How balanced is your life? Did you ever sit down and prioritize the goals you want to accomplish? One thing that often is forgotten is your diet.
That amazing machine called your body keeps you going and going. But without the proper fuel for your engine, you gradually slow down and your machine starts to "malfunction" (e.g. colds, flu, aches, fatigue).
Carbohydrates protect your body's protein supply instead of burning it for energy. They also give you energy for walking on your treadmill, riding that bicycle, or taking an evening run.
Strong bones, good muscle tone, and a strong immune system are made possible with the help of vitamins which are found naturally in your food supply. The addition of vitamin supplements can be very beneficial as well. Good nutrition gives you clarity of mind to help make sound decisions because you feel better and have more energy.
Include your whole family in your resolution to eat smart. Few things are more rewarding than sharing a great meal with the people you love most, your family, in the comforts of home.
Balance. If you ever wear heels, strap on a pair of roller blades, or ride a bicycle, you appreciate the natural sense of balance. It is amazing that although we feel a deep urgency to maintain physical balance, we often let the rest of our lives become unbalanced.
In everyone's life there are major responsibilities that need to be addressed. These areas range from family and friends to career and community responsibilities. Without direction, the obligations arising from these responsibilities can leave us feeling like the rope in a tug- of-war game. How can we ensure balance in our lives?
1. Prioritize. Make a list of the major areas of your life, and then prioritize them.
2. Plan. Once you have prioritized your responsibilities, look at the week ahead. Plan your time according to your list of priorities and give the necessary time to the most important responsibilities. Make an agenda of your activities and keep it with you at all times.
3. Persevere. The only way that prioritization works is to stick to your agenda and safeguard your time so you can accomplish your week's goals. Keep your agenda in front of you to maintain your focus.
You don't have to live life as if you are constantly walking in heels or learning to roller blade. Simply balance your priorities.
Trust Me - Emotional Bank Accounts
Trust is a necessary ingredient in any relationship. In order to be truly comfortable with someone, we need to know we can trust that person. Although it may not be hard to come by, trust is extremely difficult to earn once it has been broken.
One way to create and maintain trust in a relationship is to feed each other's emotional bank account. What is an emotional bank account? In much the same way that we have checking and savings accounts, we each have an emotional bank account. We open an account with another person when we meet. From that moment on, we make deposits and withdrawals just as we would a bank account. And, just as in a traditional bank account, everything is fine until we overdraw the account. This is the point at which trust, respect -- even the entire relationship -- can be lost.
By making consistent deposits everyday, we can prevent being overdrawn. For instance, we can write a thank you note to someone who has always been there for us, or we could offer childcare for a friend who has not been out in a while. These little deposits will make up for the times when withdrawals are inevitable.
Begin making deposits of trust into the emotional bank accounts of the relationships you value.
Balance. If you've ever worn heels, strapped on a pair of roller blades, or ridden a bicycle, you probably have learned to appreciate a natural sense of balance. Isn't it amazing, though, that although we feel a deep urgency to have physical balance, we often let our lives go unbalanced?
Every life has major areas of importance that need to be addressed. These areas can range from family and friends to career and community responsibilities. Without direction, the obligations arising from these responsibilities can leave us feeling like the rope in the middle of a tug-of-war game. So, how can we ensure balance in our lives?
1. Prioritize. List the major areas of your life and then number them in order of priority.
2. Once you have prioritzed your responsibilities, look at the week ahead. Plan your time accordingly by giving the time needed to the areas that matter most.
3. Stick to your plan. The only way that priorities work is if you make sure that they stay at the priority level that you give them (assuming that it doesn't come to your attention that your priorities need some rearranging).
You don't have to live life as if you are constantly walking in heels. All you need to do is balance your priorities.
Do you feel like trying to balance your life is like walking a tightrope? One way to keep things balanced is to make sure you are doing one special thing every month in each area of your life.
1. Do something special for yourself each month. No, that isn't being selfish; it's taking care of yourself. You may enjoy rock climbing, shopping all afternoon, or curling up some evening and watching a good old movie with popcorn. Whatever you enjoy, make time for it!
