Balancing career and love: is it possible? Or are we all doomed to choose one over the other?
As many CEOs, politicians, and celebrities will tell you, it is possible to find a balance between your romantic life and your professional goals. But only when you’re willing to put in the effort to make it work.
In this article, we’ll talk about how to lay a foundation for a strong relationship, set boundaries, maintain work responsibilities, celebrate wins, and more.
Get ready to have it all with this guide to balancing career and love!
Start with a reconciliation if necessary
You may be looking for ways to balance career and love because lately, you’ve been struggling in this department. Perhaps your relationship has been suffering and you’re desperate to find a solution.
If this is the case, before you make improvements and recommit to your relationship, you may have to do some relationship healing. Acknowledge and validate that your partner may have been feeling unappreciated and forgotten lately. After all, you won’t be able to move forward until you own up to the times that you’ve prioritized your career over other parts of your life.
Get clear about your professional and romantic goals (and have your partner do the same)
Next, you’ll want to come up with a few clear goals that you have not only for your career but also for your relationship. This will be crucial to start thinking about what changes you may have to make in your daily life to accomplish these goals. Here are a few examples:
Promotion at work
What will be required of you in order to meet this goal? Will it mean getting to the office earlier? Staying late? Volunteering for weekend shifts or attending work mixers?
A happy relationship
Your goal might be to have a satisfying, fulfilling romantic relationship with your partner. Just like pursuing a promotion at work, what specific steps will it take to make this happen? Does your partner appreciate it when you plan dates? Bring home gifts? Reach out for a check-in during your lunch break?
Getting married
If you’re thinking of proposing to and marrying your partner, this will require more planning than you might expect! Everything from buying a ring that matches their preference to attending an engagement party to planning the wedding over the course of months, you’ll need to have plenty of time to devote to this goal.
Being transferred to a new city
Maybe you have the possibility of moving to another office within your company that is in another city or country. This will require you to not only apply for the position, but also consider how your partner will fit into your plans.
Other goals
We’ve provided some common goals that couples may include in their lists, but there are many more possibilities! From having kids to getting a master’s degree to starting a business, you’ll want to make your list personal to your aspirations!
By being clear about what specific steps will be necessary for achieving your goals, you’ll be able to plan for them in advance. This will cut down on your partner feeling blindsided later on.
Recommit to your priorities
Now that you and your partner have gotten clear about your goals for your careers and relationship, you can start putting together a roadmap for making the necessary changes to make them happen. Some of these re-commitments may require you to:
- Set boundaries at work. This might include letting your colleagues know that you will be unavailable during certain times, such as when you leave work or during the weekends. This will allow you to use your time away from work to focus on your relationship.
- Set boundaries with your partner. You don’t want to drop all of your work responsibilities in order to focus on your relationship, so you may likewise need to set boundaries with your partner. Let them know that you may have your phone off during work.
- Let friends and family know that your availability may change over the foreseeable future. Instead of going silent on the group chat or missing important family events without explanation, let your loved ones know why you’ll be taking a step back from your social life.
- Make a plan to cut out specific activities from your routine. In order to make space for your career and your relationship, you may have to sacrifice certain activities or habits. Scrolling your phone, for example, might be taking up time that you could be spending with your partner or getting ahead at work.
Used a shared calendar and to-do list app
An easy way to organize your responsibilities and free time is to have a shared calendar. This is helpful for a number of reasons:
- It can allow you to more efficiently plan time together
- It can help you appreciate the demands of the other person’s responsibilities. Even though you may not do it consciously, you may have the idea that your life is more demanding or difficult than your partner’s. But when you both fill out the calendar with all of your respective responsibilities, it can help to build empathy and perspective.
- It can help you support one another. In other words, if you see that your partner is going to have a particularly busy day, you might plan on having food waiting for them at home.
Find the overlap in free time
Another benefit of using a shared calendar is that it will show you when your ideal free time overlaps are! Make sure to keep these blocks of time protected so that you can start to fill them actively with dates or quality time together.
Use your phone’s alarm to stick to your boundaries
As we mentioned before, committing to your professional and love life goals will require boundary-setting and diligence. One way that you can make this easier is by relying on your phone’s alarm app!
This is particularly helpful if you find yourself showing up late for dates because you tend to get lost in your work tasks or otherwise suffer from time blindness.
