Ready...Set...Take Action! Achieving Life Balance in 2010

Teresa Pangan, PhD, RD

Life balance for me is purposely including activities that reflect my priorities in life. It means I have permission to say no to things that do not fit my priorities. It’s a matter of picking the right things to be on my schedule.

Priorities: Building a Life Plan

I have defined my life priorities by writing down a life plan I review regularly. The focal point of my life plan is my list of priorities:

Then in each priority I write one or two sentences that gives a summary of how I interpret that priority, sometimes referred to as a purpose statement.

Career: Pursue a career path that challenges me, pushes me in professional development and allows me to effectively utilize my gifts, strengths and personality. Additionally, my career must be in balance with my other priorities.

Next I list goals and strategies under each area of priority. Examples of possible goals followed by strategies are:

Personal: Integrate into daily and weekly schedule inspirational time for self that enables self to be centered during daily activities and keep my energy reservoirs high throughout the day.

Brief Life Plan Exercise

Another simple way of visualizing priorities is to draw a pie chart with pie pieces representing the different priorities in your life and the size of the pieces determines your weighting for each of the priorities. I have used this visual with my middle school daughter. It is a good place to start and takes only a few moments. It gives you focus and an understanding of what matters to you.

Have I Achieved Life Balance?

I like what Bryan Dodge, author of Good Life Rules says about life balance. He says balance in life is like riding a bike through life that you have not quite mastered. You’re always pedaling, and if you start to tip to one side a bit, you lean to the right to restore your equilibrium. If you overcorrect, then you need to lean a little more the other way to get back in balance. For a moment or several moments you may be in balance on the bike of life with priorities aligned, but then something unexpected, maybe project deadlines all at once come and push you off balance for a bit. Some of us are good about foreseeing and predicting and adjusting quickly, but there is always that rock in the road that if we take our eye off for a brief second will through us off. If we quickly regroup and focus we can catch ourselves, but if we do not have the tools right then to bring things back into balance we may fall off and need to take a breath and get some first aid before getting back on and in balance.

I have been striving for life balance purposely these past three years and many days and moments feel in balance where I feel the warm wind of life blowing over me and I sit up straight on that bike pedaling through life. That being said, every day is not in balance and at times several days will follow where I have pushed out some of my priorities and need to regroup and realign my schedule.

I believe striving each day to have life balance is where I can say I have life balance.

No one can have life balance at all times. My life is always changing thus my plan to achieve life balance changes constantly. I may need to regroup about the number of projects I have taken on and make a plan for slowing down projects coming in and strategize how to complete those on my plate. I may need more self care time depending on the demands of my life or less. I may need to consult with a life coach if I need external help to achieve life balance after a drastic change in my life. Life balance is always in flux.

Forgotten Piece of Life Balance

I have learned life balance is more than doing what I want in life, it is also enjoying the doing. An illustration that helps in understanding this is a quote from Arthur Schnabel.

The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes – ah, that is where the art resides. ~ Arthur Schnabel

Any piece of music regardless of difficulty played by a novice musician and by a virtuoso will not sound the same. That’s because one of the two pianists has had a lifetime to practice the music as well as learn when to pause in order to color the notes with their personal passion. Both musicians are playing the same notes, but one musician is focused on playing the notes “right” and the other is focused on putting their enthusiasm, enjoyment, and some times playfulness into the piece. I strive every day to kick my old habit of aiming to cross off items on my to-do list and instead ask myself how I can make this activity a rhapsody of life.

For me, the easiest way for me to be present and fully enjoying an activity is to take time to nurture myself. I am an introvert, the furthest on the introvert scale in my family, thus I need more alone time than anyone else in my family to give myself back energy. I love being with my family, but like any group gathering it drains my energy so I must purposely start with enough stores of energy to keep in my best self all day. Whenever my family gets together we love walking in the morning together. I have learned I need 15 minutes walking alone to meditate before I join the family in order to give my family my best self with a full tank of energy the rest of the day.

Another example of how I take care of my needs is when I attend overnight conferences I book a hotel close to or in the conference center so I can go back to my room and reenergize throughout the day. The result is I feel energized all throughout the conference and am giving my best self forward to anyone I meet or any meetings I participate in. I then leave the conference in high spirits full of energy and not dragging and needing a vacation.

Being in the present enjoying what I am doing at that very moment comes naturally when I have taken care of myself and made sure my energy tank is full so I am giving my best self.

Each person is different in how much self care time they need. Factors that influence how much time you need to invest in self care are:
• your personality type (take our personality test)
• how long you have gone without paying attention to your needs (for many this is years and years)
• have you ever hit burn out (this takes a lot of investment in self to keep from falling back to feeling drained)
• daily demands (is your work and personal life setup to drain you or give you energy throughout the day ?)

Take a moment to reflect on your last week, were you doing activities that paint a picture of your priorities? What can you do to bring your days closer in alignment with your priorities? Set down the magic wand. You can have life balance! It is the striving each day to have life balance that means you have achieved it.