At a certain stage in life, you might find yourself struggling to manage your professional and personal life. Once you’ve settled into a routine, it can be easy to neglect one or more aspects of your holistic wellness and to feel ‘caught up’ in life without feeling like you ever get a break. Indeed, you need to give attention to every aspect of yourself in order to strike the perfect work life balance. Focusing on only one thing (i.e. your career) and neglecting another (i.e. your relationships) will leave you feeling dissatisfied with your life. The following work life balance tips can help you if you feel like you’re suffering in one area or another.
- Schedule time to relax.
Your own downtime is often the first thing to be dropped when you’re busy. Your job might demand results that others rely on, so spending time on yourself (which produces a result that you rely on) is easily sacrificed. But your ‘me-time’ isn’t selfish. In fact, it will improve your mood and your subsequent actions with others.
Think about the things you enjoy and make a point of incorporating them into your weekly schedule. For instance, plan on spending some one-on-one time with your spouse or doing a fun activity with your friends. It’s easier to incorporate these kinds of activities when they’re scheduled, because you can finish your work around them. The most important thing is to make time for something that will help you to unwind and relieve stress.
- Make small changes to your routine.
You don’t have to make huge changes in your life in order to achieve balance. In fact, you’ll be less likely to follow through with your goals if you make them extreme. Instead, take small steps when it comes to incorporating relaxing activities into your routine.
Even on your busiest days, taking out a few minutes in the morning or at night can really make a difference when it comes to helping you de-stress and unwind. Relaxation activities such as meditation are highly effective and don’t require a huge time commitment. As an example, the Stillness Movement is a shift towards a meditation-centered lifestyle that only requires twenty minutes worth of practise twice per day.
- Get regular exercise.
If you see exercise as just another thing to check off on your list of things to do, you should change your perspective. Yes, it takes a huge amount of motivation to stay active when you have a busy work and home life, but ultimately it can help you to accomplish more by increasing the amount of energy you have and helping you to concentrate. When you make time to exercise, you feel better throughout the day and it will be easier to maintain your focus and complete all of the tasks you have to do. Of course, that’s in addition to all of the other benefits of exercise, from improved health, to increased longevity and improved confidence.
- Do away with activities that stress you out, take up your time, or suck your energy.
It’s easy to waste time on things that are counterproductive, or that wear on you unnecessarily. For instance, you might spend an hour time listening to your mother-in-law complaining about her arthritis flare-ups over the phone. While it’s good to devote time to the people in your life that matter, it’s not good to spend too much time indulging others when it comes to activities that aren’t getting you anywhere.
Being unproductive at work is a major problem for many people. Some people even find that if they cut down on the amount of time they spend on social networking sites, news websites, and sifting through emails they get a lot more done. If you can identify sources of wasted time in your life you can work on minimizing them.
- Know your goals.
If you feel like you’re life is in a constant state of chaos, it might be because you’re lacking direction. You need to take some time to identify what you would like to accomplish over both the short- and long-term. You might want to create a list of things you would like to do in your life, so that you can choose one or two things now and start working towards them. If you write down what you want to do without giving yourself a time limit, you’ll feel directed without feeling stressed about achieving your goals within a specific time frame.
My Zen Academy program is specifically designed to help you find direction and purpose in your life. It’s my passion and purpose to be guiding you here to find your inspiration as a transformational leader in the world today.
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