Stuart E. Nelson LL.B., Diplomas in Business Excellence and Life Coaching

Most of the people that I help with stress, and many others whom I meet, have problems with getting their life/work balance right. Paradoxically, instead of having more leisure time, as was predicted twenty years ago, most people seem to work longer and longer to stay in the same place.

But this treadmill that we often see no way of getting off is a major cause of accumulating stress. We ignore it at our peril. That said, it would be wrong to suggest that the word "balance" implies equality, so that we should spend equal amounts of time at work and at leisure. Life doesn't work like that. 

In fact, when we are young and resilient, we may be able to cope with huge inequalities, choosing to invest our time in building a career. That's fine when we have few responsibilities, but when we are married and have kids, our priorities often change. That is when the emphasis seems wrongly skewed in favour of work.

Before you take any action to achieve work/life balance, you need to do some serious soul searching. If you are a self-declared workaholic and don't want to change, carry on working 18-hour days. But if you do want to change, you'll need to accept the challenge and step out on the way to a more balanced lifestyle. 

Paradoxically, you may find that you improve your life dramatically, without any significant effect on your career. Decide what's really important in your life- It's one thing to say that work/life balance is important, but it's something quite different to mean it, and walk your talk. Work out what your priorities are and examine how you behave, in practice, or ask a friend, a relative, or your spouse. This first step involves eliminating the gap between what you desire and what you actually do. 

1. Focus on Results
Measure success by results, not time worked. If you measure success on the basis of the hours you work, you will give greater priority to time over results. This will have bad effect on your motivation to work out how to achieve more in less time. If you measure success based on results, you are more likely to think of better ways to do things. Working more efficiently, you will prioritize your work effectively and arrive home on time, instead of being always late. 

2. Resist Peer Pressure
Resist peer pressure - Just because someone you work with does an 18 hour day, doesn’t mean that he or she is more effective. or more productive. I used to work with a man who frequently worked two or three hours longer than I did, but I earned twice as much as him in monthly fees. So don't presume that everyone else is right. Simply focus on providing meaningful results and on adding value for your employer. 

3. Life is not a race
Don’t cram too much activity into your social time either. Achieving work/life balance doesn’t mean you overdo things in your time off. Achieving good work/life balance means doing both in moderation, and minimizing the stress in your life. You could be working a 30-hour work week and still be completely stressed out because you don't relax in your time away from work. Moderation is the key to a healthy work/life balance; and to a low-stress life. 

4.Orient Around Your Values 
What is it you most value in your life? Write down the list of everything you hold dear. Not what you “should” value, but what you actually value….family, contribution, excitement, passion, purpose, creativity, mastery… whatever is “it” for you. Now choose the top three that you want to be your legacy. Once you have these selected ask yourself: “How much of my time am I spending on things that support and embody these values?” If it’s not where you want it to be, decide what you will do about it.

5. Don't Compromise
Well, sometimes you have to compromise, but we can do it too much, for a quiet life, or because we just want to be helpful. Setting boundaries and knowing how and when to say, "No", without feeling guilty is a useful skill. The alternative is often that we feel resentful, dissatisfied, unfulfilled and out of balance. Focus on the situations where you recognise those feelings and resolve now to compromise no more. This decision can take you out of your comfort zone, but that's fine. 

For example, you may be in a dead end job because of the money. But isn't it time you got yourself a life? Start looking for something that will give you quality of life, even if you have to settle for less money. Are you a martyr when it comes to doing household chores? Why not share the jobs around? Examine all such situations and note the choice you are currently making. Choosing to compromise is not usually the best option. In fact, you have another choice, look for ways to end the compromise or carry on with it. It's your funeral.

6. Attend to the Source of the Trouble
We naturally tend to blame our circumstances when we get a sense of imbalance - such as the jobs we have, the people we work with, our financial needs, our family responsibilities and so on. However, our imbalance can come also from within. Our beliefs, the choices we make, and the situations we accept all contribute to that sense of being “out of balance”. Reflect on this question: what one thing, if you changed or eliminated it today, would make the biggest difference to your life? When you have your answer, brainstorm at least 12 ways to make it happen. As with all brainstorming, allow your imagination free play and don't judge ideas yet. Only when you have found 12 possible solutions, should you begin to evaluate them for feasibility and likely effectiveness. Finally, make an action plan to bring at least one of them about, and begin to take action. 

7. How to Get a Quart out of a Pint Pot
Another way of finding balance is to combine two important activities. We multitask in so many other areas of our lives, so why not in the areas that are important? Try listening to educational CDs while driving or running on a treadmill. Or spend twenty minutes a day walking with your spouse or child or a colleague. That way, you make sure you are spending time with the people in your life who are important, but are still getting your exercise.

8.Schedule Important Activities
By scheduling weekly important items such as family activities, exercise, reading or praying time, you can ensure that you always include them in your busy week.

Finally, true balance comes from being integrated. When we are able to fuse our life in such a way that everything we do is grounded on principles that are important to us, we are living with integrity. If we integrate the way we walk, talk, eat, and run our business, we will feel centered and balanced.

Having life balance brings meaning, fulfillment and happiness to our lives. Despite the constant changes in our environment, it is possible to find life balance. Most often, this is achieved by being able to spend enough quantity and quality of time in areas that are important to you -- as defined by you, not by someone else. Focus your time on the important stuff of life and strive to live an integrated life.

The key is to spend the bulk of our time on the things that are important in our lives, and to eliminate that which is unimportant. Having clarity of purpose can help in determining what is important and what is not. If you find that you cannot eliminate the unimportant things in your life, then delegate or procrastinate these activities. This leaves you free to focus on executing around a tight set of priorities. 