2. Be sure to keep in touch with your family. A long letter to a relative is often worth ten phone calls because it can be read over and over again.
3. Let the people with whom you work and your friends know that you will be there for them if they ever need help. Everyone needs someone sometime.
4. Save time for your friends. Picnic together, offer to help them with a big chore like painting their house or redecorating their living room, or just invite them over for a game night.
5. Look for an opportunity to reach out and help someone in your community.
Realize that balancing your life is like walking a tightrope, and that's not necessarily bad. There are times when you will totter from one side to another. Just don't be caught without your umbrella to help you keep your balance.
If you've looked at yourself in the mirror lately, you may have noticed that you do not have a big "S" centered ever so perfectly on your chest. There's a good reason for this. You see, Super Person isn't real. But for some reason, people try to do so many things that only a Super Person could stand up to the pace. Career, home, health, finances, family, diet, recreation, relaxation and more. What starts to happen is that one aspect of your life starts to infringe on another and you begin to feel stressed.
The key to a happy, harmonious, stress-reduced life is balance. It is okay to let other family members help you carry the load of taking care of your family and tending to the new house. If you can't go to your 3 o'clock dental appointment and still get the kids to their 4 o'clock doctors' appointments, how about asking your parents or your spouse for assistance? Perhaps next time you could schedule them on separate days to avoid this stress.
You haven't sat down to write those "thank you" cards for the housewarming gifts you got because after work, you had to: stop at the grocery store on the way home, cook dinner, help the kids with their homework, feed the gerbils, throw a load of clothes in the washer, shower, and before you know it, it's time for bed. You can't recall the last time you and your family sat down and just talked. It's time that you make the time.
The way to make time is to sit down and prioritize all aspects of your life. After you have figured out what goes where, when, and how, delegate who will do it. You can balance your life by spreading yourself out. If preparing a five-course meal every night takes time away from enjoying your family, consider making something simpler. Teach the kids how to feed the gerbils. You did laundry yesterday, so today you can sit down and write those thank you cards.
If you have personal time or vacation time available at work that you haven't taken, use several days to just relax and do absolutely nothing or meet your spouse for lunch.
Balance is essential in everyone's life. No one can do the same thing all day, every day. "All work and no play" does more than make us dull; it sets us up for unhealthy lifestyles and relationships.
One of the best ways to keep balance is to define what balance means for you in your life; everyone has different values and will devote different amounts of time to each part of their lives. Once you determine a definition, outline specific daily actions that will maintain that balance. For example, make a written list of three to seven major areas of your life and then determine three to five measurable actions to take in each of those major areas.
Keeping balanced in life is not something you do once; you have to deal with it continually. It's something that consistently changes, and weekly attention needs to be given to it. Often people will get their lives out of balance over a longer period of time, maybe three to five years, and then expect to get it balanced in a week. Remember that you didn't get to where you are overnight and you probably won't change overnight.
It's something that consistently changes, and weekly attention needs to be given to it. Often people will get their lives out of balance over a longer period of time, maybe three to five years, and then expect to get it balanced in a week. Remember that you didn't get to where you are overnight, and you probably won't change overnight.
Divide major areas of balance into small actions in which you can concentrate and be successful. Maybe your spouse is saying that you don't give him/her enough time or don't seem to care for him/her as much as you did in the past. Reflect on what you used to do when you felt like there was more balance in the relationship, and start doing some of those things on a daily basis. It's amazing to see how results and feelings will follow actions.
If you feel like you need more balance with friends or children, look for small things that don't take much time but pack a great deal of meaning. It may be as simple as a hand-written note once a week or a tenminute phone call once a day.
Another way to balance your life is to build specific routines that automatically help you attain balance. Every Friday night could be date night, Sunday could be for spiritual focus, Monday night could be for football, Tuesday could be game night with the family, Wednesday could be for friends, and Thursday could be a personal night for you to do something for yourself. Visit, call, mail, e-mail—do whatever you can think of to help keep balanced in every area of your life.
