What is “Life Balance” and How Can You Attain it?

Life balance is that place where you enjoy and thrive in all three of your lives simultaneously, without guilt and without internal conflicts.

These are the three lives you will prosper and enjoy, all at the same time.

Our work lives. This is where most of us spend a majority of our time an effort. We gain financial rewards, but also many other personal rewards as well. We gain feelings of accomplishment, of belonging, of acceptance, of winning, of competition, of gratitude, of appreciation, of respect, of status, and of contributing. We gain a great deal from our work, much of which is unstated.

Our personal lives. This involves our personal health, our relationship with a higher being, if at all, our hobbies, and our personal integrity.

Our family lives. This involves the relationships we have with the blood relatives we want to keep, and any others we allow inside our inner circle.

People achieve balance when they are able to consciously and subconsciously align their thoughts and activities for all three of their lives, one at a time, so they are in the moment for each one, with clarity and confidence. People who are in balance, experience “being in the zone” of life. As you can imagine, each of these lives will attract our interests and can create various demands on our time, resources, and energy. When we ALLOW these worlds to create demands that compete with the other, such that we must choose one world at the expense of the other, on a continuous basis, we get out of balance.

The steps to attaining life balance?

First, you will want to discover who you really are, what you stand for, and your beliefs and values. There are two levels to research. The easiest and most accessible is your conscious or rational self, where you logically dissect then evaluate things. But the real you is involve your true inner values, beliefs and spirituality within your subconscious. People can learn to rationalize almost anything, but they cannot hide or escape from their inner core values. You can try to discover and learn about your inner values on your own that will be a trial and error long time effort or go straight to thecore facts with your own life coach.

Conflicts and personal stress occur when the rational self accepts and conducts actions that are contrary to the inner values that have been suppressed. Take the time and energy to discover your inner values and beliefs and allow your intuition to take center stage in your thoughts and action processes. When you follow your instincts in an environment that embraces you, you enter the “zone.”

Discover your inner passions and priorities. Most people have inner passions that really excite and motivate them. These passions develop early in life and change with time. Yet, we frequently suppress them. These passions are almost always good in nature and very positive. The executive may have a passion to create a rose garden. The housewife may have a passion to play the drums. But they don’t, because they do not recognize and accept their inner passions and if they did, their conscious mind would rationalize that they “shouldn’t” after responding to all of the previously implanted “shoulds” by others. Yet, both the executive and the housewife feel something is missing and can’t put a finger on it.

We have all been told from childbirth what to do and what not to do. We follow many rules because it is best for living harmoniously with others and ourselves. But, along the way we are also told by parents, teachers, advisors, and bosses what we “should” and “should not” do to suit THEIR personal agendas and perspectives. These are the “shoulds” that we carry with us and try to follow with very confusing and mixed results. For example, you might go to law school to become a lawyer because your parents strongly felt you “should” become a lawyer. Or you might become a full time mom and raise a family early on in life because that is what everyone did where you grew up.

Life is a bowl of conflicts and stress occurs when competing forces interfere with your ability to decide what to do. Additional stress occurs when you feel bad about doing some things, because you feel you “should” be doing something else. So you end up not enjoying or fully completing what you do because you continue to think you “should” be doing something else. The famous Lose-Lose scenario.

Once you are able to be honest with yourself and discover your true passions and desires, you will be in the position to determine the priorities you place on each. It will be much easier and clearer to evaluate and establish these priorities, since you will now know what the choices are and more importantly you will be the only person involved in making the decision. You will be free from having to consider the conflicting forces of the “shoulds” which are based upon what others want you to do. This will be a great relief, because you will not have to live through the agendas or desires of others, which can be a very tricky thing, even if you tried. Now it is only you deciding, and the choices become much easier.

For example the executive can decide that focusing on her leadership position is a high priority, but spending four hours a week to work on the rose garden will provide her the relaxation and personal enjoyment she wants and needs to function better as an executive. She will be motivated to focus more on her executive duties as she is doing them, knowing that doing so will lead her to being able to exercise her passion of raising her own roses. Now she will enjoy doing both and will be better at participating in both functions with very little, if any, conflict. Balance!

Eliminate guilt you impose upon yourself. Recognize that you cannot always make the best decisions all of the time. One great philosopher, Claude Lunsford, said that you want to make decisions based upon your true inner beliefs, purposes and the information you gather at the time. You evaluate the options available and make the best decision, based upon the truth. Then you want to accept the decision as being the best you could have made at the time.

Now that you know all about yourself, and how to make decisions without guilt, you are poised to use this information to visualize your desirable life and develop a number of life goals that will take you to where you want to go. People reach life balance when they know where they want to go, set the goals to get there, and initiate the necessary steps to achieve their goals.