If you want to know what the yin yang work model is, think a daytime financial analyst who runs weekend yoga workshops, or a successful musician with a side-hustle as a university lecturer. These dual-track jobs are not a result of necessity. Instead, they are deliberate, complementary choices to gain fulfilment, flexibility and to support our personal wellbeing by suiting different parts of our personalities.
Remote and hybrid working soared in the pandemic; a shift which helped many feel that juggling two roles was more feasible. Side hustles are one option that many are exploring, often for financial and creative reasons, but the women we spoke to split their time pretty evenly between their two roles.
Increasing numbers of us are looking to gain greater job satisfaction, as shown by a recent Amex Trendex survey, which found 71% see work/life balance as most important to job satisfaction, and 61% of UK workers would choose better work-life balance over higher pay. Is Yin Yang working the answer?
My Yin Yang career
Ellie travels and tackles fast-paced challenges in her consultancy career, balanced with her quieter and more flexible writing career
Having spent 15 years as a Global Marketing Director before I started a family, I changed tack to writing after having my two daughters to be around more at home.
Yet for the last few years, I’ve managed to create my own Yin Yang balance with two contrasting roles.
Combining my work as a feature writer with part-time project work for a Management Consultancy means I can still tap into my skills and experience from the corporate world, whilst also spending plenty of time letting my creative juices flow.
Working with my consultancy team, coaching clients and running big workshops in cities like Barcelona, Washington and Warsaw gives me the kind of fast-paced business challenges, out-of-home adventures and social interactions I miss when I'm sitting alone at my desk writing.
But the time I get to spend researching and penning features enables me to indulge my love of writing and my constantly curious side, whilst also fitting flexibly around family demands.
It takes a bit of extra diary management, and my husband and kids have had to adapt to me not always being around for the school run, but so far, we’ve managed to make it work well for all four of us.
Like living on two "opposite sides of the rainbow"
Lucia Decermic has one career running events, and another as a DJ
Lucia Decermic, 55, from West London, has run a high-end events company for many years, but in her mid-40s decided to train as a DJ. She’s since created The Pomegranate Parlour at the Boomtown festival and DJs across London while continuing to run the events business.
These dual income streams enable her to fully maximise her different strengths and passions and to maintain her lifestyle.
“It’s like being able to live on two opposite sides of the rainbow," she tells us. "Running the events business is great. I love doing deals and have become a shrewd businesswoman, having grown the business to eight times its previous size since I’ve taken it over.
"But my real passion is music – the DJ work fires me up and stops me ageing. There are financial limits to what I can make through music, so it’s great to be able to do both roles alongside each other.”
Married working mum Pam Philips, 53, from Henley on Thames, also loves her Yin Yang working week, saying she’s never felt more content in her life since successfully combining her career as a wholesale fashion agent with setting up her own dog grooming business.
“The dog grooming fulfils the creative side of me as I see it as a work of art," she explains. "I get such satisfaction seeing a dog leaving happy and looking fabulous. Every groom is different and it’s great being able to work from a little cabin in my garden.
"In total contrast, I travel a bit with the fashion role and love the excitement of seeing the new collections each season, how they have developed and what the fabrics and colours are. I’m very much a people person and the fashion role caters to this side of me as much of it is based around relationships.”
Jumping between two different worlds
Pam Philips finds creative fulfilment in her career as a dog groomer, and loves the social side of her fashion agent career
Of course, blending two different jobs can prove tricky sometimes. While Lucia loves the variety of the dual roles, she says it occasionally catches her out when flipping from talking to a corporate client to suddenly needing to brief an up-and-coming musician.
"My language might be a bit looser and more relaxed with one group, whereas it needs to be much more formal with the other," she explains. "These people come from different worlds, so I have to learn to flex what I wear and how I manage projects, too, but I love that."
Pam also finds it’s sometimes a big leap to jump from one role to the next, but it’s also energising. She says being her own boss in both aspects of her working life has been transformational. "There are challenges with everything, but because I manage my own diary, it makes life a lot easier," she says.
"When I worked full-time in fashion, the juggling of family life and childcare with work used to be tough, but that’s not the case any more. Switching from one role to the other is refreshing. As for managing my time, if I know in advance when I need to be in Milan or available for dog appointments, I work everything else around it.”
Yin Yang working: Here to stay?
Yin Yang working isn’t just a pandemic by-product. Millions of us now prioritise flexible, meaningful work over higher pay and as these stories show, it is possible to intentionally weave two roles together that feed different parts of our being.
Speaking from my own experience, whilst it’s not always easy and requires forward planning, the rewards in personal and work wellbeing are huge.
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