Achieving a sense of true balance in your life is more important than most people realize. Balance can be the difference between a life of inaction, and a life of overwhelming responsibilities.
A balanced life, especially nowadays, seems like a longshot. There is always someone or something to answer to. But imagine how it would feel to be completely on top of your schedule, and still allow yourself some time to breathe and enjoy the fruits of your labors!
Today, we will be discussing certain characteristics of balance, and how to cultivate it within your own life! It may not be easy, but it will be worth it!
Characteristics of Balance
The following characteristics represent the livelihood of people who have become successful in implementing a balanced life. These characteristics can be attained by anyone, and should be your focus in creating a mindset of peace surrounding your activities.
Physical Health
A balanced life allows you to perform any activity you choose to. You should never have to say “no” to anything you wish to experience in life merely due to your physical condition.
Practicing healthy habits now is a means of ensuring your continued health in the future. It is easy to get caught up in the mundane aspects of life and let your health fall by the wayside.
I encourage you to make your physical health a top priority, allowing you all the time in the world to live life to the fullest and to experience everything you have ever wanted to.
Make your physical health a priority by exercising consistently and eating healthy (non-fatty) foods! Doing so will ensure you are as happy as can be and for the longest amount of time!
Relationships
Studies have been done regarding the various factors that may predetermine a person’s health over time. Ultimate, data suggests that, above and beyond things like drinking and diet, the quality and closeness of our relationships with others is the most common factor in a higher life expectancy.
The more social interactions and feelings of belonging you have, the more likely you will live a long and satisfying life. This is empowering because, although making the effort to improve your relationships is work, it is extremely enjoyable and often personally rewarding!
Grow your network of close friends and family by reaching out to them. try and set up times to meet and build your relationships! Your future livelihood and satisfaction with life depend on it! This goes for your family, friends, and community.
Your ability to help others and make a difference in this world is limited by you and you alone. Take some time to be grateful and show others you truly care about them! I guarantee that it will inspire great positivity in your life!
Spirituality
Whether you are religious or not, I guarantee that you practice spirituality in some sense. I argue that spirituality does not have to follow a religion, I believe it is simply the ability for us to believe in things that don’t yet apply to our senses. Spirituality is a medium of faith.
Consider this, spirituality and faith can be found in all that you do. Are you paid bi-weekly? Weekly? Monthly? Ultimately, nobody is handing you a dollar every time you perform an action! You have not yet received the money, yet you work for it!
You may believe that this is simply because you can reason that the money will be given to you, but what is reasoning if not a justification of having faith?! You may not see, hear, taste, smell, or feel the money in your hand, but you have faith that it will be given to you in a timely fashion.
Have faith in life, don’t worry about things in which you have no control but choose to believe that life will work out. Large problems now often seem like extremely small problems later.
Having faith allows you to focus on the present – to be thankful for what you have and for what is coming your way!
Purpose
Those who feel that their lives are balanced often operate with a sense of purpose. That is, a meaning behind their actions that propels them to action despite the current hardships they may face.
Purpose is, in every sense, the reasoning behind our happiness and fulfillment. Simon Sinek (author of Start With Why) states that there is a reason why organizations who keep hold of their purpose are more successful than others!
Finding the reason behind your actions often boosts your confidence, mood, and motivation for performing! Imagine, instead of thinking “I’m tossing this bottle in the recycling bin.” you think “I’m saving the planet we live on!”. That is the difference that a mindset of purpose exhibits!
Find the purpose in your everyday actions, there is always one. If that purpose doesn’t truly fulfill you, then a change might be in order.
Allow me to take a quote directly from my book The Potential Dichotomy, “I was always so fixated on the end goal that I failed to realize that the inevitable journey, which is full of hardships, did not fulfill me enough to justify the means of achieving said goal. It was only when I started considering the beliefs for which I would take on the hardships that I found my passion.” – Austin Denison
Find a purpose that makes even the mundane tasks you perform every day worth the effort! You will be grateful for all you have and do!
Tips on Achieving Lifestyle Balance
Here are some quick and general tips that can aid you in forming a more balanced and beneficial mindset for your personal growth and transformation!
Set Priorities
Setting priorities gives you a clear vision of what matters most to you. Only when you can consistently see what you find most important can you practice donating your resources of energy and time to those things.
We create what we focus on. Therefore, focusing on what is important in life will create more of those things, and a more fulfilling life as a result.
Start by listing the top five most important things to you in your life. Ask yourself: Are you giving those areas the time and energy they deserve? Or are your efforts misplaced? Adjust accordingly!
Plan Ahead
Not everything in life can be prepared for, there are always bound to be hiccups! I encourage you to make mental notes throughout your day regarding how you choose to handle potential issues in your life.
Did the boss ask you to stay late? Are your children not ready for school? Are you struggling to find a job fresh out of college? Asking these questions before they arise improves your efficiency.
By preparing yourself to deal with hiccups in life, you are enabling your mindset to jump from the issue to the solution at the very moment these issues arise (IF they arise). In doing so, you increase the speed and preparation in which you solve these issues, allowing yourself no time to feel overwhelmed or develop negative mindsets!
Ultimately being prepared in a positive way follow this adage, “Hope for the best, prepare for the worst”. Creating lasting balance in your life does NOT mean you are devoid of problems, but instead, you have found a way to deal with problems in your mind before they arise, and do not let these issues disturb your livelihood and mindset.
Maintain an Overall Positive Mental Attitude (OPMA)
This may seem like a culmination of many of the other factors I have discussed in this post, and in a way, it is. But, a positive attitude is as much a choice as anything else.
Nobody can control your mental state but you. Nobody can force you into negativity but you. (Short of having a gun to your head) Nobody can make you do anything! You can always choose to do what suits you in life, and the way in which you think about it.
Positivity is not about being unrealistic, I never condone the bottling of your negative feelings. Bottling negativity without first accepting and remedying it will only cause you to eventually explode from the pressure!
I encourage you to focus on acceptance, NOT avoidance. Sometimes a day just doesn’t go your way, sometimes it feels like life is singling you out. What I’d like you to keep in mind is that no negative experience is truly negative. All of it can be converted into positives with the power of doubt.
Doubt is ambiguous, we can doubt our positive experiences and our negative ones. I choose only to doubt my negative experiences! Why would I give doubt the power to convert me from a positive to a negative mental state?
Start doubting the “negatives” in your life by asking empowering questions.
“What is there to be found that is good in this?”
“Why am I where I need to be?”
Convert negative questions into positive ones! Instead of asking “Ugh, what’s wrong with me?!” ask “What’s RIGHT with me?”
As I said, the connotation of self-doubt is inherently negative, but it is truly ambiguous! A connotation is the mind’s way of avoiding an ambiguous denotation. You can certainly use doubt to your benefit!
Conclusion
Ultimately, I wish you all the power and happiness in the world. Everybody deserves to live a balanced and fulfilling life, and hopefully, with these points, you can begin to direct your efforts to craft one.
For a far more detailed and in-depth review of human nature and the resources we have for change, grab a copy of my book The Potential Dichotomy on Amazon.com! I’ll post a link!
-Austin Denison
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