5 Keys to Balancing Work and Life:
Get Back to Basics and Balance Your Life
By Jerry Lopper
Published by Jerry Lopper at Smashwords
Copyright © Jerry Lopper, 2011.
Cover Image, Lululemon Athletica, Flikr.com, CC Attribution 2.0 Generic License
Other Titles by Jerry Lopper
Sample Personal Development Plan and Workbook
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Chapter 1 - Starting Point
Maintaining a work-life balance is a serious issue for many people. With corporate, government, and non-profit down-sizing adding more responsibilities to existing employees, loss of jobs for many, and rising costs for everyday living needs, millions of people are feeling overwhelmed and out of balance. This book will help you regain, achieve, and maintain a life balance that feels right, brings fulfillment, and returns control over your life to you.
5 Keys to Balancing Work and Life is a workbook. A balanced life isn't something you can read about and then achieve in 30 minutes. Balancing your life between work, play, family, relationships, and all the other roles you fulfill may require you to make significant changes to how you think, what you do, and your priorities.
Getting your life back in balance will require deep and honest self-reflection; asking and answering some important, but difficult questions. This book will guide you through the process of genuinely getting to know yourself. The resulting self-understanding will provide your foundation for a balanced, fulfilling life.
This is not a "quick fix" book. This book will teach you the fundamentals of a satisfying, well balanced life. If your life is now unbalanced, it will take some time to change your approaches to life. But you can change, with dedication to self reflection and a willingness to explore ways of thinking that may at first seem very different.
You should plan to devote a dedicated hour or two each week to each chapter. Each chapter ends with homework exercises that are best assimilated over a few days.
Life balance is more journey than destination. Balance is not something you achieve and then maintain without effort. Life is dynamic, often unpredictable, and at times chaotic. By applying the fundamentals you'll learn here you'll be able to successfully keep your life in balance.
This is the first of ten Balanced Life chapters. Each chapter builds on the previous chapter. Each chapter provides a brief review of the important concepts of the previous chapter and then introduces a new concept. You'll explore each concept most effectively if you complete the exercises. This is important so that you assimilate the ideas with your own unique life experiences.
Reflection
As you begin this book, take a few minutes to reflect on why you are here. What do you hope to achieve?
What is it that has prompted you to start this book now?
What is your commitment to yourself relative to the time, energy, and dedication you will make to get your life back in balance?
Are you ready to make life changes that may be necessary? Then let's get started.
Awareness, Acceptance, and Change
Awareness: Where is Your Life Out of Balance?
The starting point for any life change is to establish awareness. What is the state of your life balance now? Awareness fixes your current starting point in mind. Just as you couldn't plan a trip without knowing where you are now, you must clearly see your life now to effectively move toward a new balance destination.
Figure 1 represents your life in terms of your roles and responsibilities. By identifying each of your major roles and responsibilities, and then assigning a value or score to your satisfaction in that area, you'll obtain a vivid image of your life balance/imbalance. Life roles and responsibilities may include such things as parent, friend, employee, supervisor, spouse, child, church leader, etc.
If you're able to access the Internet from your reader you can download your personal copy of The Life Balance Worksheet, which includes specific instructions and examples. Your copy is available at http://www.YourCoachtoSuccess.com/PillarsAccess.htm. Print out the document and complete it following the included worksheet instructions.
If unable to access the worksheet, copy Figure 1 on a blank sheet of paper. Each vertical bar represents a role or responsibility of your life. Name the bars with your life roles and then assign a number from 1 to 10 to your satisfaction with each role of your life, where 10 represents completely satisfied.
Acceptance
It's important that after you complete the Life Balance Worksheet you don't judge yourself; nor should you blame others for the current state of your life. Accepting that it is what it is gives you the energy and power to make the changes you desire. Suspend judgment and accept what is. Refuse to use the words right or wrong, good or bad. It is what it is.
Exercise 1 Acceptance
a. What overall impression do you have of the state of your life balance?
b. How do you feel about your current state of life balance?
c. Step back emotionally and objectively view your life balance. What would someone you trust say about the state of your life? Remember no guilt or blame, just the facts.
Change
Again using the trip example, in addition to knowing where we are currently, we must fix in mind a destination. Only then can we plan a journey that has a reasonably good chance of getting us where we want to go. It's not good enough to want to make a change. The end result of any change you make must be clear to you, and as specific as the street address of our trip example.
Remember to avoid judgment and blame for your current state of balance. These emotions, though perfectly natural, will sap your energy and make it difficult to move forward toward change. Lingering regret won't help much either. It's best not to stay with these negative emotions very long. Acknowledge them, accept them, and then decide to move on.
