The Top 10 Things EVERY Human Can Do to Create Life Balance
I truly believe that every human can create and achieve life balance. Many people talk about Work-Life Balance, but to me, work is a necessary part of life. Work and life are not two separate entities of life, but rather work is a part of the bigger picture known as life. It is for this reason that I drop the work from the popular phrase and call it simply: Life Balance.
I know what you might be thinking. What does creating balance in our lives have to do with finding joy or even organization? I am so glad you asked! When we feel more in control of our lives (in balance or darn close to it) we can focus on other things that will help maintain that control such as practicing organization. When we feel more in control and experience less chaos, we have (you guessed it) more room for joy, more opportunities to experience joy, and a greater chance to share it.
Many factors go into achieving life balance. Balance comes directly from how the different aspects of our lives are working together and landing evenly or unevenly amongst themselves. There is a wellness wheel model that I absolutely love that suggests that there are 8 dimensions of wellness that create that balance. We will talk more about that next week. In the meantime picture in your mind, a wheel with 8 spokes, and each evenly contributes to the balanced utility of the wheel. If one spoke is broken or off-balance, the whole wheel is off.
In the meantime, how can we create balance in our life TODAY? Sometimes when we are pulling our hair out and at our wits’ end, we just need a list of resources to ease the tension, stop the chaos, and feel centered. Here are my top 10 ways to do just that.
Top 10 Ways to Create Life Balance
Initiate Self Care! So this one is #1 because honestly, aside from all of the cliches and hype around it, it really is the most important one. Stress and burnout experienced from work, home, or say living in a pandemic, takes a toll on us both physically and mentally. Our bodies have a funny way of giving us signals that we are overdoing it. Have you ever felt pain? Fatigue? Weary? Foggy? Confused? Melancholy? Yeah, so that means you need a break. By initiating self-care or a mommy time-out or whatever you want to call it, you are taking control of yourself, your boundaries, your input, your everything. When you can stop all the “busyness” and say “I am going to take care of me”, that is quite honestly the best thing you can do for yourself, your family, and your work/business. The balance will come naturally when you are your BEST YOU. You manage other assets of your life right? Your home, car, finances, grocery acquiring, so why not yourself? It’s self-management, plain and simple.
- Create Unique Connections. One of the top four reasons why a business fails and why we struggle at home is because we are not uniquely connecting with our customers, clients, or the people we live with. Make time for what matters in life and in business and that is CONNECTIONS. Your customers will not even give you the time of day if they don’t know, like, and trust you. Your teenagers don’t have to like you…but knowing and trusting you is always a great start to a good relationship. Be you. Be real. Be authentic. Trying to be someone other than yourself will certainly offset your balance.
- Automate @ Work and @ Home. I do my best to automate EVERYTHING. I LOVE being creative but I do NOT LOVE reinventing the wheel. All. Of. The. Time. So whenever possible create a routine and then automate it! Discover the tasks that you do over and over again, write them down in what order they should go in, take note of how often you want to accomplish these tasks then SCHEDULE them (see #4). You will create more brain space (which allows for more creativity) and you also won’t forget a step next time making you more efficient in your work life and home life.
- Plan your day. Or as I like to say, Navigate to Success. Planning your day, week, or month out will keep you on track to what your goals are which will ultimately lead to success. When I plan my days out (allowing for mini-catastrophes of course) I always accomplish more both at home and at the office.
- Nourish your body with good food and movement. If you follow me you know I talk about this A LOT. It’s because it’s fuel for the system, the physical body. When you take care of the structure (the body) that is craving the balance and giving the engine (brain) the correct fuel to create the balance, you will be able to naturally have balance AND to be able to see the “out of balance” signs earlier.
- Set boundaries. This is a tough one. I think most people are people pleasers. I know I am. I am working hard on not being one. When you set boundaries on whatever you feel overextended in, you are saying, this is not serving me and my goals, and therefore, I cannot be my best self in any contribution that I offer. Go ahead and read that one again. It matters because YOU matter!
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Minimize. This is a hard one as well, but I highly recommend you work on getting rid of things that no longer serve you or as Marie Kondo suggests, bring you joy. I get it..we are trying to provide for our families. Sometimes we think that providing means having stuff on hand “just in case”. Been there. The truth is we don’t need “just in case stuff” at all. If we need it, like really need it, then we will find a way to go out and buy it. The items will be newer, fresher, and not mangled from sitting on the back end of a bookshelf somewhere in storage.
- Play to your strengths. If you are awful at managing your business’s social marketing and just want to create your product – hire a social media manager. If you hate cleaning your bathrooms – hire someone to JUST clean your bathrooms. Trust me, when you let go of the things that bring you large amounts of stress, you will have so much more energy for the things that matter more to you.
- Prioritize. Make sure you have what is truly important to you at the forefront of your efforts. When you take care of what matters most
, the other stuff naturally falls away and balance seeps right back in.
- Be realistic. Life Balance will not be acquired overnight. It is something we need to work towards in increments, whether it is moment by moment or day by day. Set up small achievable goals for possible changes so that you can be successful in those changes and not overwhelmed. Being realistic in our choices and expectations of ourselves will pave the way to a balance in our lives that will create more room for joy, leaving us feeling remarkable, unstoppable, and balanced.
Life balance is possible. It is a web-and-flow kind of experience, not an either-or situation. Being aware of what creates the imbalance will be just as helpful as applying these resources. You deserve the opportunity to live your best life. Balance will create that for you.
In what ways do you create balance in your life? I would love to hear how you manage it. You can email me HERE and let me know.
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