How To Live A Balanced Life

It’s not always easy. Yesterday in a moment of pure bliss, I found myself reflecting on life balance.

Sat on my kayak in a local harbour, my husband and I had just returned from a 2 hour trip around the coast. He left me bobbing about on the water with his kayak tied to mine whilst he went to get us chips and coffee. On his return, we sat floating around, munching chips whilst basking in the glorious sunshine!

Later in the day, a friend commented that we were lucky to be able to spend a Tuesday afternoon doing this. It’s not the first time that we’ve heard a comment such as this, as yes, we do spend a lot of time doing what we love.

But it’s definitely not down to luck. It’s down to choice. We choose to live balanced lives and play as hard as we work.

I admit, that in the past we’ve got it wrong. We’ve both worked too hard. There have been times that work-loads have caused stress. That stress at times impacted our family and our lives.

But yesterday bobbing about on my kayak, I reflected on the decisions that we made to change this that have allowed us to live far more balanced lives.

Please be re-assured we are far from perfect! There are still times that we work harder than others. There are still times that we just need to put the hours in to meet deadlines. But we choose to restore the balance as a priority.

Here are my 5 top tips, so that you can do the same!

Understand that self-care is of importance. We need maintenance. We need time to unwind. We need time to socialise and do what we love in order to be happy and productive. Book time out in your diary for social activities and guard it with your life. Book time to do the things that bring you joy. Understand that self-care is your most important job. Never feel guilty for doing what makes you feel relaxed or happy. Looking after yourself will fuel productivity at work and benefit everyone around you.

Set an auto-responder up on your email outside of working hours. If you find yourself checking and responding to work emails outside of your normal working hours, then stop. A great way to make this happen is to set up an auto responder. If someone emails you they then receive a response such as “Thank you for your email. I will always respond during the hours of 9am – 5pm and will be in contact shortly”. Knowing that this response has been sent will stop you from emailing back!

Prioritise relationships. I remember a teacher in my school days telling me how important it was to work hard, to get good grades, to go to university in order to get paid well in order to be successful. A huge focus seemed to be on achieving a good wage. Accumulating money appeared to be the way to get rich. Years later, I’m now aware that we are only truly rich when we have many things that money cannot buy…including relationships. Create quality time for relationships. Make time for partners and friends. Ensure that you prioritise relationships every week, not once a month!

Plan to do things that you love with other people. If you make plans with others, this will help you stick to the plan. You are less likely to cancel plans if others are involved because you will be letting them down too. This will also help you prioritise relationships! Why not organise a fun trip out with friends? Be the person who not only prioritises life balance, but the person who reminds others of the benefits of life balance too!

Understand that it’s possible to break the rules! We are conditioned to believe that we need to work hard to pay the bills. We are conditioned to believe that we need to work 9-5. We may believe that we need to work 40 hours a week to bring in a decent income. Often these ‘beliefs’ are as a result of programming; we’ve been influenced by the opinions of others.

I’d recommend starting to look for alternative evidence to open your mind. There are many, many people that don’t work really hard that are still paying their bills. There are may people working the hours of their choice and earning a great income. There are many people that have found ways to work a lot less than 40 hours a week and still provide a decent income for their families! Ask yourself “If I wanted to work less, how could I make it happen?”

If you would like some additional help finding life balance, then why not connect with me for a free no obligation consultation to find out how working with me can help you?