You have the freedom to choose and having choices is the hallmark of being free. The most stifling feeling that human beings can have is to feel that they don't have any choices.
From the time we are born until the day we die, having choices and making decisions are a part of life. Babies have no problem letting you know when a choice you make for them isn't to their satisfaction. You remember what your bouncy baby girl did with the strained spinach you chose to give her? What about when she got older and challenged your color-coordination skills? You chose the nice striped slacks with a solid pink top, but your child insists on wearing the nice red and green stripes with gorgeous black and white polka dots and those beloved cowboy boots.
Sometimes that still small voice tells you to do something but you will choose to do something else. It ends up that you should have followed your mind but, hey, you can choose to do what you want to do.
Making choices and vying for options is not a privilege to take lightly. It was your choice to buy the house of your dreams. It is your choice how to decorate it. By choice, you drive the car you drive, work for the company you are with, and eat the foods you like to eat. It is through choices that we have the opportunity to make choices in the first place.
How do you know what choices to make? The choices you make are formulated from the things you like and dislike; feelings and emotions; experiences and education; up bringing; and what you believe to be common sense.
When you make choices for your household, include your family members. When people know that they have a choice in the matter, they are more likely to care about it. You can resolve and prevent many family disputes just by giving family members a choice giving you the option to look at situations from a different perspective.
What you ultimately choose to do is up to you. But keep your options open.
Today, Sally Struthers will be on TV again, to ask for donations to feed the hungry. Today, the homeless will be walking the streets of Chicago again, selling Streetwise, a newspaper whose proceeds help the homeless. Today, more sign-up sheets for projects to help victims of war, poverty, oppression, and many other causes will be hung, awaiting signatures. In a world where so many bad things are happening, there are so many good things each of us could do. How do we know that we will feel good about what we have done with our lives when we reach life's end? One way is to make sure we keep balance in our lives.
Each day we are pulled in several different directions. Just within our personal worlds, we have our careers, friends, relationships, family, and interests to keep balanced. Then, if we add the world's problems to that list, keeping balance can seem impossible. There are,however, a few ways to make sure balance is maintained.
Take time to sit down and write out your goals. Identify where you are investing your time now, and then evaluate if you're efforts are consistent with these goals. This will help you determine if you are investing in areas that will make you feel good about your life and choices.
Another way to make sure you are maintaining balance in your life is to divide your week into five major areas. Then:
1. Make a graph using each as a column heading.
2. Under each headings, list the major things you did in each area.
3. Then write how many hours you have invested in eacharea.
Examples:
| Career— | Worked 45 hours this week |
| Friends— | Played volleyball with group from work Invited Joe, Mary, Ellen, and Jamie over for a cookout |
| Family— | Wrote letters to Aunt Vicki and Uncle Mac Called Mom twice |
| Community— | Volunteered to pass meals out to elderly people in community |
| Yourself— | Read four chapters in "How to Improve One's Self- Esteem" Exercised five times this week Relaxed and watched two hours of TV. |
At the end of the week, ask yourself if you are happy with the balance in your life. If you aren't, look for ways in which you can improve. It is your life, and you are the one who has to live it. Keeping balance will make it that much easier.
There always are things in life that pull at us and demand our attention. The kids want to know when you are going to follow through with your promise to take them to the movies. You work overtime to complete a project just in time for your boss to heap on another top priority project. Your spouse is on your case because you haven't had a night out alone for three years. You paid your bills on time, but forgot to put stamps on the envelopes.
There is so many happening each and every day that it seems unfair to have only 24 hours in a day, that much spills over your 24/7. You need to prioritize your life and make it livable and enjoyable by allocating time. Friday nights are "date night" alone with your spouse. The first weekend of every month is family weekend. Do whatever it takes to make room for the important people in your life.
Balancing your life may involve explain to the important people in your life that you are not Superperson, and then don't try to be that Superperson. Some activities really can wait. Balancing your life is a lot like balancing your checkbook. You have to make sure that the withdrawals don't exceed the deposits.
