The High-Potential Leader

8Track Your Mental Health and Work/Life Balance

For a life that’s truly fulfilling, I encourage you to plan your growth trajectory from two perspectives: your business achievement and your life satisfaction. I’ve known too many “successful" people who achieved their business ambitions—the battles you win, the ranks you attain, the status and power you achieve, the money you make, the material goods you acquire, and the other ways you get the outside world to perceive you—but lost their health, their families, or their sense of fulfillment in life. And for people with high potential it can be just as unrewarding to focus only on living a “happy” life, one centered on personal well-being and family but with no big accomplishments to call their own.

Many people believe business achievement and life satisfaction are mutually exclusive goals, that you need to focus on one at the expense of the other. That’s not true. You need to include both in your ongoing priorities, and revisit the balance between them at each new decision point along your runway. Curb the excuses and come to terms with the fact that if there’s an imbalance, it’s because of you. Maybe you love what you’re doing so you’re losing sight of other things, or you’re escaping a bad marriage by logging more time at work. You also need to mind your mental health—the anxiety, stress, and disappointment that can creep in along the way and undermine the best-laid plans for success in your life.

Business Achievement

Your ...