TheLeaderInside.com

Balance! How do you keep the person you are in balance with the universe and with your environment? All those different aspects of “who you are” — they’re like pieces in a puzzle.

Some of those pieces are our work or our play — some of them might be our “happy” selves — some of them might be our “sad” selves. Still others might represent the way we rest — or the way we treat our bodies. It is when all those parts of “who we are” come together in harmony that we find ourselves in balance. While balance is necessary to have a satisfying, energetic, and joyful life, only you can determine what balance means to you.

In order to arrive at your place of balance, it is necessary to determine what makes your life important. So often the demands of life can cause us to make choices that push us off balance. Being off center can have a detrimental effect on our habits, relationships, health, and career.

How can we make those determinations? One way would be to take the various aspects of your life and decide which of them is the most important to you — and then what is the next most important, and so on. These aspects might include family, solitude, activites that help others, healthy eating, personal indulgences, exercise, your job, self-improvement activities, etc.

Perhaps some of these may be taking up more than their fair share of your life, leaving you short-changed on other aspects. Perhaps finding ways to spend less time and energy on these time-consuming, but less fulfilling aspects will give you more time and energy to devote to those that truly fulfill you.

A balanced lifestyle is simply a state of being in which one has time and energy for obligations as well as for pleasures. It is having the time and energy to live well and in a way that is gratifying to you. With its many nuances, balance can be a difficult concept to integrate into your life. Living a balanced existence, however, can help you attain a greater sense of happiness, health, and fulfillment.

~~~ DBL-R