The term balance is getting a lot of play these days. Attaining the perfect balance has practically become an Olympic event and about as attainable too. I remember a time when you could admit you were stressed and people would be sympathetic, now I find that there is a subtle or not too subtle lecture that emerges, “you’re doing too much” or “you need to find better balance”. So what’s the deal?
It is April and at the University and to put it mildly it’s a big month, it is not the time of the year when I recommend “striking a healthy balance” to my clients. They are job seeking, saying goodbye to friends, dealing with family pressures, completing huge projects and trying to prepare for exams. My motto for April is “Eat, Sleep, Breath” (Thank you to Brenda M for this life line).
Balance is a relationship between our lives and our health, in order for the relationship to be healthy and fulfilling, it needs attention and respect but can not require constant nurturing. Hey, if you can do that, excellent, but for most of us it just isn’t practical to tell a child that this is not her week to get sick. So how can we attract a better balance? Here are a few ideas.
1. Do your best. What absolutely needs to be attended to today, this week, this month? Prioritize one personal goal, make it small and manageable. (10 minute walk 3 times this week, buy a bag of apples and eat one every day on the way to work, say no to one thing that you don’t want to do, read one chapter of a book you have been eager to read).
2. Make a plan. I always tell me clients “your body is wise. If you tell it that you’ll take care of it soon, it may believe you for a while but if you never follow through on your promises there will be trouble!” If you have been promising that you will start an evening walk, take a nap, go to yoga, book a massage, even if you can’t do it this week, book it.
3. Respect yourself. My clients fulfill their responsibilities to others with a fierce tenacity. They use their energy to serve others even when it might be personally disadvantageous. Let’s turn this into a positive, you have the ability to set goals and keep your promises! Find a way to set and keep an important promise to yourself with the same level of respect you would show others. You may need an accountability partner for this one. Tell someone your goal, ask them to follow up with you, a counsellor or a life coach can provide this service for you if you cannot find another source of inspiration.
4. Give yourself a break. Maybe you are doing better than you think. Try this exercise, it’s a life balance wheel and it’s a useful tool for taking stock of your current satisfaction with several areas of your life.
life-balance-wheel-and-instructions1
A Life Balance Wheel is a subjective, self assessment tool to help you take a snap shot of your current level of satisfaction in different areas of your life. There are many ways to use this wheel, if you google “life balance wheel” you will find ideas about how other life coaches use the wheel. You may even come up with your own ideas (those are by far the best ones).
I often ask clients, “which area would be the easiest” for you to make a change. It is a natural instinct to choose the hardest and start there but that can create feelings of frustration and many people find it so overwhelming to approach their most difficult area of life that they get overwhelmed and give up.
If you choose an area you would like to work on you can make a new wheel (or pie) and make 8 new headings within that category. For example, if you chose job, what are the different areas of your job that feel important? Then you can make goals in each category.
Job - break up into segments (co-workers, client work, office environment, paper work, professional development, lunch time, getting to work, pay, etc). Some of the areas may be easier to affect then others. Chose an area you feel you could make a small change to and set a goal. Take paper work as an example, I started taking notes during sessions, they are not as neat let me tell you, but they are pretty good and the upside is that I’m never behind in my files and I can also give the client a copy to take away with them, so that they have a (slightly hard to read) written account of all of the strategies, road blocks and strengths that we came up with in session.
This is a subjective tool because we are all unique and what has worked for me may not work for you. Let me know if you have a good idea I could share with other readers and I’ll post it. Have a wonderful weekend.
