Balance Is an Inside and Outside Job

Your time is one of the biggest gifts you give to yourself and others. These days almost all of us have so many demands placed on our time and energy, life can feel like a three-ring circus.

Maintaining boundaries is your responsibility and you train people how to treat you and your time. Creating balance requires holding steady with the many responsibilities that are a normal and everyday part of life: home, family, friends and work, while at the same time recognizing and fulfilling personal needs and wants. Do you get to create hiring help at home? Hiring tudors? Hiring a chef?

Inside—Only you can take care of yourself.

Consider how well you take care of yourself, both physically and emotionally. Do you eat healthfully and exercise regularly? Do you get check-ups and take preventative precautions? Do you set aside personal, quiet time for yourself? Do you make time to enjoy nature and art, filling yourself up again and again?

Outside—Reaching outside yourself gives meaning.

Think about how you reach outside yourself for sharing and giving meaning to your life. Do you spend quality time with family and friends? Do you give back to life through your time, energy and experience? Contributing to the larger world provides connection and purpose.

Balance—The key to a rich and fulfilling life.

To discover how well balanced your life is, keep a log of how you spend your time. In a little notebook you can carry with you, write down the hours you spend under the broad headings: “for me” and “for others.” Also make notes of requests for your time (from family members, from coworkers or professional obligations). Include “requests” from your physical and emotional self: “I wish I could take time to take a walk today.” Or “Gee, I’d love to take a nap.”

Also jot down your feelings about the time you’re putting in. Do you resent the responsibilities at home? Do you feel like you never get to do what you want to do? Do you rearrange your time, taking away from what you’d planned to do for yourself in order to do something for others? How does that feel? Honestly?

After a week or two, you can expect to have some pretty clear messages on where there is balance in your life and where there is not. You might also come to see what’s important to you and how you can make changes in your life that will create a life of health, well-being and joy—a balanced life.