5 Tips to improve balance in your life and work

When life gets busy, you may find you need to improve your balance. Here are 5 tips to improve balance in your life and work.

Life gets hectic! We all feel busy from time to time. That is normal but it can get to be too much. If you’re a regular reader here, you may have seen the last two articles on finding more time and beating stress. This month, we look at how you can recognise you’re out of kilter and how you can bring back balance to everything you do.

5 Signs you’re lacking balance

Here are 5 key signs that you’re not just busy, you are actually lacking some balance in your life and work.

Your ‘to-do’ list is never-ending! It doesn’t feel like you ever get to tick off much, and if you do, several things have been added already!
You are busy yet you don’t feel like you’re achieving anything!?! There aren’t enough hours in the day and you never seem to stop, yet it’s like swimming upstream. You don’t seem to get anywhere.
You feel overwhelmed and tired. Even tasks that used to take 5 minutes now seem difficult and take forever. It can even feel impossible to start something.
You feel like you’ve lost control, you have no choices and everything you’re doing seems to be driven by other people’s schedules and needs.
You’ve lost all sense of direction and purpose, feeling lost in the endless stream of other people’s ‘stuff’.

Put yourself first to look after others

None of the above feels very good! And it can cause real problems, like stress and even burn-out. Maybe you’re always trying to help other people in your life. You’re driven by good intentions. But it is very hard to help others if you’re struggling yourself.

Prioritising yourself can feel really difficult to do, especially when you’re so used to putting everyone else’s needs before yours! So maybe it feels selfish to put yourself first. The truth is that it is essential to look after yourself, or you might not be able to look after anyone. Prioritising yourself may feel selfish. However, it is essential to allow you to be your very best self. And that will automatically benefit others!

Prioritising yourself may feel selfish. However, it is essential to allow you to be your very best self.
And that will automatically benefit others!

5 Tips to improve balance in your life and work

The good news is that we can learn to recognise the signs and take different action.

These 5 tips can be built into strong habits that can serve you for years to come!

Have unrealistic expectations set in? You’re not superhuman. Developing a realistic view of what you can accomplish will help give you perspective. Don’t try to have everything perfect or solve all problems for everyone. It may be an indication that you’re taking too much responsibility for things that others should own the responsibility for.
Prioritise time for yourself. Schedule in time every day to do something you enjoy, by yourself. This isn’t about ‘having time’. This is about making time through conscious choices and decisions!
We all have the same hours in the day but we don’t all have the same set of responsibilities. . Manage yourself rather than your time by realising you have a choice in your activities. You will never have time unless you make time. And you’ll only make time if you prioritise it!
Get really clear on the activities that add the most value and joy to your day/work/life and prioritise those. Every day is for living. And while in life, hard things happen, there still has to be some joy! Knowing the things that bring you joy will make it easier to find exactly that in your day. If you’re not sure, it may be that you’re feeling a bit disconnected from yourself.
Realise that the end goal isn’t really the end. It is just another stop on the journey. Once you achieve it, you will find another goal.