Balance

Yesterday, I wrote about my reasons for prescribing healthy lifestyle fixes at this time.  And, if you don’t know why I’m talking about time management while the world is burning, please read that blog first.

The first Basic Lifestyle Guideline (BLG) I’m going to write about is “Balance”.  To quote the OPEX folks:

“There are 24 hours in a day, apply work and rest appropriately.”

There are a few lessons to be gained from this sentence, starting with:

• Every day has the same amount of time in it
• Every person gets the same amount of time in their day, no matter who they are or what they’re doing with it
• 24 is a lot of hours
• 24 is not very many hours
• 24 is the “Goldilocks” of hours… just right, because it has to be, because that’s all we get on this planet
• You’re gonna have more days, so don’t try to get everything done in one day
• You don’t know how many days you’ll have, so make every day count
• Work has to happen
• Rest has to happen
• Work is not very effective without adequate rest
• Rest is not very effective if you didn’t work for it

I’ll let that sink in a bit.  This is the power of principles.  There are whole tomes of lessons held within a few simple words.

Balance is an important skill that starts with you respecting yourself and your time.  It proceeds with you giving yourself some expectations, as well as some grace.  It results with you feeling accomplished, as well as fulfilled, and feeling like your life is sustainable (like you could go on living this way day to day and not fall apart).

If you want some ideas on how to put Balance into practice, you can read about the scheduling exercise I talked about a few weeks ago.  There are a lot of great, little practical exercises that I employ with clients in my coaching business.  If that’s interesting to you, consider signing up for a consultation.

Otherwise, just let that word sink in.  Balance.  Think about what that means to you and what you can do with that concept.  Bringing some balance to your life is the first stone of the solid foundation of your new healthy lifestyle.  All the other structures will be laid on top of it.  And, if you don’t achieve some balance, you’re building your house on sinking sand that will probably topple the whole thing at some point.  So, be ready to tackle the balance issue when that happens!