5 Steps You Can Take Today To Balance Your Life
Although work life balance is an ongoing exercise, there are a number of things you can do right away to provide some significant improvement in this regard.
Step 1: Taking the Balanced Life Wheel Exercise
One of our previous posts goes into detail on how to use the 
Balance Wheel Exercise to get a good gauge on how well balanced your life currently is and what you can do to improve on it.
The gist of it is that you create a “wheel” made up of the most important aspects of your life and then rate them. You can connect the lines and see visually what areas are out of balance.
No matter where you are in your life, this is a quick and easy way to get started. You’ll be on the path of life balance and the journey to where you want to be in life.
It’s also a fun exercise to share with your friends and family to see where each of you fall and discuss how you can help each other out.
Step 2: Write Out Your 30 Day, 90 Day, 1 Year And 3 Year Goals
With the Balance Wheel Exercise you will get a good feel for where you are at in terms of balance, but it might also spark some ideas on goals you would like to set.The most successful people in the world got that way because of goals, either written or implied.Several statistics show that only 5% of people actually write down their goals.
You should break the goals into three areas:Personal, Business, and Career.
The reason we have come up with those four time frames is because it provides the best perspective to make real change happen.30 days is enough to get the ball rolling on new projects. 90 days gives you enough time to really test and maintain a habit. 1 year is a standard time frame to reflect on personal progress. 3 years is enough time in the future for you to reach for something tangible, but not so far as to make it unrealistic.
Take your time, write these goals on quality paper, or type them up.Keep it in a place that will constantly remind you of what you are working on.
Step 3: Get A Mentor Or Coach
Accountability increases the likelihood of a goal or commitment taking place.That’s why coaches and mentors are so crucial to reaching your ultimate potential. A lot of people feel their friends are good enough and they don’t need a coach. The difference between a coach and a friend is that a coach will tell you what you need to hear and know. A friend’s job is to be nice and supportive, but not necessarily help you become something better. When you ask a friend if this dress makes you look fat they’ll tell you “Of course not”, if you ask a coach they’ll tell you, “Yes, but I can help you fit in a dress half that size.”
Coaches and mentors can be found in a variety of places and often evolve as your needs do.As a child my church leaders were my mentors, they helped me learn important values and helped me progress personally through programs like scouting and school. In college I went into marketing so I mentored with my professors and one of the Marketing Managers at Dell where I worked. Today, I still have many of those same mentors but have acquired a few more. Jim Dryburgh mentors me from a coaching and business level, having made a great living for himself from a modest upbringing. In addition, Jim has put me in touch with even more Marketing Executives to help my career.
If there is one step that can make the biggest impact in the next several years it is coaching. If you have any trouble finding one of your own, we can help you.
Step 4: Spend Time With Loved Ones
Nothing will bring you down to earth and understand what matters in life more than loved ones.Any time you hit a rough patch, could use support, or just need to talk to someone; these are the heroes who answer the call.
In most cases your manager, the owner of your company or your possessions, who get most of your time anyways, are never fully there when things go wrong.
Any person who has lost a loved one knows the feeling of wishing they had more time to spend with them. Heck, I feel it when I see a picture of an old family pet. My wife lost her dad in a car accident before she was 25, it’s a hard thing to forget.
If there is to be one area you proportionately spend time more in, loved ones is not a bad way to go.
Step 5: Serve Someone
So how does serving have anything to do with balance and reaching your ultimate potential?I admit it does seem an odd choice, but service is one key step we tend to forget when thinking about OUR balance and OUR journey.
Service is one of the most powerful tools in our arsenal.I recall one remarkable example of how service can help us find our ultimate potential and balanced life.
The Story of Dr. McConnell
A few years ago Newsweek published an article written by Jack McConnell, MD. “He grew up in the hills of southwest Virginia in the United States as one of seven children of a Methodist minister and a stay-at-home mother. Their circumstances were very humble. He recounted that during his childhood, every day as the family sat around the dinner table, his father would ask each one in turn, “And what did you do for someone today?” The children were determined to do a good turn every day so they could report to their father that they had helped someone. Dr. McConnell calls this exercise his father’s most valuable legacy, for that expectation and those words inspired him and his siblings to help others throughout their lives. As they grew and matured, their motivation for providing service changed to an inner desire to help others.
Besides Dr. McConnell’s distinguished medical career—where he directed the development of the tuberculosis tine test, participated in the early development of the polio vaccine, supervised the development of Tylenol, and was instrumental in developing the magnetic resonance imaging procedure, or MRI—he created an organization he calls Volunteers in Medicine, which gives retired medical personnel a chance to volunteer at free clinics serving the working uninsured. Dr. McConnell said his leisure time since he retired has “evaporated into 60-hour weeks of unpaid work, but [his] energy level has increased and there is a satisfaction in [his] life that wasn’t there before.” He made this statement: “In one of those paradoxes of life, I have benefited more from Volunteers in Medicine than my patients have.” There are now over 70 such clinics across the United States.
Dr. McConnell could have retired with good conscience from all the exceptional medical advances he was a part of, but he chose to do more.His service led to his real passion and ultimate potential as well as giving him increased energy and satisfaction.
Examples From My Own Life
In my own life, my mother has been a standing example of service.Growing up she was a stay at home mom who put 100% of her time into raising us. She gave back to the community leading Christmas drives, helping mothers of children with cancer, and teaching kids how to speak. In her church she wrote each speaker that week a thank you card and dropped off gifts for each of the woman’s birthdays. Even though she did this without any intention of self benefit, the people she served couldn’t help but return favors. We joke each year when her birthday arrives, saying that it lasts a week. Her birthday is October 6th, but from October 3rd to the 9th gifts show up at the door and every lunch and dinner is booked with friends that want to take her out.
What Are Some Other Steps You Can Take Today to Balance Your Life and Reach Your Ultimate Potential?
Please Share Here
These aren’t the only steps you can take right away to start balancing your life and reach your Ultimate Potential.If you have some of your own, we’d love to hear it in our comments section below.
Share these steps on your blog or site. Let us know what stories of success you have experienced.
References
Jack McConnell, “And What Did You Do for Someone Today?” Newsweek, June 18, 2001, 13
http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=cae4ad2dbbb94210VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=f318118dd536c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD
image courtesy of Steve Weaver
