On April 7, 2022, our Chief Operating Officer Thiranun “Tyra” Arunwattanakul joined an online live event with HerStories hosted by Accenture. The session brought together women thought leaders from across Asia for a quick discussion on the topic “Life in Balance – Mental Wellness.” It was aimed at exploring what it means to achieve a healthy balance and mental wellbeing while being successful in the workplace. The session kicked off with the question: What does “Life in Balance” mean to you especially during the pandemic when people tend to work longer hours?
“You need to have the mindset that you want to be happy,” said Tyra. “It totally does not depend on timing or the period of work. It is totally on the mindset that you want to be happy,” she added. Humans are social animals that will always have people surrounding them, but one of the important parts of keeping a happy balance is to not be influenced by negative people and incidents.
Chief Operating Officer,
MONIX Co. Ltd.,
As a C-level executive, Tyra feels that she needs to take on the role and responsibility of helping employees find their own balance. Therefore, it is the management’s job to be a part of the good influence in the workplace – the positive energy. “The challenging part of working during the pandemic is not about people working longer hours, but that everything is up to ‘you.’ It’s all about how you deal with it,” she said. In the pre-pandemic era, people live a kind of life which they reckon is a good standard – get up, have breakfast, commute to work, get back home, etc. However, things are different now. Everything depends on self-management and control that should get along well with an individual’s lifestyle as well as an organization’s culture. This is key to defining good and bad standards on a personal level, eventually finding balance in life.
“For myself, in the beginning of COVID, me and my team also need to adapt a bit as well. We were actually born with this hybrid mode since the beginning, but we also have to adjust ourselves a little bit as well,” Tyra added. “So that’s how we adapt ourselves during the pandemic.”
Questions for the rest of the live event revolved around finding balance in life as well as maintaining good mental health. The hour-long session left us with fresh ideas and valuable takeaways. Our honorable panelists have demonstrated the importance of balance and mental health through an exciting discussion, exchanging thoughts and ideas. While every individual has been through different situations and experiences in life, they all agree that the key to finding balance in life lies within ourselves.
While this episode was quick and concise, what we learned from it is timeless. Humans are in no way perfect, and each has their own struggles, even the most successful ones including our leaders. What we could do to find balance is just to enjoy the right kind of life that works for oneself because not all of us are the same. We should take some time to enjoy life outside of work such as finding time for hobbies and self-improvement. The definition of balance varies by each individual. As an ever-evolving human being, we will need to keep adapting and re-balancing our lives to continue enjoying it to the fullest till the end of time.
