Life has always been demanding. The demands increase with time. You have been misguided if you believe that finally there will be a day when you will have more time at hand.
It is tough to find a balance, and it is very easy to let life get out of control. Chaos, anxiety, stress are the unwelcome guests ever willing to visit your life. Nevertheless, you always have the choice to lead a life of balance. You can do so, only if bringing balance to life is a priority with you.
If you cannot find balance in your life within the current ecosystem and environment then there is no surety if your attempts to do so will succeed in the future.
It is not a exemplary talent to lose the whole day trying to chase your targets and objectives. We all are good at it. At the end, many a time, we feel that we have achieved nothing. The balance slips away, and you lose the control.
It is only for you to decide if you really want balance in your life. If you do, you may want to try following strategies to make your busy life a lot more meaningful, interesting, and invigorating.
While I share the strategies for a balanced life, I presume that you have taken time to define what “balanced life” means to you.How much of your waking hours will you willingly spend at work? How much of your time would you spend at home? How many leisure hours do you need each week? How would you spend those hours?
Be Patient:
If you are impatient, then it is always tough for you to analyze your life. In truth, your life is a lot more balanced than you think, and your impatience is tinting the observations. Being impatient is a sure way to agitate you. It leads to you being incapable of any action in that agitated state. Being patient helps in better managing challenging situations.
Simplify:
Only we are to blame for the way we have given a new meaning and definition to progress. You have been in a race to buy more things than you need and take on more responsibilities than you can manage. Remember every single little unnecessary item in life is creating imbalance. It is for you to take charge, eliminate the superfluous and bring more harmony into your life.
Make Health a Priority:
Stop sacrificing for everyone and everything in your hectic life. This is one mistake that you must avoid. Without good health, there is no balance possible in life. If for any reason, you fail to give health the priority, it deserves, sooner or later bad health will make you focus on it. At that stage, it will be more complicated and create more imbalance.
Stop Attempting to Multitask:
Hope you understand what is real multitasking. It is not about doing too many things simultaneously. It means in doing the right thing at the right moment, doing one thing at a time and moving to another task. When you work in such a way, you finish many things rather than leaving things partially completed. Try out.
Plan Slot Downtime:
‘Saving’ is not what is left but what you take out of available funds at the start, ‘Downtime’ is not the time that is left over after responsibilities are completed? Downtime must be planned and slotted on purpose. You must plan for it. It also becomes a motivator when you know there is a planned break ahead. It funnily ends up enhancing the efficiency of your actions.
Start Early:
Procrastination is easier than going through the day’s work and taking decisions. Time is a valuable resource that you cannot create. You too have the same 24 hours. Once you fall behind, the entire day is out of balance. Starting your day with a clear purpose makes it easy. Once you take this step. The rest falls in place.
Focus on what means most to You:
Oh, yes, your family and job are priority for you. Then what comes next? What is that is meaningful? Is it adventure sport, trekking, movies, painting, writing? Remember working never should be the ONLY priority in your life. If you are able to devote and focus on activities, you enjoy and, which mean a lot to you, you will enjoy life to its fullest.
Give relationships the time they demand:
When I say this, I am not necessarily and definitely not just referring to the romantic relationships. You must add friends, family and extended family to it. These relationships demand time that you must find. Analyse, if you are not wasting time on something less meaningful, for example, watching television. Hopefully, that is not your way of spending quality time with someone dear to you.
Get enough Sleep:
Proper sleep of minimum seven hours can help you do better. There is enough research to show that performance improves in the both physical and mental spaces when one gets seven-hour sleep. If not, it is time for you to re-examine your life and priorities.
Be Selfish. Prioritise yourself over Everything:
You can take better care of other, only if you have taken good care of yourself. When you are at your best; you perform at your peak. Being selfish in this case is a positive as everyone in your life benefit’s from it.
Not everything will work for you. You will have to find the strategy that works for you. You will still have to find a balance in above strategies before you find balance in your life. Hence here is a short cut, the final advice and it is simple. Create a well-balanced life by choosing your priorities wisely. Please prioritise yourself over everything else.
………………………………………………………………………….
Sanjeev Kotnala with 28 years of corporate experience is the founder of Intradia World; a Brand, Marketing & Management Advisory. His focus area includes Ideation and Innovation; he also conducts specialized workshops like IDEAHarvest, Liberate and InNoWait. For soft skill training, he follows SHIFT (Specific High-Intensity Frequent training), a process of continuous training with frequent shorter sessions. Email sanjeev@intradia.in tweet @s_kotnala web: www.intradia.in, www.sanjeevkotnala.com.