When you’re together, be in the present
Keep in mind that if you’re with your partner, but constantly checking work emails or responding to work calls, you’re not actually with your partner. Instead, you’ll need to find a way to be present with your partner in order to make your time together count. Here are a few ways that you can be sure you’re maximizing your time with your partner:
- Put your phone in another room or on silent. If you’re worried about missing calls from important people such as family members, you can set your phone to emergencies only. But ideally, you’ll be able to have time to be completely disconnected from your phone, even if only for an hour or two at a time.
- Plan dates that require your full attention. It can be difficult to disconnect from your work, especially at first. Engaging in activities that make it impossible for you to check your phone (for instance, doing pottery, hiking where there’s no signal, or swimming together) can give you the push you need to put the phone down.
- Use games or quizzes to build intimacy. There are so many tools out there for couples looking to deepen their connection, no matter if they’re in a new relationship or an established one. Look for quizzes and games that are designed to encourage conversation, deepen intimacy, or even fire things up!
Show your appreciation
It’s a small thing that many couples forget to include in their relationship, but appreciation and gratitude can have such a major impact! And, it can have a positive impact on your work goals, as well! Here are a few phrases that can help get you into the habit of showing gratitude:
- “I know it was a hassle for you to do that”
- “I appreciate you thinking of me”
- “Let me know how I can return the favor”
- “I’m glad you’re here”
- “You were a huge help today”
- “I always appreciate your input”
- “I can tell how much effort you put into this”
- “Thank you”
Celebrate successes together
The more that you can consider yourself and your partner a team, the more balancing career and love will become something that you don’t have to do alone. That means that when either one of you enjoys success, you should get in the habit of celebrating it together!
Keep in mind that your partner’s successes might look different from yours, and you’ll want to pay close attention to how they define success. For instance, you may celebrate successful projects at work while your partner completes marathons. It doesn’t matter what the actual goal was, you should be able to validate and celebrate when the other has had a win!
Don’t forget to set time aside for yourself
This can certainly feel counterintuitive when talking about balancing career and love. But, in order for you to have enough energy to be a good partner and employee, you (and your partner!) are going to have to rest and recharge.
Exactly what this looks like will be something that you’ll have to talk about with your partner or employer. You might find a time, for instance, that you can go to the gym that doesn’t cut into your quality time at home. Or, you might negotiate with your employer to be able to work from home once a week so that you can use the time that you would be commuting to meditate or meet with your therapist.
Be able to recognize if you’re in a relationship or career that is asking too much
In some cases, you might need to recognize that no matter how valiant your efforts are, either your job or your relationship isn’t flexible enough to make room for the kind of life you want. In fact, in some instances, this could be a sign of a toxic workplace or relationship. You’ll have to decide whether it’s in your best interest to commit to an arrangement that makes you sacrifice certain parts of your life. Or, whether it would be better to walk away.
This is a very difficult decision that will require you to carefully weigh the pros and cons of all your options.
Don’t rule out the benefit of couple’s therapy
Many people have the misconception that signing up for couples therapy means that your relationship is unfixable or doomed to fail. This isn’t the case! Couples therapy may be able to help with:
- Goal planning
- Splitting up responsibilities fairly
- Communication issues
- Recognizing each other’s strengths and successes
- Finding a balance between work and love
Always have something special to look forward to
Something that can help your relationship feel more manageable through the more challenging moments is having a goal that you can both look forward to. This might be a planned vacation, buying a house, starting a family, or any other goal that will bring the both of you closer together.
While these big goals can be a good milestone to work towards, don’t overestimate the motivating power of small goals, too. Your next date, buying a new piece of furniture, or taking a day trip can also give you something to look forward to.
Remember that it’s not always going to be easy
It’s very important to acknowledge that no matter how much work you put in, how many times you celebrate your partner, and how many times you put down your phone when you’re together, balancing career and love will still be challenging. There may be conflicts, late nights, missed details, plans that didn’t pan out, and other roadblocks.
Consider these tricky moments not as signs that you’re failing but rather as signs that you’re going through something difficult. Anyone in your position, in other words, would have similar struggles. The important thing is that you reconnect with your goals, find appropriate outlets for your stress, and talk to your partner. Together, you can get through this and figure out your own best practices for balancing career and love!
