Creating Balance in Your Life

or

When Your Personal and Professional Lives Collide, You Can’t Control the Wind But You Can Adjust Your Sails

By Barbara M. LaRock

As you begin to think about bringing more balance into your life, consider the following set of 12 rules from a brochure on white water rafting safety. They’re relevant and applicable to the choices we all make as we decide how to live our lives.

1. Decide before you start if you’re going to steer from the front or back
2. Someone has to be elected to call out orders clearly.
3. Take rest in calm places.
4. Never stop paddling even when it seems hopeless.
5. If you get into trouble, don’t panic.
6. Don’t be surprised if the boat doesn’t go where you want it to go.
7. On a raft, the more activity on the left, the boat goes right, and vice versa.
8. If you go under, let go of everything and you will float.
9. Everyone paddles, but the current always takes you.
10. Trust the boat and if you are in white water, hold on.
11. Remember, white water is what you came for, so enjoy it.
12. The people in the boat are the ones who will pull you out of the water if you go overboard, and they are also the people with whom you must eat supper.

Keep these rules in mind as you negotiate your own white water. They’re definitely points to ponder if you, like most people, are struggling to fit together all the pieces of your life. As you are probably all too well aware, most people today are overscheduled, over-committed and generally overwhelmed. This kind of over scheduling can leave you running on empty and desperate about how to improve your situation.

For people with children, the impact of this imbalance can be serious when you consider that as parents, you are your children’s first and most important teachers. Your kids are always learning from you and will copy into their own lives the way you live your life. Following are examples of things your children learn from you. In fact, they’re important areas to examine whether or not you have children.

• How you manage time and what choices you make about how you spend your time
• What priority you place on the relationships in your life
• How you handle both professional and personal stress
• How you share responsibilities such as chores at home or responsibilities at work
• What place hobbies and interests play in your life
• How you handle free time–days off, weekends or vacation

The lesson for all of us to learn is that it’s up to each individual to create a life that is balanced, a life that s/he loves. No one can do it for you. It’s your responsibility. It’s not healthy to keep saying, “if it weren’t for this” or “if it weren’t for that, everything would be great.” Nor is it healthy to put your satisfaction in the future, e.g., when the kids or older, or when you or your spouse get a raise, or when you finish a project, etc. Remember: Life is not a dress rehearsal. Your future is now.

An important part of developing self-awareness is to take some time to think about your priorities–to identify the areas that are important to you. Priorities are individual–what’s important to one person may not be important to another and vice versa. To that end, consider a few questions whose answers may prove quite revealing to you. Ask yourself: What do I really want for my life? When you consider this question, what comes to your mind first? Do you want more rest? More exercise? A promotion? More time alone? More time with family or friends? A new home? To telecommute? To expand your business? List everything that comes
into your mind.

Take a look at all that you’ve just written and ask yourself if your desires are really your desires or are they meant to please someone else. Also ask yourself if your desires are ones you think you should have rather than desires you truly want. “Shoulds” can get you into difficulty. Now that you’ve considered what’s important to you, prioritize these areas. In other words, put them in order of their importance to you. Then ask yourself how much time and attention the top priority items are receiving. This activity will help you see areas that are out of balance–areas that matter to you but aren’t getting enough of your time and attention and aren’t being nourished.

By becoming self-aware you’ve determined what matters to you. The next step in creating a balanced life is very important. You must learn to respect and protect what’s important to you. This means your schedule and the way you live your life should reflect your priorities. A crucial piece here is to stop reacting to life and ask yourself what causes you to lose site of your priorities. What or whom do you allow to get in your way? You are in the driver’s seat–not circumstances. There are no victims, only volunteers.

Think about when you’re on a plane listening to the flight attendant explain emergency depressurization procedures. You’ve all heard the flight attendant remind passengers traveling with someone who is dependent on them to put their own oxygen mask on first so they can be available to the dependent person. The bottom line The bottom line is you have to care for yourself first. This is not selfish–it’s taking care of yourself so that you can be available to those who matter to you and depend on you. You have to learn to say no to anything that doesn’t respect your priorities. This is how you honor and protect what’s important to you. It’s simple, but definitely not easy. If you’re a people pleaser, this can be especially hard.

A rule that’s attributed to the Dalai Llama is a simple formula that will help you protect your priorities:  Respect for self, respect for others, responsibility for all your actions.

