“One strong in faith but weak in wisdom has uncritical and groundless confidence. One strong in wisdom but weak in faith errs on the side of cunning and is as hard to cure as one whose sickness is caused by a medicine. When the two are balanced, one has confidence only where there is ground for it.” (Vism.129).

Balance is the taking of appropriate action when circumstances dictate to maintain equilibrium. When it comes to a concept or principle such as balance, it is important to understand that between different people and even from moment to moment, the locus of balance is always going to be different. 

How do you find balance in yourself?

When you want to balance your life, you have to consider both internal and external balancing. Internal balancing is balancing your heart, mind and health. External balancing is balancing work life, social and family.

Internal (Mind, Heart, Health)

Mind: Challenging yourself intellectually vs. creating opportunities for your mind to rest

Heart: Giving love vs. receiving love

Health: Eating, drinking, exercising properly vs. resting and treating yourself to some extra yummies

External (Work, Social, Family, Fun)

Work: Pushing yourself to achieve goals vs. seeing the bigger picture and enjoying the ride

Social: Satisfying your social desires vs. taking time for yourself

Family: Fulfilling your familial responsibilities vs. creating healthy boundaries

Fun: Allocating time for things you enjoy doing vs. making sure you do not overdo it

As you can see, both ends of each spectrum are actually positive; but if you try either side to an extreme, most of the things intended to be positive would end up being detrimental.

So, are we ready to devote ample energy to all areas? Let’s try to balance our lives.

Prioritize

In the life, people should set up goals. Where you have to plan in which stage you would do this. Deciding which are important and doing is the most important thing you have to do. The problem is choosing which is more important than the other is.  In order to stay on course, you have to re-examine your priorities regularly.

However, Peter Drucker’s point in The Effective Executive is that “once you decide what’s important, focus on it and get it done.”

Tactics and Strategies

Strategy is long-term goal. The big picture. Tactics are the short-term goals, which leads you to your long-term goals. If you want to become an author, you have to write small articles first.

Plan

If you stay on track with detailed and intentional process, for a long period you will be able to enjoy a more balanced life.

Accomplishments and failures

Sometimes we may not pay equal attention on both accomplishments and failures. If you are a person, who is always focusses on failures and worry about the failure more, try to focus on the little moment of success. See how it feels. You always have to focus on positive instead of negative. It is normal to fall out of that awareness back into thoughts that are more familiar. Just go back to the positive when you can. That is balance.

Read and learn often

Open your mind to new possibilities, beliefs, and interests by reading, taking online classes, watching documentaries, and attending workshops

Meditate regularly

Meditation improves memory, attention, mood, immune system function, sleep, and creativity. All it takes is a few minutes a day to start reaping the benefits.

Spend some time outside

Keeping your office work aside have a break. Have some new experience such as hiking, boating, outdoor sports, foraging for wild woods, camping and much more!

Be specific

It’s more important to say word ‘No‘ if you don’t want or if you can’t than saying let me think or I will tell you later. The same is true if you say that you are going to eat healthy or do more exercises. Set something specific. For example, I will run 30mins on Monday and 5mins extra on Tuesday making 35mins.

Maintain a positive mental attitude

Starting your day with a good intention will the day will go more smoothly Part of living a well-balanced life is learning how to deal with adversity, unforeseen events and uncertainty. If you practice not letting things get to you, you will not only learn to live a well-balanced and less stressful life, you will learn to live in and savor the moment. Once you have done everything you can within your control, let your life unfold. Be prepared for the future, but don’t worry about it.

Keep in mind that balance is not the final goal, but an ongoing process. Rather than trying to stay balanced, think of yourself as practicing balancing repeatedly.