What if you’re not leaping on the ‘New Year, New You, New Job’ bandwagon?
Come on… you need to work hard, be a success in work, be successful out of work, take care of your family, do the school run, wash the car, mow the lawn, excel at your hobbies, look after your home, care for others, keep up to date with social media, meet friends, look after yourself both mentally and physically and for goodness sake… SMILE!
Phew… life is exhausting!
It’s an almost impossible task to find the balance and feel like you’re able to lead a balanced and fulfilled life without a very conscious effort to make sure it’s happening.
Let’s break it down:
1- Balance is the feeling you are looking to achieve but it isn’t a goal. It’s important to know the difference between feeling that things are in balance in your life versus feeling totally content all the time and things never going wrong (things will always go wrong at some point). It’s about the process of being able to manage the ups and downs and still feel that you remain in balance. No sooner have you found a balance with all elements of your life, something else will come along to disrupt it – but it’s about the processes you put in place to regain your balance as soon as possible.
2- Punctuating your life with goals will help. Goals of all kinds give the opportunity to prioritise things clearly. You will find yourself tackling the most important things first and working through the list until all is achieved in a much more methodical way. It helps you to stay on track and not reach the balance tipping point. It’s useful to re-check your priorities regularly
3 – Develop life tactics. These will be the tools and methods in which you process information in your quest to develop a balanced life. Don’t leave goal setting just to your work life either. If you have your mind set on a goal, put the plans in place to achieve that and then start working towards it daily. If you wanted to be a successful athlete, you would train everyday right? If you want to change your career, then make steps towards doing it each day. A goal without a plan and proactive action is just your wish list.Be decisive. Specific details in your tactics are best. In order to move forwards towards a sense of life balance, decide what it is you want to achieve in a day, week, month with detail
4- Ask for support. The great balancing act of 2019 will take some support. Share your plans with someone, it may be easier to find your route to balance by talking things through with another person. Don’t keep too much of the load on your own shoulders
5- Learn to say no. You don’t have to agree to every event, every meet up, every demand. Prioritise, work out what is best for you and learn that it’s OK to put yourself first sometimes
6- Balance comes in all forms. How you deal with both success and failure make up part of the balancing act. When it comes to failures or things that you didn’t ‘win at’, try to learn to just acknowledge it, just take notice of it but don’t let it completely throw you off track. In the same way, take notice of your successes but don’t let them totally change your processes on maintaining balance. Both are as important as each other.
So, how do we achieve balance in life? It’s more about the processes that you develop to get you there and the goals you set to help you stabilise. Focus on how you’ll get there rather than just the act of ‘living a balanced life’. Put steps in place in order to achieve that feeling – and then retrace those steps regularly.