In the world that we live today, many activities requires our attention and as human, different sphere and aspects of life makes us unique. And as one who is intentional and deliberate about every aspect of your live, not letting one part suffer, you need to strike a balance.
You know, we have the physical need to meet, spiritual, academic, emotional and social needs to meet for ourselves and possibly for our family. We have deadline to meet, work to do, meetings to attend, children to take care of, goals to achieve, you can go on mentioning them.
And it’s no doubt that many finds it difficult to balance several aspect of their lives and as a result of this, stress, worry, pressure and imbalance sets in.
So for you to be successful in building synergy to all those activities, creating equilibrium and harmonizing every aspect of life, you have to learn the principles of BALANCE.
You need to understand, Self-reflection, you need to understand Vibrant Values.
Do you understand stress-management? How about Self-care?
Do you have or know how to set better Boundaries? What Helpful Habits do you practice? These principles and more are things you must learn and master.
The amount of energy, attention and time you give to one aspect of your life should not be such that will lead to the detriment of other aspect of your life.
You should carefully have a retrospection and self evaluation in order for you to come to the awareness of the part of your life that is suffering and that needs adequate attention and balance.
As human that are meant to meet and attend to different sphere of life, the actual fulfilment of calling and embracement of potential is to encompass this different aspects of our lives in the right manner, proportion and quantity such that we would be able to utilise and maximise it in every area to achieve all round success and breakthrough.
Living a standard and quality life requires that all these several sphere of life, that makes you unique and color your existence should be properly balanced.
It is expedient to look at the peril or danger of imbalance inasmuch as we yearn for ways to achieve a balanced life.
PERILS OF IMBALANCE.
CONFLICT: If you fail to strike a balance to a reasonable extent in some areas of your life, then there are bounds to be conflict between them. When an aspect of your life is getting all of the attention and time, the rest will be left to conflict with that one. Family conflict over work life, health conflict over work life or social life and lot more.
UNPRODUCTIVE: There is a degree of focus and time you’ll give to every aspect of your life that they would blossom and be productive. But then when you don’t understand the necessary time needed for an aspect of your life, then many niches of your life would be unproductive.
Imagine a plant with lot of sunlight without sufficient water or imagine that same plant with lot of water and soil nutrients without sun. You know what would happen to that plant. I leave you to your imagination.
UNSTABLE GROWTH: Growth is full and complete when all aspect is growing as well. But with imbalance, you cannot achieve all-round growth. Your growth will keep fluctuating, as one aspect pulls it up, the other pulls it down.
BURNOUT: it’s no doubt that if you carry everything without concerning the right proportion, trust me you’ll burn out.
PHYSICAL AND MENTAL AILMENTS: Ohh this cannot be overemphasised. You know what imbalance would do to your physical and mental health, so I need not stress that.
How to attain balance.
1. Self-reflection: This is but the first step to a balanced life. You need to carefully look inside and see what aspect of you is suffering. What aspect of your life is off center. Pick the different aspects of your life and rate yourself and see how much you’re meeting intentions, reaching your goals and objectives.
simply acknowledge the ‘low’ scores, and then begin taking action to address what’s needed. For example, if your health, social or education shows up as low, think about what you can do to improve the score.
2. Vibrant values: Trust me, you can achieve balance from the values you hold. How much you’re expressing the qualities and experiences you cherish and hold dear, such as creativity, transparency, accountability, peace, success and love.
Values are the why of goals, and speak to the deepest level of motivation. They provide vision, vitality and vibrancy for your life. Values touch on the core of who you are, and lead you to do what is uniquely you.
Write down your values, circle your top five priorities. Does your life reflect these qualities or aspects to your satisfaction? If not, what steps can you take to bring this into balance?
3: Stress-management: Of a truth, you may not be able to alter the events of your day – but how you react is within your circle of influence. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react or respond to it.
Part of effective stress-management involves identifying and addressing( which is completely on you) pressure factors in your life
Practise being present throughout the day. When your mind starts racing, bring yourself back to your breath, returning to the moment. Your whole day can become meditation, while stress turns into success.
4. Take a break: Pace yourself. Respect your need for breaks and ‘down-time’. Pay attention to body-signals, and know your limits. Stamina varies from one person to the next (and from time to time), and managing according to the energy you have available is similar to wise money management: invest where you get the best payback – and don’t overspend!
5. Self-care: it is important to know that you can’t strike a balance if you don’t take care of yourself. This isn’t selfishness. It is wisdom. Unless you attend to your own welfare, you won’t be able to fulfil your duties as professional, spouse or parent.
Effective self-care also includes building a solid support system. From getting help for various chores and errands, to nurturing loving relationships, creating a dynamic network of relations is an important key to balance.
6. Best boundaries: if you keep saying yes to everything your balance suffers. You should set boundaries as to what you accept or do.
Knowing your limits and communicating those to others ensures your sanity and life-balance.
Setting appropriate boundaries allows you to develop healthy assertiveness, asking for what you need and want, as well as drawing limits respectfully. This puts you in charge of your life, and is a significant step towards living in balance.
7. Schedule your priorities. Often times we have priorities and and a litany of activities in our to-do list and even as the day keeps going more keep coming in on the list. It is best advice you schedule your priorities or things on your to do list. Set out the time you want to achieve them, the place and manner you want to achieve them.
This would help you avoid unnecessary activities, thereby allowing you give your time to what are most important.
I see so many of you practicing this and next to you is a balanced life.
Cheers to a balanced life.
