Here is a life hack for you. Stop planning. Start living
Now that we have your attention, we can get into the steps you will need to take in order to find balance in your life. We are not promising it will be SO easy, but if you are patient and believe in yourself, you can do anything.
If you are on a life plan that is going perfectly, we need to know your secret! If you’re seeking happiness in your life and on the quest for a never-ending balance, this article is for you.
How to Live a Balanced Life
Living a balanced lifestyle is a daily practice of recognizing your mental, physical, and emotional needs and intentionally setting out to ensure those needs are being met.
Wants and needs could be anything from quiet time alone to do whatever you please, to eating a healthy diet for your body to feel good. It could be spending quality time with your loved ones in order to feel connected or, it could be knowing what boundaries you need to draw between work and your personal life.
It’s important, to be honest with yourself about which habits you may be overindulging in and what areas of your life need more attention. Maybe you have an insatiable sweet tooth, it’s ok, balance just means having most of what you want and need, but in moderation.
Balance is the alignment of your mind and body and the ability to connect within yourself and feel at peace with your internal and external world. Meditation, movement, and engaging in grounding activities can help this alignment.
Creating balance isn’t a one-time thing, it will be something you’re constantly working towards as priorities and needs naturally shift over time. You will need to recalibrate often, and it takes dedication to remain a balanced person over time.
Below are seven steps for finding balance in your life, along with the elements of living a balanced lifestyle.
7 Steps to Finding Balance in Your Life
Step 1. Plan for Happiness
If you are living your life planning for your future, that’s a good thing. Life, however, doesn’t care about your plans.
Your life is going to selfishly do whatever it wants to do, whenever it wants to do it. You’re just going to have to be alright with that. Have a plan for happiness instead of a plan of milestones.
Make a list of everything that makes you happy. Then cross out half of it because life is not going to provide those things for you. You are going to fight relentlessly for them.
Make another list of things that you need in order to have happiness and add another ten things to that because that’s what it is going to take to achieve these goals.
Step 2. Set Goals
This step should be fun! When you are looking for balance in life, it’s good to find out where to begin. Begin fresh today and create new goals that are attainable in your life.
The purpose of setting these goals is to define the value you have in your life, to give your life meaning, and to give yourself something to work towards.
Create a small goal list for the near future and a large list for the extended future. If you want to get creative with it, make a colorful board you can hang to see often.
Step 3. Get Organized
If you are feeling like your life is out of balance, it most likely is. Your mind and body will tell you. The third step in finding balance in your life is to get your life organized.
This could look different for different people. You can organize your finances, your love life, your closet – do what it takes to get yourself organized so that when you are hit with something hard, you are prepared.
Step 4. Surround Yourself with Good
Being alone when you are trying to balance your life may be hard on the process. The truth is, there are people out there that you may not even realize are helping you through your life daily!
The fourth step is to surround yourself with good. That means surrounding yourself with good people, good intentions, good behavior, good wellness, good habits, good all around. By pooling these positive things, you are essentially helping yourself be better.
Step 5. Educate Yourself
The key to finding balance is knowledge. I wouldn’t be where I am without a little help from the experts. Here are a few recommended books if you are struggling with learning the balance of life:
The Clarity Cleanse by Dr. Habib Sadeghi – 12 Steps to Finding Renewed Energy, Spiritual Fulfillment, and Emotional Healing.
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle – A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment.
From Worry to Wealthy by Chellie Campbell – A Woman’s Guide to Financial Success Without the Stress.
You are a Badass by Jen Sincero – How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson – A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
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Step 6. Know Your Thresholds
This step may be hard for some of you. Understanding your limits is a tough awareness that many people struggle with.
You will need to arm yourself with knowing yourself. Understand when the right time is to stand and fight and when to sit down and rest.
Teach yourself to learn your thresholds so that you can find the balance between the two. This will take time, so be patient with yourself! Listen to your body.
STEP 7. Believe You Can Do It
Having a positive mindset is the key to finding balance in your life.
This is another concept that will take time and dedication. Whether you have love and support coming in or you love yourself wholeheartedly, you will need to believe in yourself.
Believe that you can find balance and believe that you can sustain it. Don’t doubt yourself or your abilities. It’s that simple, just believe.
Elements of a Balanced Life
Now that we have covered the seven steps to finding balance in your life, we can now embrace the elements of that life. Here is what your life will look like if you have successfully followed the steps towards happiness:
Daily self-care
You spend time each day caring for your mind and body. This may be through a skin care routine, cooking yourself healthy meals, exercising, or meditating. Whatever self-care means for you, it’s crucial to spend time engaging in activities that will help you feel good on the inside and out.
Positive self-talk
Be your own best friend. Treat yourself with kindness, compassion, and patience. Remind yourself of the good qualities you possess and why you are worthy. You can also use mantras to help instill positive thoughts and beliefs about yourself.
Love all around you
You live with an open heart, ready to give and receive love. You’re able to find beauty in the small things like a bird happily chirping away on a branch or a blooming flower in spring.
A structured schedule
A routine and time blocked schedule helps you live more intentionally. It’s far too easy to pick up your phone and scroll the day away when you don’t have anything else planned. Living intentionally limits the time you spend on activities that don’t align with a balanced lifestyle.
Goals achieved
There is little more satisfying than achieving the goals you set for yourself. No matter how small or big, remember to reward yourself for the goals you achieve. And then set out to achieve more!
Hope for a positive future
Hope is one of the greatest motivators of all. Maintaining a positive outlook of the future will help you stay on the right track toward achieving and maintaining balance.
Why You Should Find Balance in Life
We constantly feel the pressure to perform well in life.
In addition to these stresses, it seems as if our modern world wants me to constantly stay busy with little time for relaxation or self-reflection. While getting things done is important, I have realized that a balance between work and play is key to maintaining productivity in all aspects of my life.
For example, I have noticed that when I overwork myself, I do not perform well in school. This makes sense logically because when you are tired your mind does not work as efficiently. However, the opposite is also true. When I spend too much time having fun or being lazy, I perform poorly. This is most likely because my mind is distracted and unfocused.
Without balance, life becomes monotonous and tedious with little meaning or significance to the things that we do. The same can be said of work versus play; one cannot exist without the other. We all have a need to have fun and be carefree.
However, we also have the need to accomplish challenging tasks, whether it is earning a degree or climbing a corporate ladder. Without achieving these life goals, many of us would feel as if our lives had no meaning or purpose.
FInal Thoughts
In summary, keep going. There is no solution to finding happiness, it is simply a journey. It will be a daily goal that you set for yourself and will always be working towards.
Life’s plan will always come around to being what you wanted when you didn’t even know you wanted it.
The three biggest truths when finding your balance are this:
1. Let love in. Support is priceless.
2. Time goes by fast. You can’t go at full speed your entire life. Slow down.
3. Let go. There are forces at work that you can’t control and you need to let that go.
It’s your choice to find the right balance for you. Good luck on your journey! Feel free to share your experience with us, we would love to hear from you.