Life Balance
I've been taking more group workout classes at the gym to keep me motivated and something I heard jumped out at me in a NEW WAY. It's that building physical balance requires repetition and practice regularly. Physical Balance requires practice. And this is sooo true. When I first started yoga, I was falling all over the place, but the more I did weight lifting, added cardio, and practiced the different poses, the more solid and secure I was.
We practiced physical balance as a child. We learned to crawl, then walk, then run. we use those same physical balancing skills to this day.
The same is true for Life balance. The skills you learned as a child, it's not something we eventually obtain, it's something we constantly do.
Where you put your time and attention is learned early on, when you were a child. So, over the course of your life, habits have been formed that have influenced how you balance your life. To improve both physical and life balance, it must be something we work on regularly.
A definition of physical balance that I liked is ,"Increasing our body's ability to control itself during challenging times". I love this, because Just like in life- our ability to control how we respond and how balanced we stay during challenging times is determined by how much we've practiced. Practicing with the little things gives us strength and direction to eventually stay balanced with life's storms come along.
So, let's define Life Balance-
Life balance is when the distribution of life's responsibilities are in reasonable proportion for the season we're in....
Let's break this down.
Life's responsibilities are the total sum of your roles- wife, mom, business owner, daughter, housecleaner, cook, transporter, activities director- all the roles you play in your life.
In reasonable proportions, means that you're prioritizing a certain amount of your time and energy to be invested into each of these roles.
For the season we're in- seasons constantly change, and they're different for everyone. They're transitions we go through life that impact our Attitude and Actions. Marital Status, Career changes, kids growing up, people leaving us. In Ecclesiastes 3:1 it says, There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.
Our version of balance will evolve with us, as our seasons in life do!
I hear a lot from clients, "I want more balance"! They've working so much they lost touch with WHO they are. They gave too much of themselves away to their kids and family. They're living in chaos and disorder. I'm so proud of them when they say this, because it means they're aware something is off. It's when we live our life on auto-pilot not aware of what's going on that we can get into trouble!
It's up to us to know ourselves well enough to determine what balance needs to look like in our particular season of life.
Life Balance in Action
Some questions to ask yourself to figure out how to move closer to a balanced life are:
Which of my responsibilities need to be more aligned with what God wants of me?
Which of my responsibilities am I investing the majority of my time and energy in?
For the season of life I'm in, is the amount of time and energy I'm investing in these responsibilities in a healthy proportion?
Complete balance 100% of the time is impossible, because we're always growing and evolving with the seasons of life! Extend yourself grace if you feel like a real adult would have a truly balanced life all the time. They don't, We don't, but you can find your own version of balance and accept it for what it is!
Each day you can practice your evolving balance by being intentional with what you say yes and no to!