The term “work-life balance” has always sounded boring to me, just as the 1930′s concept of “mental hygiene” sounded way less juicy than the human potential and personal growth movements that have enlivened so many of us since the 1970′s.

Achieving work-life balance has always seemed to take so much work. Maintaining it seems even harder and so unnatural, like trying to maintain balance on a high wire when I’m really such a klutzy sort. Meditation and relaxation strategies are wonderful, but how can I stay balanced whenever a lot of energy or exertion are required?

And then there’s the awful implication that work-life balance requires a separation between what we do for work and what we do for life. Kind of like those folk-art weather houses (hygrometers)  in which a boy emerges to signify rain or the girl comes out to predict fair weather. However beautifully they are carved, the boy and girl are forever kept separate and distant. Perfectly balanced, but not much fun.

The term “work-life excellence” popped into my mind during a shower, which is one of the best catalysts for work-life excellence anywhere.

Years ago, some executives were asked where they did their best thinking. Nature and religious settings tied for second place. The bathroom overwhelmingly took first place.  No big surprise, considering the many excellent virtues of the bathroom.

Einstein was said to get his best ideas while shaving. Louis Armstrong touted the thronely release that’s necessary to keep music and life flowing. I, like most people, am in love with the shower. While writing Work with Meaning, Work with Joy: Bringing Your Spirit to Any Job, I ran to the shower when walking wasn’t enough to clear my thinking.

Showers are great. Where else are we so rewarded by being willing to come clean? Where else is there absolutely no reason to put on an act? Where else can we awaken and delight body, mind and spirit without leaving the house?

Obviously, I didn’t take the name “work-life excellence” into the shower. Instead I took the essence of what needed a single name. Eventually as I washed and just received the joy of the water, the name emerged. Since you already know the name, I’d love to tell you some of the essentials of work-life excellence.

Work-life excellence means that excellent workdays lead to excellent home life which leads to excellent sleep which leads to being prepared the next day to have an excellent day of work … and so on.

Instead of having to force yourself out of bed because you’re exhausted, you awake refreshed. Rather than being frenetic with morning preparations, you relax, knowing your clothes and other necessities are ready. Rather than jump out of bed, you take a moment to let every part of you enjoy the transition from sleep to wakefulness.

Perhaps you take some time for meditation, to listen to the music from the birds outside or something beautiful on the electronic player of your choice. You take the wonderful consciousness of your shower into your day. You breakfast mindfully and nutritiously. Your commute is a conscious journey from one place to another, one pilgrimage in the journey of life along with many others.

Rather than leave your true self — including your vision, values and faith — in the parking lot, you bring them into work. Thus, every task reveals its opportunity to become a more satisfying mission, another opportunity to stretch your talents and enjoy serving others.

Throughout your day, you practice small ways of integrating your spiritual self with your work. Maybe you offer a moment of gratitude for your work (including as necessary, the work of looking for work). You find moments of prayer or reflection throughout your day, including a moment to release your workday and prepare to go home.

By practicing work-life excellence, you may be tired at the end of the day and need rest. But you won’t be stressed out or burnt out, even in hard times.

Instead you’ll bring home what the great work storyteller Studs Terkel once called the daily meaning along with the daily bread. You’re invigorated by your work, blessed by the camaraderie of fellow workers and others who are impacted by your work. You’ve got time and energy for a real life. You’ve set yourself up for relaxing sleep, perchance to dream and further enrich tomorrow.

Over the years, I’ve found work-life excellence in the best of times and the worst of times. Some of my richest challenges have been to learn to tolerate more joy and meaning in my work. Some of my deepest joys have come from practicing habits like the ones above during hard times when my husband was out of work and three relatives were dying across country.

Rather than my saying more about how I see work-life excellence, please share how you see it. What practices help you create excellence in work that leads to excellence in the rest of life, and vice versa?

May these thoughts inspire you to create excellent work and life that inspire others to create excellent work and life. May work-life excellence be the norm for all situations.

Pat McHenry Sullivan

Imagine it’s a year from now and the economy has improved in many large and small ways.

Imagine you are sitting in a large room where people are celebrating the many ways in which life is richer. Everywhere you hear snatches of wonderful conversation.

Last year, at the end of 2008, I was out of work; now at the end of 2009, I have a new job with people who appreciate me, more money than before, and more time for family life.

Last year, our nonprofit organization was near bankruptcy. Now it’s thriving after we learned better ways to market our services and take better care of our money. It’s really exciting that many of the people we used to serve are now thriving and happily donating.

Even when the economy was tanking at the end of 2008, I was doing well. Now I am doing even better.

Imagine that the energy in the room is excited but free of hype. Words like integrity, meditation, and spirituality mingle easily with words like return on investment, due diligence, and business plan. Imagine that instead of competition or ego, you feel a grounded camaraderie among people from all races, many types of jobs or businesses, many faiths.

Imagine people talking about how, even before the end of 2008, a Great Change had already started to happen.

“It was so awful, I had to do something, not wait for a miracle from Obama or anyone else,” says a young man. “Remember how people kept quoting Einstein’s comment that it’s pure insanity to try to fix a problem with the same thinking that created it?”

“Yes,” says a woman of an age that used to be considered way past doddering, but now is honored as a time of wisdom and joy. “Remember how self-responsibility and working together became more popular than the ‘greed is good’ motto of the 1980s?”

Imagine, for a while, just listening to story after story. Notice that some of the stories are quite dramatic, but most report a series of small steps, like assessing the family finances in detail, evaluating the satisfaction value of each expense and adjusting the budget based on vision and values.

Imagine how each person’s conscious and caring relationship to money affected others. Imagine that by the time Obama took office, the renewed calm helped him and his team make wiser decisions. Remember the many stories you have heard of government and business employees finding savings from careful assessment of expenditures and imagine that they are true. Remember how often you have heard examples of people who took off their unconscious money blinders and paid attention to money reality.

Finally, you’re ready to tell what happened for you between late December 2008 and December 2009. Like other stories, your story is filled with juicy details that are meaningful to you and inspiring and informative to others. Here’s what you say: ________________.

So what would you say? I invite you to listen carefully to the longings in your heart and soul for money sanity, money harmony, money integrity or whatever term you use for what it’s like to be able to earn, spend, invest and share sufficient money with absolute integrity, purpose and joy.

Listen past current fears or voices that say you dream too big. Dream past any concern about how you are going to make your vision come true, and any doubt that it is possible. We’ll deal with that later. For now, just write down what your heart and soul envision. Use the future present tense (?I go,? ?I have?), and include whatever is meaningful to you. See what parts of your vision inspire your own grounded actions for a better economy for yourself and others.

Need some help with visioning? See www.workwithmeaningandjoy. In the section on vision, you’ll find an article on “Finding Visions for Work and Life” and a poem called “Dare to Dream, Dare to Do.”

One last hint: Don’t strive for perfection. One of the neatest things about visioning is that it’s fluid and your vision can be edited at any time. And many of the best visions announce themselves while you are going about your daily business.

Blessing for today: Even though I may have learned to quash my imagination in the process of growing up and learning how to make a living, I open myself again to this divine gift. May I dare to dream again, dare to hope again, and dare to speak my dreams, even if only to myself.

That’s all for today. Do what you can, share your vision in the comments section if you wish, then come back again real soon.

Pat McHenry Sullivan