“This foundation not only creates a greater sense of balance, but it will also help you recover much quicker in the inevitable times of imbalance.”
Life is a balancing act; one is which we are striving to achieve our goals while still balancing all of the areas of our lives. Balance within all the chaos of our lives not only brings health, wellness and happiness but it’s been shown to boost productivity and efficiency in our tasks. Yet, very often, we only concern ourselves with our balance when we realize that we do not have any.
99FM’s MYD Heart spoke to Karen Powell a creativity coach, lifestyle mentor, and this week’s guest on the MYD Show, who has prepared a toolkit for us to help us build strong balance foundations that will keep us balanced even in stressful times.
Toolkit for Creating Balance in Your Life by Karen Powell
To have a “balanced life” does not mean that everything is going great all the time. Life is made up of joy, sorrow, ease, challenge, and everything in between. There are a lot of moving parts to our lives and striving for a total balance of them at all times is just not possible.
But you can create a strong, healthy foundation to your life by becoming aware of your priorities, your values, the choices you make, the actions you take and how honest you’re willing to be with yourself. This foundation not only creates a greater sense of balance, but it will also help you recover much quicker in the inevitable times of imbalance.
Here are some ways you can create a strong, healthy foundation that helps support a more balanced life:
Take an inventory of your life right now.
The first step in making any kind of change is awareness and acknowledgment of where you are right now. Draw a large circle and on the inside write down everything in your life that fuels and supports you. On the outside of the circle write down everything that is draining you and stressing you out or feels out of balance.
Prioritise your values.
Everyone has their own unique priorities in life. For one person it might be their family, another their career, another their health and how they look. There’s no right or wrong. But know what yours are so you can create balance that feels right for you.
Get honest with yourself.
Are your choices and actions in alignment with what you say your priorities are? For example, if you say reading to your children at bedtime every night is a top priority and something you value, yet you’re working until 8:00 every night and are too tired and grumpy to read to your kids, then your actions aren’t matching up to what you say your priorities are.
Schedule in your priorities.
Create a “non-negotiable” category in your life and schedule your top priorities into your days and weeks and months. This could be your exercise times, time spent with your kids, your partner, whatever is of importance to you. Use a calendar and create a boundary around your non-negotiables. Plan your day before it starts! If you don’t, then things that are important to you can easily get pushed aside by things that are important to others.
Say No.
Saying No creates space. Our lives tend to get more and more cluttered – both with material things and with various time-sucking activities. Clear out what you’re not using, or what no longer serves you. Do you really need to sit on five different committees? Have you “outgrown” any of them?
Allow yourself to receive. One of the quickest ways to create imbalance in your life is to keep on giving and not allow yourself to receive. Practice receiving compliments, gifts, money, freebies, help. Allowing yourself to receive “fills the well.”
Get back to the basics of self-care. Building a strong, healthy foundation of self-care goes a long way in creating a balanced life. You can’t pour from an empty cup. Get plenty of sleep, eat healthy food, drink lots of water, safely express your emotions and incorporate some kind of exercise or movement into your day.
Listen to your feelings. Feelings of irritation, exhaustion, anger, resentment, insomnia, depression can all be signs your life is greatly out of balance. Your feelings are your best messengers and can help you get back into balance if you listen to them. Make adjustments in your life based on what your feelings are trying to tell you.
You have to take responsibility for your life.
Creating balance is really about making choices based on your values and priorities. And because of that, no one else can do it for you.
Get in touch with Karen through her website by clicking here
Or contact Karen by emailing her at karen@kcpowell.com