How To Balance Your Life

9:00 am by Diane.S.

Stress can be caused if your life is ‘off balance.’ When life is busy and keeping track of time is difficult, it is easy to find yourself not being able to focus on elements of your life which are important to you. Taking a bird’s eye view, your time and life becomes a parasol spinning, making you unable to focus your energy on the roles you play in life. This template on how to balance your life considers each area in your life and will give you a visual representation of the way your life is at the moment. It will highlight to you the area which you have less influence in and the area you have more control and involvement in.

Learning how to balance your life will allow stress relief to be a lot easier and more effective.

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BALANCING YOUR LIFE ‘CIRCLE OF LIFE’

The template is very easy to use and can be used for a diverse of issues and self improvement areas. The template as shown below consists of a circle divided into 8 sections; this can be increased and decreased depending on how many areas your life focuses on. Each section is contains numbers, 1 starting from the centre moving outwards to the edge up to 10.

How To Balance Your Life

1. Begin with writing down a list of key areas of life that are important to you such as family, friends, careers, education, finances, fitness, health etc, and then within each key area write down what vital roles you play, e.g. mother/father, husband/wife, sister/brother, friend, employee, colleague, manager etc.

2. Each area along with the roles place around the edges of the ‘circle of life.’

3. Consider each section in turn and rank then 1 (low) – 10 (high) in relation to how much time and attention you devote to that area or role.

4. Join up the numbers around the circle.

5. Highlight the areas which you either spend too much or too little time and attention on. Just an additional point, having a balanced life does not mean the same number value for each role and key area as the focus and attention for some may vary. You need to highlight whether you are under or overcompensating in an area.

6. On a separate ‘circle of life’ write down the same sections again however plot your ideal scores. This will be your aim, your action plan.

The last thing to do once the areas have been identified is plan how to balance your life by taking action. In areas which take up too much of your time and attention, what can you cut down on? Is there anything unnecessary that you are involved in? Is there a simpler activity that can be done to make life easier? Cutting down and finding new easier and less time consuming activities within these areas will mean that you will get chance to have more involvement and participation in the areas that have been neglected.Completing this activity is not half the battle because unfortunately the hardest part is putting this plan into action. Therefore I have put together a top tips guide and ways to relieve stress to hopefully help you succeed to a balanced life.

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HOW TO BALANCE YOUR LIFE TOP TIPS

Balancing your life tip one:

“You” time. Make time for yourself, and this time with yourself takes precedence over others. This will be the chance for you to recharge your batteries and do something you enjoy. Using breathing exercises for stress is handy as it allows you to rest and focus, it also will allow your brain to stay calm so you can review your thoughts. Put yourself in your calendar and organiser frequently and make sure you don’t miss an appointment!

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Balancing your life tip two:

Looking after you. Even though busy people may find it difficult but never miss a meal as your physical and mental energy is dependent on it. Create an exercise routine, perhaps once or twice a week you walk to and from work, or go for a short jog. If you are healthier and have more stamina, you can work better and longer. Exercise for stress relief is extremely effective. Most importantly, rest.

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Balancing your life tip three:

Prioritise. Remember that having everything perfect is not necessary. This top tip is one of the hardest to achieve as it requires discipline and pushing yourself to achieve the best results. Take this tip set by set and over time your discipline and willingness to do things will grow. If one day you find it difficult to prioritise, do not punish yourself as negative reinforcement does not work. If this happens all you need to do is understand why you went off track and this will highlight a weakness and an area to improve on.

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Balancing your life tip four:

Boundaries or blur the boundaries? A strategy to life balance which can work both ways. Creating boundaries allows a person to ring a circle around certain activities and classify them in an area or role. Blurring the boundaries works effectively for example mixing the roles with family.

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Balancing your life tip five:

Take a break from routine. You do exactly what it says on the tin, break the routine.

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Balancing your life tip six:

Do something out of the ordinary, in the context of your daily routine. This will help you avoid certain traits being woven into your life. So instead of walking the same route to work, try a new one! Instead of having your usual morning cereal and coffee, try a muffins and a fruit juice.

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Balancing your life tip seven:

Appreciate the surroundings. Be still, quiet and listen to the surroundings. A good exercise is to sit in a garden or park with a pen and paper and just for ten minutes sit, listen and write down all the sounds you hear; or write down what you can visualise from the sounds. Using aromatherapy for stress relief is beneficial especially if you get time alone to appreciate your surroundings and using scented candles makes the experience more pleasant and relaxing.

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Balancing your life tip eight:

Do what you enjoy. Let your mind focus on an activity which you love doing, because the more the love this activity the more competent you become and as a person you become more balanced.

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Balancing your life tip nine:

Strategies are an important issue to raise. Focus on ways you can become successful at gaining a balanced life by using time more effectively. Therefore the strategy for successful life balance is looking at each activity you do and questioning your actions in relation to its time effectiveness. Is your time really being put to good use? Is the time you are spending on an activity really worth it? Is there an activity that would give me the same results but be quicker and easier?

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Balancing your life tip ten:

Reward yourself. Two simple words which rarely anyone does. If you have achieved or overcome an obstacle you should reward yourself, positive reinforcement is excellent for the mind and continuous positive reinforcement lets your brain know that if you do well you hall be rewarded. It is a good habit to get into, however be aware not to take it to the extreme, as generosity and voluntary help is rewarding in itself.

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Hopefully this template and top tips will help you understand how to balance your life and enable you to reduce the impact of stress in your life.