Giving 80%

Work Life Balance - defining what you want.

I am in my 50s now. I own my own business. It isn't as successful as it could be, but it's growing and I feel good about my work and where I am in life.

Could I do more? Of course. But do I want to? No. People laugh when I tell them that I am really quite lazy.  They don't believe me because I seem to get so much done.

I think maybe one of the reasons I am so efficient is because - I REALLY guard my free time.  Efficiency helps with this.

The reality is - I could be doing more. A lot more. But I don't.  And I recently found someone who articulated why I don't better than I ever have.

Nakamura, one of the people on a Japanese reality tv show called Terrace House.  He is older. He is a professional snow boarder. He also works as a yakitori chef and owns his own clothing line.

In in Terrace House New Beginnings on Netflix.  Episode 5 Ami, a 20 year old in her third year of college doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life. She can't bring herself to apply for jobs. Neither in her chosen career, or as a model, which she says she wants to do. She doesn't really want to commit to a career path.  This is important because in Japan, if you join a company, you are expected to stay with that company and she is clearly not ready to make that sort of commitment, but she also isn't sure she doesn't want to.

She is helping Nakamura sort and get his shirts and stuff ready to ship out to his customers. She wants to know how he figured out what to do with his life and how he decided what path to go on.

He says – he didn’t really know what he wanted to do either and he is muddling along. He has sponsors and a summer job and his business which does ok. He’s not shooting for the moon. He’s doing ok.    80% is enough.

That’s when he starts talking about giving 80%.  "Giving 100% is exhausting, but by giving 80% I feel like you can go pretty far."  He didn't want to commit to one thing you may not like. So - give 80%.

The segment is at the 25 minute mark: http://newasiantv.co/watch/terrace-house-opening-new-doors-episode-5-engsub.3746.77331.html

Brilliant!  I feel the same way - I don't want to give 100%. I want to have a life. I want to spend time with my kid. I want to have friends. I like going to the movies. I like having a life. Giving 110% or even 100% to a job, leaves no room for anything else.

This is one of the things I liked about my husband. He told me – he’s never going to be fabulously wealthy. He does ok but he has no drive to do the work to be super wealthy. 80% is enough. That’s why I married him.  I feel the same way.

I admire people who give 100%, but I'm ok not being one of them.  It's ok. You can actually go pretty far giving 80%.  I'm proof of that.