Managing Yourself

Do You Have a Life Outside of

Work?
by Rob Cross

May 13, 2020

fStop Images – Caspar Benson/Getty Images

Summary. In studying professionals for two decades, the author has found a
predictable pattern where well-adjusted and purposeful people... more
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 “I had a business trip cancelled and free time out of nowhere. I
went home on a beautiful summer day and as I pulled into my
driveway realized my family was scattered doing their things and
that I had no friends to reach out to or hobbies that I had once
loved. I sat in the car for more than an hour thinking about how I
had gotten to that point.”

This comment from a well-regarded software executive reflects a

pattern I’ve seen in my work with hundreds of successful
executives. Leaving college with a range of interests and friends
they choose a career that optimizes money, status, and sometimes
a sense of impact. Work ramps up quickly to 12+ hour days,
commute and travel result in less exercise fewer social events, and
a general narrowing of their world to work and a few select
friends. Buying a home and starting a family follows, further
limiting social interaction and increasing financial pressures,
thus making work even more central.

At this point, these executives double down and move to a bigger

home, better neighborhood, or into a school district that feels like
a natural extension of what good providers do. Sometimes they
upgrade twice. In any case, this is the step that leads them into an
echo chamber, where there’s no time for friends (sometimes
family) and work defines their entire existence for 5-8 years. They
fall out of the final groups and activities that helped them cope
with the stress they’ve put themselves under. If the activities were
skill-related like tennis or running with a group, it becomes
almost impossible to catch back up with those who stayed with it.
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 If they are lucky they wake up in an epiphany moment like my
Silicon Valley friend. Many are not, and end up burning out,
divorced, and in crisis.

As my colleagues and I have studied these people for over two

decades, we’ve noticed that there’s a select group that doesn’t fall
prey to this vicious cycle. These are people in the high-
performance category of their organization who also score high
on measures of well-being. So we’ve spent time identifying what
makes them able to manage a successful career while maintaining
those critical social activities that create happiness.

What we’ve found is that they almost always have cultivated and
maintained authentic connections in two, three, or four groups
outside of work: athletic pursuits, volunteer work, civic or
religious communities, and social clubs like book or dinner clubs.
In contrast, people that were on their second or sometimes third
marriages, unhealthy to a point of crisis, or with children that
simply tolerated them almost always had allowed life to become
uni-dimensional: work. Success at their jobs exclusively defined
their life success and slowly took them out of all these groups and
activities.

How do they get there? With the best of intentions, actually. A

seductive way of justifying our choices to become uni-
dimensionally focused on work is to look at life through the lens
of provider: We are making sacrifices for our family. It is not that
family is a bad choice. To the contrary, this is a critical anchor in
our lives. But when all we do is work for our family and that
defines us, we’re actually not providing for them the way we
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 could if we maintained those other social ties. Paradoxically, a
singular focus on providing through work robs our well-being and
creates vulnerability.

You may feel, especially in these days in which many people are
thinking more deeply about meaning and purpose, that you have
become this uni-dimensional person who is unhealthy and
vulnerable. You can change course and re-establish activities and
social connections that will improve your life, and the lives of
your loved ones.

To start, let me offer three ideas.

1. Shift just one activity to create diverse purpose-generating

interactions.

Our sense of purpose in life is constructed through interactions in

and out of work. For many work is a legitimate source of purpose,
but 50% or more of how we experience purpose and meaning is
through the constellation of relationships around us. Purpose is
not just in the nature of our work but also in the networks around
the work. People in organizations doing noble work — curing
disease, saving childrens’ lives, educating — can be among the
unhappiest while those doing seemingly mundane things feel a
stronger sense of purpose. Both work and life connections create a
sense of purpose. Work connections that create purpose include:

Leaders and organizational culture: Working for an inspiring

leader or vision, or being part of a culture that does the right
things and cares about colleagues’ success.
Peers: Co-creating a meaningful future and engaging with
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 those who share similar values authentically.
Teams and mentors: Creating a context for peers, teammates
and mentees to thrive– helping, seeing growth, sharing your
learning, being transparent and vulnerable.
Consumers and stakeholders: Receiving validation from
consumers of output — science curing people or products that
improve life for example.

Life connections that create purpose include:

Spiritual: Interacting around religion, music, art, poetry, and

other aesthetic spheres of life that put work in a broader
context.
Civic and volunteer: Contributing to meaningful groups
creates a wellness benefit of giving and brings you in contact
with diverse, but like-minded people.
Friends and community: Forging connections through
collective activity: athletic endeavors, book or dinner clubs,
relationships maintained with children’s parents.
Family: Caring for family and modeling valued behaviors as
well as maintaining identity through interactions with
extended family.

