mentoring conversations:

  • How much importance do you place on your own well-being?
  • To what extent is your work-life balance within your control?

Stage 2: Success and life satisfaction

Stage 2 considers ways in which mentors can investigate and work with their mentee’s sense of success and satisfaction, it explores:

  • how beliefs are formed and how they impact on our goals and actions
  • different mindsets: pessimism and dealing with self-limited beliefs.

Mentors might ask the following questions in their mentoring conversations:

  • What gives you a sense of satisfaction?
  • What does success mean for you?

Stage 3: Resilience and coping with setbacks

Stage 3 focuses on the importance of developing strategies to enhance resilience. This stage explores:

  • our ability to bounce back, to deal with disruptions
  • our capacity to adapt to changing circumstances
  • our ability to maintain energy levels and focus.

Mentors might ask the following questions in their mentoring conversations:

  • When do you feel most and least energised?
  • How well do you adapt to changes?

Stage 4: Decision making and negotiation

Stage 4 considers ways in which mentors can investigate and work with their mentee’s decision-making processes and negotiation skills. This stage explores:

  • how to develop greater self-awareness of internal and external context
  • the nature of critical conversations that enable decision making and negotiation
  • the need to make informed choices and negotiate with self and others.

Mentors might ask the following questions in their mentoring conversations:

  • How often do you avoid negotiating?
  • What conversations do you avoid?

Resilience and Work-life Balance

Resilience is our capacity to ‘bounce back’ to recover strength or spirit quickly and efficiently in the face of adversity. Resilience is the capacity to continue making progress toward your current career goal with the resources and strategies you have developed. Resilience is potentially a protective factor that can prevent burnout.

Theoretical and empirical studies into resilience can be traced back over forty years with the work of Professor Norman Garmezy and later, his colleagues from the University of Minnesota and Arizona State University (Masten Best and Garmenzy, 1990). Their studies found that resilience played a significant role in the mental health of children experiencing significant adversity. Over time, numerous studies have been published, and a variety of definitions have emerged, such as:

  • “resilience is the process, capacity or outcome of successful adaptation despite challenges or threatening circumstances … good outcomes despite high-risk status, sustained competence under threat and recovery from trauma.” (Masten, Best and Garmenzy, 1990, p.426)
  • “capacity to overcome personal vulnerabilities and environmental stressors, to be able to ‘bounce back’ in the face of potential risks, and to maintain well-being.” (Oswald, Johnson and Howard, 2003, p. 50)
  • “capacity to continue to ‘bounce back’, to recover strengths or spirit quickly and efficiently in face of adversity … a dynamic construct subject to influence by environmental, work-specific and personal contexts.” (Sammons et al., 2007, p. 694).

Defining resilience is problematic due to the different views about whether it is a skill, a process, a set of intelligences, a condition, or a group of outcomes. The common thread amongst the various definitions is the degree to which we are able to withstand and recover from challenges, pressure, or stressors; and the extent to which we are adaptable and our capacity to remain flexible in our thoughts, behaviours and emotions when under stress, including:

  • adapting to changing circumstances
  • avoiding negative self-talk and self-defeating behaviours
  • being open to new experiences
  • reformulating goals and/or strategies to adapt to changing circumstances
  • self-reflecting and asking penetrating questions of self
  • staying focused and work towards a goal
  • thinking creatively and using imagination
  • using humour to see the lighter side of a situation.

The Six Masteries of Resilience was developed by Dr Julie Haddock-Millar and Eliot Tom (2019), recognising that we live within an ecosystem which is often highly complex and always influenced by the interaction between the different layers and actors in the ecosystem. Our ecosystem requires a high degree of navigation skills. Our ecosystem is never static, it is continually changing, as we change, those around us change and the nature of work, systems, processes, structures change. The Six Masteries of Resilience provides different lenses to explore resilience levels. The Six Masteries include: mental, emotional, physical, social, spiritual, and environmental – all require tending to if we are to achieve work-life balance. The six masteries of resilience include:

  1. Mental mastery relates to our ability to develop self-awareness, self-insight, and reflectivity skills
  2. Emotional mastery relates to our ability to understand and manage our own emotions and understand and respond to the emotions of others
  3. Social mastery relates to our ability to develop strong relationships and good support networks, at home, work, and our broader network
  4. Physical mastery relates to our ability to manage our health and energy levels
  5. Spiritual mastery relates to our ability to seek and express meaning and purpose and to understand the way we experience connectedness
  6. Environmental mastery relates to our ability to analyse and manage our environment, appreciate potential resources, access resources, navigate complex external routes to help meet our needs and address all aspects of our lives.

Mental mastery is regarded as one of the most significant determiners of resilience. When mentors support mentees, they may want to consider:

  • What can your mentee do to be more present in the moment?
  • How can your mentees become more connected with themselves?
  • How do your mentees engage in reflective practice?
  • What techniques can become more routine?

Emotional mastery enables insight, both inner and outer. When working with someone to help understand their own emotions and, understand and respond to the emotions of others mentors may want to ask mentees to consider: 

  • How can you become more connected with your own emotions and those of others?
  • How can you become more aware of your responses to emotions?
  • How can your mentee stay positive in the face of adversity?
  • How can setbacks provide opportunities to learn and change?

Social mastery enables support. Mentors might want to help mentees to think about different aspects of their lives that are important to them and who in their network can support them, where do they need more support:

  • What are my support needs?
  • Who supports me with my needs?
  • Who could I go to that I don’t yet go to?
  • Who do I support with different needs?
  • Who could I be of support to?

Physical mastery is incredibly important in the current context. Mentees may wish to explore their energy levels; mentors might ask mentees to look at any given day or week:

  • When do you feel most energised?
  • What are the activities that help you to feel energised?
  • What does your daily/weekly routine look like?
  • When do you feel most and least energised on any given day/week?
  • What patterns do you notice?
  • What can you do to change your routine e.g. diet and exercise?

With spiritual mastery, mentors may wish to help mentees to discover what it is that fuels their soul and spirit, what gives them inner strength, with a view to enhancing their resilience:

  • What gives your mentees meaning and purpose?
  • How can your mentees develop self-compassion?
  • When are your mentees most at peace?
  • When do your mentees feel most connected with self and others?

Environmental mastery involves helping mentees to understand their ecosystem. Mentors can assist mentees in effectively navigating their internal and external context and may wish to explore:

  • What external opportunities might there be to help achieve goals and ambitions?
  • What external issues or events might be worrying your mentee? (They may feel hindered by the context)
  • What resources might your mentees need to access to make a change?

Questions for reflection

  • How frequently does work-life balance come up as a theme in your mentoring conversations?
  • What is your mentee’s sense of work-life balance: work, social, community, private/home life, finances, and health?
  • What questions might be most helpful in shining a spotlight on work-life balance?
  • How frequently does resilience come up as a theme in your mentoring conversations?
  • How do your mentee’s view their resilience, for example, physical energy, strength of support networks and quality of relationships?
  • To what extent do your mentees view mentoring as a buffer or protective factor in their lives?
  • What other buffer’ or forms of protection do your mentees have in place to support their needs?
  • What buffers do your mentees have in place to protect their resilience?

Resources