The work life relationship is an ongoing series I am writing on the different aspects of a working woman’s life. Some of my experiences can be relatable to you, some might not and I hope you would have a nice time reading it nevertheless. You can find the previous posts here : The work life relationship 2 and The work life relationship 1

I touched upon the subject of how personal turmoil can wreck havoc with my work performance. I want to discuss that in detail.

We do not have control on how we have trouble in our lives. None of us want that to harm our professional life or jeopardize our job. Sometimes though it tends to spill over because we are only humans.

Death of a loved one

My grandparents passed away in the course of the last seven years and I was unable to go home and participate in their last rights. I loved them very much and I was to be honest devastated that I could not see them in the last moment.

I was unable to focus on work for some stretches of time. I was missing them and I was feeling guilty. I could not put my mind into solving issues and calculations snd that resulted in errors. So I spent even longer debugging my own foolish mistakes. That meant I spent longer unproductive hours at work which left me mentally snd physically exhausted.

Two of my friends lost their father while they were finishing their doctoral studies. I spent a lot of time talking to one of them. The loss is unimaginable for someone who hasn’t faced such a monumental loss. My friend lost all his interest in writing his thesis, he couldn’t figure out why he was doing what he was doing.

There were bouts of severe depression and it took him a quite a while to recover from it.

Other personal turmoil

Death is not the only turmoil that can affect us. There are other factors like family troubles, people and legal troubles , emotional troubles like breakups or health issues.

When I was going through a lot of stress due to different personal issues, I could barely have enough energy for work. This resulted in lack of concentration at different complex work related topics. I was losing patience with my work. As a result I was not very happy with my own performance.

I was also falling sick very often. My immune system was very weak and I was catching cold and fever at the drop of hat.

I was living alone at that time and my family was in a whole other continent. Whenever I was sick, I would be too tired to take care of myself, feed me. That meant I also delayed my healing process.

As a result, I was missing out a lot of work days from sickness. And when I was at work, all the pressure of unfinished work would pile up along with the everyday work. I had double the workload and was not fit at all to do it.

Moving forward

Nothing lasts for ever, not even the negative phases and stress. There are steps one can take, tools one can use to cope stress and the negative impact.

Doing some fitness activities not just makes one physically healthy, it also makes you feel good and you can get better faster.

Small hobbies like knitting, coloring, painting, dancing, anything that can let your mind go somewhere else and be peaceful and not think of other things.

There is so much I want to talk about the work life balance and hobbies. Please drop a comment if you like the topics I am writing about.