Listening to that inner voice

A crossroads in our lives can bring great clarity – and inspire powerful change.

So, you’ve reached a pinnacle in your career. You’ve risen through the ranks, you are working on projects dear to your heart and with people you respect, and the future is looking rosy. All the stars are aligned.

But there’s a hitch.

The hectic work schedule that has underpinned your professional success is having a toll on your health and personal relationships, and you can no longer ignore that. What do you do?

Well, if you are UNE Professor of Social Work Myf Maple, who has been on the front foot, working to improve the mental health of Australians for the past 25 years, you do something you never dreamed of. You take a step back.

“My entire career has been centred on the importance of taking care of ourselves and each other,” Myf says. “But I wasn’t living my most authentic life and my chronic health condition was worsening.

“While really enjoying my job and valuing my work, I had been working at a pace that the pressure just built up, my body and soul were suffering, my relationships were suffering, my family was suffering – and no job is worth that. There was this tension between the work I loved and knowing I had to look after myself. I was stuck in a loop of ‘this can’t go on, what can I do?’.”

On the cusp of a recent much-needed holiday, Myf developed a debilitating case of shingles. “My body was screaming at me to do something; I couldn’t continue like this,” she says. “In the end it was a no-brainer. I simply had to find a new balance, where I had more life and less work.”

Three-day work week

With the wise counsel and support of her family, UNE human resources staff and trusted colleagues, Myf decided to reduce her working week to three days. “As soon as I made the decision, I felt such a weight off my shoulders,” she says. “When I told my kids, they said ‘thank goodness!’ The reduction to three days a week is for three years, giving me time to see my youngest child through to the end of her schooling.”

But reaching that decision, as a high-profile researcher and educator in demand and newly appointed to head up Manna Institute, took a great deal of soul-searching.

“These kinds of decisions are wound up in our professional identity, our ego and career goals,” says Myf. “I’m in my 50s and part of a generation that has been conditioned to work hard, to do more and take on more all the time. There’s my status and title, but I do have to admit that I also get FOMO – that fear of missing out.

While Myf is yet to iron out some of the practicalities of her new work arrangement, which starts in the new year, there’s one thing she is absolutely sure of – the need to establish and maintain firm boundaries.

“Outside my three working days, I will be strictly unavailable,” she says. “That’s a massive shift for me, and it will take a lot of training and self-discipline to put my health first. But I’m learning that I don’t have to do everything. I don’t have to solve every problem. My challenge will be prioritising the things that are most important in my work, and where I stand to have the most influence.

“I don’t know how it will all turn out and I’m still concerned about the impact on my professional career and family finances. But I’m fortunate, because not everybody can even contemplate reducing their work hours financially.”

Shifting views on work-life balance

Questioning some long-held assumptions has been part of the process.

“As a Gen X woman, I’ve been taught that if I work hard, I can have a rewarding career, have children and do whatever I want,” Myf says. “But sometimes you can’t do it all.”

Myf is sharing her story in the hope it gives others permission to “have these conversations and think differently about how we live and work, especially as we come to the close of another really challenging year”. There’s a nice synergy with her research, too.

“Almost universally, there is an altruistic reason why people participate in research,” Myf says. “They want their story to help others coming after them. In my case, I think it’s important to model my experience of making a hard decision and showing what a flexible employer can be prepared to do; to demonstrate that it is possible to do things differently.”