Here are some tips to help you honor and respect the priorities you’ve identified:

• When you notice yourself feeling overwhelmed, ask yourself: what’s really happening – what’s going on and, what am I really feeling. Answering these questions will help ground you.
• You can’t maintain your sense of balance and grounding unless your basic needs are met.
• Remind yourself to give thought to what you want, what you choose and what you prefer rather than what you should want or ought to be doing.
• Identify the free time that you do have. Obvious free time is easy to identify. Most of us have a lot more free time than we realize, we just haven’t learned to recognize this “hidden” time and we let it pass away unnoticed. This free time usually won’t be a large block of time, but is most likely made up of small pieces of time. Examples of free time we may not realize we have are: waiting in traffic or riding Metro; standing in line at the bank or the DMV; your lunch or coffee break; waiting for doctor/dentist appointments; time on business trips–on planes, waiting in airports, eating alone.
• You’ve prioritized important areas in your life. Now think about what you need to do to reach your goal of spending more time on those areas. Ask yourself what small steps you can take to reach your goal. For example, if a priority for you is to spend more time on a hobby or interest, take a class or learn from a friend. If spending more time with a spouse/partner is a priority, identify what time you both have so you can reach your goal. You might try to set up a “date” night once a week or meet for lunch on a regular basis.
• If you want to read more, ask yourself what free times are available to you so you can read. You may want to carry a book with you so it’s handy when you have some “hidden” free time.
• Identify the things that revitalize and refresh you and make time for them–exercising, reading, visiting with friends, watching a favorite TV program, spiritual or religious time, or just being alone.
• Identify and eliminate things (including people and places) that bother you and drain your energy. Determine what you can delegate at work and at home. For instance, if you let family members choose a chore they have interest in doing, they’re more likely to do it with minimum grumbling. A word of caution: if you delegate, be careful about criticizing those who do things differently than you do. Also, remember to show appreciation. A word of thanks goes a long way. When people feel valued and recognized for what they’ve done, they’re much more likely to do it again — and willingly.
• Shop via catalog or on the Web. Use services that pick up and deliver such as dry cleaners and copy services. Order office products online. Delivery is fast. Hire a housecleaner if you can afford it.
• If your child is in day care, if it’s at all feasible, check in on him/her during your workday. This is obviously a lot easier if your child is in on site day care. However, new software enables you to actually see your child in day care from your computer. If your children are at home alone after school, have them call you or you call them during the time they’re at home alone. You’ll be more productive at work if you’re not worrying.
• Find a gym with a day care center such as a YMCA. If you have a small child, consider a jogging stroller.
• If you have a spouse, negotiate time alone–everyone needs time alone! If you have children during your alone time, the other spouse spends time with the children. Then the spouse whose had the time off reciprocates with supervision of the children.
• Set aside a family evening–take turns suggesting what games to play. Rent a movie–take turns choosing the movie or build a model together. Try to find a place in your house for a jigsaw puzzle for everyone to work on.
• Find a convenient place in your home for a master calendar and enter everyone’s activities and commitments on that calendar so you can see at a glance where jam up times are and what the best times for couple and family activities are.
• Set aside a special place, perhaps near the back door, for each child to have a “storage area” such as a plastic box to keep their own lunch boxes, boots, mittens, backpacks, sports gear and other belongings.
• Let children participate in menu planning during the week or on weekends, whichever works best for you. Then let the kids participate in cooking AND cleanup.
• When you first come home from work, be aware of and let your spouse and family know what kind of transition time you need. Talk about that transition time and work with your spouse and family so you get what you need.
• If you travel on business, telephone your family every night and talk about their day as well as yours. Send e-mails. Consider sending a postcard. These things keep everyone feeling connected and cared about.

Finally, give yourself credit for the effort and time you put into the steps that will lead you to your goal of achieving a more balanced life. As with anything new, you may find yourself experiencing some stops starts and course corrections. Progress is never a straight line forward; to be sure, there have to be steps forward, but it’s normal and indeed expected to have some backsliding and some plateaus. Don’t give up. Creating balance and a life you love will give you a better, more fulfilling life and will make you even more productive in your professional life. An added bonus if you have children is that you will be giving them the gift of priceless lessons for life from their first and most important teacher.

Barbara M. LaRock, M.Ed., offers life, leadership and career coaching as well as organizational training.  Her firm is located in Reston, VA.  Her background prior to coaching includes teaching, advising and mentoring students; designing and directing training programs for trade and professional associations; and organizational training involving presentation and facilitation of workshops and seminars. Barbara’s coaching specializes in life-related and career areas with her individual clients and provides them with encouragement, support and challenge as they focus on transition and change in their personal and professional lives. Her clients find more enjoyment in their everyday lives and become even more productive on the job. For more information, visit her web site Barbara LaRock.

Copyright 2010

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