Number one: Identify the top four priority categories in your life that you want to balance (i.e., spirituality/personal development, family/relationship, career, personal care/health) and honestly assess how much time you give to each category. 

Often, people have expectations of themselves that are unreasonable given the amount of time they actually have to devote to something. If, for example, you are giving only 50% of your time to a career, it is truly unreasonable to expect yourself to be a superstar in that category. But if kids and family are a top priority to you, giving only 50% to career is probably the most you could give and still have enough time and energy left over.

Number two: Write things down! Don’t use your brain as your day planner. Doing so increases stress. Consider making five separate life balance “to do” lists. The first four lists correlate with your four top priority life categories (from our example above, one for spirituality/personal development, one for family/relationships, one for career/work and one for personal care/health). Then the fifth list would be for general “to do’s” that don’t fit into those top four categories.

From these lists make sure you schedule the important items in your priority categories first, before anything else makes it onto your calendar. As a result you won’t have to worry whether you’re making time for priorities. Then you can pick and choose from your general to do list which additional activities you may need to, have to or (actually want to), fit in. By the way, don’t be afraid to use that good word “no” to any time-robbers you identify!

Number three: Practice being in the present moment only. Let’s say you’re always thinking about your endless pile of work at the office when you’re home with the family. Fact is there is absolutely nothing you can do about those things on your desk. Worrying about it takes precious time and attention away from your priorities and increases your feelings of dissatisfaction about life.

It takes practice and some mental self-control to keep your attention on what’s happening in the present moment, but this tip alone will bring huge rewards. When you savor the series of life moments one by one, you will find you don’t feel as though you’re missing out.

Be patient and loving with yourself, whether you apply the above tips yourself or integrate them into your life through Life Balance Coaching. Always remember, life balance is an ongoing process and it will throw you curve balls from time to time. The key to growth and personal fulfillment is to remember it is a process rather than an event. But with practice, you will find coming back to equilibrium gets quicker & easier. As a result, you will enjoy life more and have a more consistent experience of happiness.

Stuart E. Nelson (http://www.LifeCoaching4You.com) specializes in teaching business owners and their staff how to make more money yet have more time, and in helping people to find balance in their lives. He does this by concentrating on the elimination of stress, and the building of supportive environments. I believe the first step in restoring balance and living your life by choice is to acknowledge that you’re not. 

How do you achieve a balance between your life and your work? 

First, identify the obstacles or excuses that keep you from changing anything. The most common excuse I hear is, "I’m TOO busy". Are you willing to break the "I’m too busy" excuse in order to have more balance in your life? 

Second, set up some very simple structures in your life that will begin to make the difference. 

Barbara was a woman in her forties with a family who was putting her heart and soul into her job. She liked her work. She was working a lot of hours and bringing work and worries home with her at night. When she began as my client she was nearly burned out and was considering leaving her job because she felt so out of balance.

Over several months we worked on a program to recreate balance in her life. By the time we were a month or two into it, she had fallen back in love with her job, and her husband and she told me she finally knew who she was and what she wanted from her life.

The following is the backbone of what Barbara and I worked on: 5 strategies to bring balance into your life. I’d invite you to play with them, perhaps take them on as homework and see if they bring you results.

1. You are number one. Contrary to what you’re taught you have to take care of yourself first. You know when you are on a plane and the flight attendant gives you the briefing about what to do if oxygen is needed? You must put the mask on YOURSELF first before assisting others. What good can you be to anyone if you are in terrible shape yourself? So, the first order of business in creating balance is SELF CARE. Do you eat well, do you exercise regularly, and do you take vacations?

2. Get to know yourself. Answer the questions: Who am I? And what are my values and priorities? A good way to engage with these questions is through journaling. Get a special journal and begin a relationship with yourself. Light a candle; spend 5 minutes a day writing for you. 

3. What are you currently tolerating? What sucks your energy and drains you? What are the annoying things that if you eliminated them would free up more time? It can be anything from a squeaky door that bothers you to not having office equipment working well to relationships that are draining or toxic. Make a list of these things and begin to handle them. Get them off your plate. 

4. Develop a really good support system. Lets face it we all need support and sometimes its hard to ask for help. Often times the difference between getting successful results or not depends on how well supported you are. 

5. Nurture your spirit and your dreams. What lights you up? Is it nature, culture, great conversations with friends, your relationship to a higher power? Consider spending regular time every week with these things. This is the time that refills the well, so to speak. By paying attention to what inspires you, you begin to build a reserve of energy to draw from when you are stressed.

Play with these 5 strategies (even if you only can manage one or two, you will receive benefit) and see what starts to happen…

Creating work/life balance takes courage, commitment, willingness and support. When you incorporate these structures and strategies into your life you will get results.

Aren’t YOU worth it?

Its YOUR life…imagine the possibilities!

The last tip takes I have found that spending twenty minutes each day doing exercise, twenty minutes reading, and twenty minutes meditating helps me achieve balance. I call this the hour of power. Starting your day with an hour of power gives you a head start. Where can I find this hour, you ask? Try going to sleep an hour earlier at night.


=========================================
Stuart E. Nelson (http://www.LifeCoaching4You.com) specializes in teaching business owners and their staff how to make more money yet have more time, and in helping people to find balance in their lives. He does this by concentrating on the elimination of stress, and the building of supportive environments. Let the author of “Potential for Harm” and the founder of “Success Story”, the FREE newsletter, help you to find better balance in your life, happiness and fulfillment and to grow the profitability of your business. Request your copy of “Success Story” today!
Mail to subscribe@stresskill.com
============================================