DaveWitwicki.com

I’ve been doing a lot of personal development work lately in some of the key areas of my life such as health/fitness, family/friend relationships and work/career. I’ve set ambitious goals for the work/career area but have found that pursuing those goals could potentially risk the well-being of my family. This has created a conflict between my familial responsibilities and my personal needs.

When attempting to resolve conflicts like this you need to consider what areas of your life are impacted and what the priority of those areas are. Personally, I put myself first, then my family, then work, and then everything else. If you think that sounds selfish, consider the classic example of the instructions the airline gives when discussing the oxygen masks. You need to put your own mask on first before helping others with their masks because you can’t help anyone if you can’t breath. Similar concept here when it comes to taking care of needs. If your own needs are not met, how can you possibly meet the needs of others?

Here’s where it gets interesting. Based on the above reasoning, you could say that it’s more important that you take care of yourself by transitioning into a fulfilling career even if it means risking the well-being of your family. After all, didn’t I just say that you should put yourself first? And doesn’t that imply that your well-being takes priority over your family’s well-being? Well, you could use that reasoning and I suspect many success-driven folks do indeed follow that line of thinking. For example, while watching the premiere episode of Shark Tank the other day, one of the entrepreneurs admitted that he’d mortgaged his home twice, spent his retirement money and kids’ college funds and had nothing left to invest; in essence, he put his well-being ahead of his family’s. One of the “sharks” responded with the admonishment that you need to take care of your family first regardless of your business aspirations.

So, the question becomes how do you balance responsibilities against needs? We’ve established that a typical chain of responsibility should be Self > Family > Work > Everything Else (if God is a part of your life then the chain is God > Self > Family > Work > Church > Everything Else). When considering needs, I find Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to be a good model to work from. Basically, needs at the bottom of the hierarchy should be fulfilled before working on the next level up. The needs from bottom to top are Physiological > Safety > Social > Esteem > Self-Actualization.

Mapping responsibilities against needs results in a fairly straighforward method of determining which is more important. For each need in Maslow’s hierarchy, you should cover off each area of responsibility before moving up the hierarchy to the next need. So, in the case of pursuing a more fulfilling job vs the well-being of your family it becomes clear that your family comes first since Safety in all areas is more important than your personal Social/Esteem needs.

I am certain there are numerous criticisms possible of both Maslow’s hierarchy and the chain of responsibility outlined but I believe it’s important to have some sort of relatively objective framework. There are also gray areas in this model. A big one that comes to mind for me is friends. Where do they fit in? Life is messy and objectively compartmentalizing all aspects of your life may be difficult and/or inappropriate. Ultimately, you need to consider your choices and do what you feel  is best. Models like this merely provide some food for thought.

- Dave