Let's Negotiate

Does the word "negotiation" give you thrills or chills?  What it means, how it is done and most importantly for me, how I do it, is on my mind.  I'm participating in a negotiating course from the savvy Victoria Pynchon through Lisa Gate's Craving Balance Learning Community. 

Yesterday, over at Career Connection, guest Meghan Biro wrote on the entrepreneurial path to work life balance. 

"Work-life balance comes to us when we seek it, when we insist on it."

Through my awakened negotiation eyes, this quote hit hard.  It's not enough to want a certain kind of life.  There are bold actions - seek, insist.  When was the last time you insisted on something that mattered to you, that enhanced your quality of life and your capacity to live with impact?

It leaves nothing out of the work life balance equation.  There is the role of personal responsibility.  There is the role of organizations and their cultures.  We must insist from every angle - in our personal negotiations at home and at work, and in our larger efforts to agitate for cultural and baseline legislative change.

"Here's what I bring and this is what it costs.  Let's talk."  We're not always discussing money.  Although often we are.  These are skills we can apply to relationships, children, the workplace, our volunteering.  We need to get serious about what matters and resist the urge to walk away when it gets uncomfortable.

We are going to be talking a lot more about this.  What was the last thing you negotiated to improve your life?  How did it go?

Photo credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/anjan58/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0