Exercise 2 Your Destination
a. Pick one area of life you most want to improve. What is that area and why did you pick it?
b. Visualize that area of your life in the future, but three points higher than you rated it now. What does it look like? Describe it in detail, using present tense, i.e. "My life now feels natural and balanced. The feelings of resentment and being overwhelmed are gone."
c. How will you feel when that area of your life is improved?
Homework
Before you jump right into making life changes that you hope will bring a more balanced life, it's important to step back a bit. In Chapter 2 we'll consider the concept of a balanced life, making sure that the overall target you're shooting for is well understood, clear, and specific. We'll also introduce some of the five components of the framework of a balanced life. This framework of five components is necessary no matter how you define the target balanced life you seek.
1. On an index card or small piece of notebook paper, something that can easily fit in pocket or purse, copy your description of the new and improved area of life that you visualized in Exercise 2b and 2c. Expand on the description as you see more detail. Capture it vividly with images, colors, feelings, and sounds. Carry the card with you. Each day for the next week, take the card out, read the description, close your eyes and visualize what you've described.
2. This week, pay close attention to where you spend your time. Using your specific roles and responsibilities, make a rough estimate at the end of each day of the amount of time you spent in each aspect of your life.
3. You're just beginning this exciting new journey toward life balance, so it's very likely that you have lots of questions. Listing them here will help you focus on finding the answers in subsequent chapters.
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Chapter 2 - Vision
Reflection/Meditation
This is a basic meditation that will help you clear your mind and prepare you to begin the chapter. If meditation is too new or uncomfortable for you at this time, just sit quietly for a few moments, breathing deeply and slowly. When you feel relaxed, skip ahead to the Review
To begin the meditation, find a quiet place, away from distractions. Sit in a comfortable chair, feet flat on the floor, resting your back comfortably against the chair back. Focus on your breathing and nothing else. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Close your eyes if you're so inclined. Notice each intake of air, allowing it to fill your lungs. Hold it for a few seconds and exhale slowly. Wait a few seconds and repeat. Keep your mind on your breathing, noticing nothing else.
Continue this for a few minutes or as long as you're comfortable, noticing that you are now focused on the only certainty you have in life—the moment of now. Open your eyes when you're ready to begin Chapter 2 - Vision.
Review
In Chapter 1, you measured the current state of balance of your roles and responsibilities using the Life Balance Worksheet, accepting life as it is now, without undue guilt, regret, or blame, in order to move forward most effectively.
Selecting one area of your life, you visualized a significant improvement. The homework, a daily review of the improved area of life, was designed to provide a clear destination for subsequent life changes.
The log you kept of where your time is spent may have provided some insights and surprises. Perhaps you've already made some changes as a result.
You may have noticed you weren't encouraged to set out specific goals and plans for change. It's not yet time to jump into action. Let's set the foundation for change first.
What is a Balanced Life?
Though everyone talks about life balance, and we commiserate knowingly when a friend or spouse complains that their life is out of balance, there is no set, agreed upon definition of a balanced life. Some view it as the ability to keep all the many aspects of life going, likening it to juggling many balls in the air without dropping any.
Others see life balance as taking life back to a simpler level, back to a time when one member of a household worked outside the home and the kids had one or two activities on the weekend. This is a good-old-days view, with family dinners, Sunday afternoon picnics or visits with friends, and evenings playing games or reading.
Yet another view focuses on moving toward a more spiritual or religious life, releasing many of life's problems to a higher power.
What then is a balanced life? And how can you learn to get life balance if there's no clear definition of what it means?
Life Balance: Good News/Bad News
The good news is you get to form your own view of a balanced life; it's whatever you say it is. That's also the bad news; it will take some reflection and insight to paint the picture of life balance that you're seeking. There is more good news, though. At some level you already have a sense of your balanced life. You wouldn't be reading this book if you didn't recognize a gap between where you are now and where you want to be.
So now we'll work on pulling that balanced life description out into the open.
Exercise 3 Your Balanced Life
a. Relax for a few moments, breathing deeply. When you are relaxed and breathing slowly and deeply, ask for the inner wisdom to see your life in balance. Ask for a clear picture of your balanced life but avoid answering with your mind. Instead, let your soul, your inner wisdom show you a picture or a word painting of your life balance. Repeat as necessary during the next few days until you start seeing your life balanced, then capture it with words or pictures.
Note Don't be concerned if you're having difficulty seeing your life in balance. Instead of trying to force yourself, on an index card or note paper write "Even though I don't see a solution to my unbalanced life, I know that a solution is coming and it will soon clarify in my mind." Read this once or twice a day for the next week. Go on to part b. of this exercise and complete as much of it as you can.