Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.”
— Stephen R. Covey
What’s the secret to living a happy, healthy life? If you were to Google that question, it wouldn’t take long before you would inevitably stumble across numerous articles proclaiming the same adage: living a well-balanced life is essential for happiness and success. You could lose a whole day searching that topic, but if you don’t understand the meaning behind your findings, you are just spinning your wheels.
There is a plethora of great information and articles out there, helping us define work-life balance. However, unlike some other popular discussion topics and trends, this particular ideology has some truth to it. Balance is incredibly important.
This truth becomes uniquely evident to us when our lives become unbalanced. You’ve probably experienced seasons in which certain aspects of your life, whether it be your professional responsibilities, personal projects and goals, or duties to your home and family, seem to be taking over. Our time, energy, and mental focus are consumed by one or two particular areas of life, leaving other vital things falling to the wayside.
These unbalanced seasons may leave your feeling worn down, unmotivated, and even bitter. You might begin to feel apathetic and resentful towards the commitments that are fueling your overwhelm. You may find yourself thinking, “This isn’t what I signed up for.” Don’t lose hope – look for clarity within on what balance means to you, in your life, in this moment.
In order to discuss what it means to truly live a balanced life, it’s important to first consider what balanced living does not look like.
What Balanced Living Is NOT
When you hear the word “balance” what comes to mind? For many, the concept of balance is immediately connected to equality. For life to be balanced, the different components of life must be equal.
This would imply that we consistently devote the same amount of time and energy to our home lives as we give to our professional careers. What if you also consider physical fitness, spiritual growth, or self-care to be priorities?
If you were to create a truly “equal” life, you would find yourself trying to spend the same amount of time in the gym each day for your daily workout as you do in the office. Not only is this impractical, it’s unnecessary.
According to Dr. Mayte Figueroa, “Coming to the realization that work-life balance does not mean equal balance will make life more realistic and rewarding.” Achieving “balance” does not mean dividing time and energy equally. Some facets of life, your career for example, probably require more time than others. While this is both normal and acceptable, it may be an opportunity to pause and reflect to ensure that when the balance in life changes, we are ready to react and reassess.
What IS Balanced Living?
If living a well-balanced life is not synonymous with equality, then what does it mean? According to Everyday Health, “Balanced living means having a positive outlook, focusing on good habits, and lowering stress.”
“Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress: Working hard for something we love is called passion.”
― Simon Sinek
Rather than allowing yourself to be overwhelmed by the impossible task dividing your time and energy equally among each aspect of your life, focus instead on living a well-integrated life that contains the necessary pieces to help you be happy, healthy and successful. The well-balanced person is one who maintains habits that make personal wellness a priority.
Our personal wellness can be divided into seven distinct dimensions:
- Mental
- Spiritual
- Physical
- Family
- Financial
- Personal
- Career
Each of these dimensions needs to be attended to in some capacity in order to live a truly happy and healthy life. It is important to recognize and remember that we are multifaceted individuals. You are more than just a mom, more than just a professional. Your health is not simply physical; it is also emotional. When you allow one or more of these dimensions to be neglected, you may experience burn out.
“I believe that being successful means having a balance of success stories across the many areas of your life. You can’t truly be considered successful in your business life if your home life is in shambles.”
– Zig Ziglar, motivational speaker
Although each is equally important, our investment in each of these areas of wellness is likely to look very different at various stages of our lives. For example, it is unrealistic to expect you can go back to school to pursue an advanced degree, while continuing to work full time without having to make some adjustment to other areas of your life. It won’t be forever, but as they say, somehow, someway, something’s got to give. You have to take time and space from other areas of your life to increase your educational development “bandwidth”. The same is true when babies are born, we get promotions, start a new business, or need to care for ailing family members.
We understand this intellectually, but we don’t want to concede and acknowledge a shift is required. We continue to take from our personal and emotional wellbeing storehouses instead of setting new expectations. It seems easier to cut back on the activities that replenish and renew us rather than make changes in other areas of our lives that inconvenience and even disappoint friends and family. It seems easier than feeling the discomfort of recognizing we cannot do it all, at the same time and level of intensity. But, doing so comes at a cost.
“Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.”
– Dolly Parton
As you look to create your definition of a successful life, take time to assess how you are doing in the various dimensions of wellness. It only takes a piece of paper, a few minutes and your honest appraisal.
Here’s a quick exercise.
Grab a blank piece of paper and fold it lengthwise into four columns. In the left column list the seven dimensions of wellness If you use a different list, feel free to use those instead. The important aspect is that you list the areas that matter to you. Then in the next column, rate yourself on a scale of 1 (doing great, keep it up) to 5 (needs attention, I am experiencing issues and challenges due to lack of attention). Be honest. You are the only one that will see this. Now it’s time to step back and look at your ratings. Pick ONE area (and only one) that you want to make a shift in to gain more balance. In the last column write down ONE thing you will do to start that change. Make a commitment and set a date to begin. Finally, look at the other areas and determine where you will cut back so you can sustain the change. Really look and in the last column, write down what you will change.
The commitments don’t have to be huge, but they have to matter TO YOU and your dimensions of wellness. They need to align with your definition of a successful life, not someone else’s.
Although the time invested in these different areas is seemingly unequal, balance is achieved because each specific need is being met.
Time to Consider Yourself
“We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our own to-do list.”
– Michelle Obama
What about you? Are you personally attending to each dimension of your personal wellness? Or are you stuck in a rut caused by unbalanced living and neglected personal needs? As a Sherpa and life coach, I’d love to walk with you on the journey towards balanced living and meeting your personal needs. Click here to sign up for a call to discuss what coaching could do for you!
References:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4789363/
https://wellness.ucr.edu/seven_dimensions.html
https://www.everydayhealth.com/healthy-living/how-to-live-a-well-balanced-life.aspx
