Life Strategies
Life Balance
Your Life, Your Balance, Your Choice
It's simple: it's YOUR life, it's up to YOU to balance YOUR life so you are a happier and more fulfilled person. As a bonus, when you begin your journey on the road to happiness and fulfillment, the people you love will join you, and reap the benefits.
Have you got to much on your plate?
Remember the plate spinning act you used to see in the circus? Well, modern living is just like that, isn't it? You rush around trying to keep an impossible number of teetering plates spinning before they crash to the floor.
So do you feel you are continually trying to keep the plates spinning?
Think of all the things in your life that impinge on your time: work, children, your partner, friends, household chores, exercising, having fun, extended family, volunteer work, commuting, shopping and getting the car fixed. Plus taking your son to drama club AND your daughter to swimming lessons AND then finally finding time to sleep. You get the picture. The list is endless!
Now, what about the things you want to do? Your dreams, aspirations and goals. They too should be added to the list. Did I mention your partner's dreams and goals? They affect you too!
Too Many Plates
Now picture each aspect of your life as a plate spinning on a pole. Then imagine all of them in an enormous circle around you. Now see yourself running wildly from pole to pole, trying to keep them all of them spinning.
Some plates demand a lot more time and effort than others. The plate that represents your work, for example, may need almost constant attention. Notice that if you have to give this plate a tremendous amount of time, one or more plates will must suffer as a consequence. All too often these plates are the ones that represent your partner or your kids and you find that you give them just enough of a spin to keep them going. Sometimes, however, that little spin isn't enough and they fall. Will you be there to catch them, or will they come smashing to the ground and shatter?
Just imagine that scene in relation to your own life. Count the number of plates spin and try to think of occasions when you've caught a falling plate, and when they have crashed to the floor.
STOP!
Wouldn't it be nice to stop once in a while? Take all the plates off the poles, and lay them carefully out on a table. Then step back and take a good look at all of your plates and decide which ones are the most important. Now decide which ones aren't so important. You may even find that some are completely meaningless but you've been spinning them out of habit.
Once you have re-evaluated your plates, replace them on the poles and start spinning them again. Put them in an order that makes sense and is easier for you to maintain.
See how easy it is to keep all of your plates spinning at once?
Remember to Take Stock Regularly
Be vigilant, or you'll find that over time the same plates will demand more spinning again. Things become frantic once more. Guess what? All you need to do is stop, take down your plates and re-evaluate them again.
As time goes on, our website, training courses and forthcoming Millstones and Milestones book will offer more information to help you take regular stock of your life, re-organise it and re-adjust.
How much is on your plate?
"Don't let life discourage you. Everyone had to begin where they once were, to get where they are today."