Are you working to live or living to work? There’s a big difference. I had a conversation recently with a friend who was struggling to find work/life balance and since so many others have a similar challenge, here are 5 tips for better work/life balance and for getting back to living blissfully.
Write down your feel-good activities
Taking time to write down and become more aware of our feel good activities is a great exercise to do for our mental and our physical health. Some of the feel good activities might involve:
- Spending time around certain friends
- Working out
- A walk or hike in nature
- Going for a bike-ride
- Meditating and practicing presence
- Reading something positive for 30 minutes
- Doing yoga,
- A good board game or a puzzle to help south the soul.
Writing down your feel good activities is a great exercise for self-awareness and as quoted by John Assaraf:
“Self awareness gives us choice, choice gives us power”
John Assaraf, (Author, Motivational Speaker, featured in The Secret)
Without conscious effort, it’s easy to fill up our week with necessary activities, like work and other sappers, while forgetting all about– or being completely unaware of our energy-giving activities. Don’t fall into that trap and if you have, it’s time to break out.
Prioritize Your Zappers
Once you are aware and have written down your feel good activities (or “Zappers” as I’ve mentioned in a previous post)– make the decision to prioritize them as a part of your week. Afterall,
If your week is only full of activities that are neutral (or ones that drain your energy and you only complete out of necessity)– how in the world are you supposed to end the week feeling good?
Especially, if you work a high stress job, have a family to care for, while managing other responsibilities, it may feel like you don’t have enough time, but here is some advice for you busy bees:
The busier you are, the more stressed you are, the more responsibilities lie on your shoulders– the more important it is to make time for yourself, because
You can’t pour from an empty cup
Joseph Fleming
Prioritize and follow through with your feel good habits to bring forth positive balance back into your life and for those who struggle with having enough time, although you can’t acquire more, you can learn to manage it better...
Google Calendar your way to happiness
One of the first things I often do with my coaching clients, both face to face and online, whether their goals are physical, mental, financial, or more on the spiritual development side, has often been helping them set up a methodical calendar.
The amount of people who still do not use a calendar and keep track of all their daily duties and reminders in their head, wondering why they feel stressed– to me, is astonishing. Being disorganized is a sure way to stress yourself out.
Most stress we tend to amplify, while some can be avoided altogether.
Coach
A methodical calendar not overloaded with nonsense, set up with reminders, and one that is within reach always, is a great tool to help with your stress and start feeling like you have more time for yourself again. So, stop using your brain as a filing cabinet for to-do lists that lie dormant until you try to sleep and start using your brain for it’s true purpose once again: for creation, for curiosity, for higher level thinking, for becoming more conscious (a more in depth spiritual term for self awareness), and for developing clarity of thought. And remember,
We don’t lose or gain time, it’s how we manage it that makes the difference when it comes to our happiness…
Coach
Outsource in order to save time
I have a friend who has been very successful with his business (while maintaining good balance in his life). He is not yet 30, just bought a beautiful detached home in Toronto, travels often, surprised his mother with her dream car on her birthday, works according to his open time, and overall is wise well beyond his years. I converse with him often, making sure to listen more than I speak so I can learn what has worked for him. Throughout our conversations, one thing I realized is that he is a master of outsourcing– the purpose of which is to free up his time to focus on higher leverage activities, things that make him happy, or both.
Especially for tedious, time consuming activities, ask yourself,
Do I really need to do this?
Is there a way to delegate, service tradeoff, outsource, or tackle certain responsibilities as a team with my partner, friends, or even get my kids involved so that I may focus on activities I enjoy, I’m good at, and that give me the highest leverage towards achieving my goals?
Outsourcing can come in many forms from:
- Hiring an assistant
- Utilizing a meal prep service (otherwise, simplify your meal prep)
- Doing a service exchange
- Putting your kids to work and help out with certain household duties (this may pay dividends later on when they’re in college not living in a messhold and eating kraft dinner every 2nd meal…)
Set goals to look forward to
As I write this, maybe, just maybe, I saved the best, most important for last. If you don’t have goals and dreams outside of work to look forward to– what are you working for? Give yourself a why. Make plans to go away, to gather with friends, to take your partner somewhere special, to experience life in some exciting way.
Always, have something to look forward to.
Closing thoughts
By the way, if you made it this far and are wondering where I got these tips from– these are some of the steps I’ve learned and I take early on with my online coaching clients (I don’t like to use the term life coaching– although Ill admit it pretty much is…) to make sure that they are choosing and prioritizing high ROI activities throughout their week. Reach out if you are interested in online coaching for setting and achieving goals both in and outside of your fitness goals– or for conversation in general.
Rooting for your happiness always,
Coach