The goal here isn’t to suddenly shift your life to address all of
these. We just want to start by shifting one activity. Which one?
Use this activity to choose.
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 Reflect on the figure above. First, allocate 100 points to spheres
that currently provide you with the greatest sense of purpose.
Ones where you don’t allocate 100 points are spheres that could
add dimensionality to your life.

Second, choose one activity that could have the greatest impact
on the largest number of spheres if you shifted it. If this is not
immediately obvious to you think about interests from your past.
Leaning back into athletic pursuits, hobbies, and passions are
often the first step for entrenched people to slingshot into new
groups. Once you have one, commit to a goal in that sphere by
reaching out to the group it will involve. Set hard rules and
engage family in re-enforcing your pursuit.
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 Once you’ve consolidated the shift into your life, do it once or
twice more. You will discover, as others have who’ve gone
through this exercise, that the excuses you were making for not
connecting outside work, are just that, excuses. You do have time
and work will adapt if you let it.

2. Be intentional in small moments.

Look to engage more purposefully even when it seems like there’s

little time to accomplish much. Focus on how to shape rather
than be shaped by all the interactions coming at us today. For
example you can:

Live “micro moments” intentionally: Simply demonstrating

to others in small moments that you believe in them, or lifting
them up, or helping them do the right thing will help you;
uncover commonalities between you; understand their
aspirations. Simply altering the way we engage in existing
relations often uncovers ways our existing network can fuel a
sense of purpose.
Create a persistent dialogue on what is worth doing: People
who avoid crisis moments in life spend more time talking with
others about ways to live life. One successful executive formed a
board of people that she relied on in hard times. Unlike
traditional mentors, this group was younger and older and from
all walks of life but helped her consistently reflect on how she
was engaging with purpose.
Return to relationships: These strong relationships are often
forged in difficult situations. How you handle adverse moments
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 with others, your ability to see possibilities and be proactive,
and to commiserate with others will get you through hard times
but also build connections that you go back to.

3. Boldly lean into times of transition.

See transitions as opportunities, not threats, to discover a new

and better version of yourself. Notice and unplug from things that
are draining purpose then reinvest in new activities and groups
you want to engage with, that you feel would be a positive part of
your purposeful identity. Most important, stick it out even when
it seems scary or difficult.

Consider a very successful high tech executive that over a 20-year

career had become someone she did not plan to be. Her job’s toll
on her health and identity slowly burned her out and she quit a
job that many would envy. She decided to lean into her health
and try yoga. And knowing her cynical tendency promised her
husband she would try it three times.

The first time she rolled her eyes at the overly nice people who
showed up. The second time she internally mocked the “flaky”
and “granola” instructor. The third time she endured a little
better but nevertheless felt she was done. As the class ended the
instructor walked the room and touched every person on their
head.

To my friends deep surprise she broke into tears. As she unpacked

this she realized that this was the first time she had let herself be
vulnerable or authentic in a long time. She fell out of pose. She
felt exhausted from what looked easy. But she shared this
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 vulnerability with strangers in the room — not something that her
corporate persona would have tolerated. Flash forward and yoga
has become a central component of her and her husband’s life. It
defines a large portion of their social world and even their
vacations. But this never would have materialized without her
leaning into and persisting through a transition. The
relationships formed through the activity added dimensionality
and perspective to her life that had not been there when work
ruled all. They became a source of resilience. And they helped
create courage to live life on her terms rather than others’
definitions of success.

To identify and capitalize on moments the way this executive did

consider the following:

Initiate transition when it makes no sense: The time to

stretch is when you are comfortable or when you feel you need
to hunker down to get through a situation. Lean in instead.
Surge into a transition with early and broad outreach recreating
connections into existing activities you enjoy (faith or sport)
and initiating at least one new one.
Focus on your aspirational self, behavior, and
relationships: Use the transition to reflect on socially defined
goals and aspirations or historical conventions that have
shaped you. Reflect on one way to invest in work you want to be
doing or one activity with others that would add dimensionality
and breadth to your life.
Beware of shocks or surges pulling you away from your
values. Don’t let your reaction to a negative moment or stretch
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 of time take you from who you want to be — too often what
seems temporary becomes embedded in expectations around
you.

We live in challenging times to be sure. But our experience is

often of our own making. Never in history have we had a greater
ability to shape what we do and with whom.

Don’t cede this control. If you’ve lost it, take it back. I’ve seen
again and again, those that do have the greatest sense of purpose
and well-being.

Rob Cross is the Edward A. Madden Professor

of Global Leadership at Babson College and the
cofounder and director of the Connected
Commons. He is also coauthor of The
Microstress Effect: How Little Things Pile Up
and Create Big Problems — and What to Do
About It (Harvard Business Review Press, 2023)
and the author of Beyond Collaboration
Overload (Harvard Business Review Press,
2021).

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