Balance in Life

Following on from yesterday's blog on life balance - Susan Jeffers has a model that I often use with clients to explain why we should aim for 'life balance' and not 'work/life balance'.

The model Susan uses splits our life into different areas such as the 9 listed below (each of us may have different words but she encourages readers to identify 9).

Each of the 9 areas provides us with something we need in life. What they are and what they provide will be different for each of us and link to our own individual hierarchy of values. It's this hierarchy and our ability to meet these unconscious desires that will ultimately determine our level of motivation, satisfaction and yes even wellbeing.

So for example: Work may give us Achievement, relationships may provide Love, hobbies may bring Spirit, leisure may provide Freedom and friendship may bring Connection. In the short term if we don't get Achievement, Love, Spirit, Freedom AND Connection we we may not notice any ill effect. In the long term, however, if all we're getting is achievement then our lack of love, spirit, freedom and connection will make itself heard one way or another - feeling unfulfilled, lack of motivation, unhappiness and yes even illness.

In essence one area cannot meet all our needs. Therefore in order to have a life that ensures all values are being met it is important to have activities in a number of different areas. So work cannot be someone’s whole life – in order to function, in order to get what they need to survive they need to do other things. In the example above they need to spend time on work, in a relationship, on leisure, on a hobby, with family and friends, on personal growth, contributing and with their higher self. It’s not just because other people want them to but in order to meet their own unconscious physical, mental, emotional and spiritual needs.

What areas of your life do you have too high expectations of by spending all your time on them? How can you find more balance in life?

Alison

Alison Smith
Helping you keep on track by aligning action to your values
alison@alisonsmith.eu 07770 538159

Do you want work/life balance or life balance?

Like many people I'd always used the term 'work/life balance' until I applied a tool I use in coaching to myself and realised the term I was using was half the problem, for me anyway, and that was because of the images using that term painted for me and the impact they then had on my stress levels.

At the start of the session my goal was to understand what I needed to do it ‘have work/life balance’. As I wrote at the time 'like a lot of people I never seem to have enough time and energy to do everything. I feel like I’m a hamster in its wheel. In fact I have two wheels, one wheel for work and one for the rest of my life.' Stress then came from trying to balance both wheels. When on one wheel I worried about the other and vice verse.

Just writing that down seemed to shift something. I realised, for me, balance would only be achieved when I only had one wheel to manage. Thus 'having life balance’ allowed me to, even if only metaphorically, have more control over my life and what I chose to do with it.

I'd be interested in the metaphors you have for life or work/life balance and wonder how those metaphors may help in understanding what needs to change to simply reduce the internal stress of trying to manage it all.

Alison

Alison Smith
Helping individuals and teams stay on track by finding balance
alison@alisonsmith.eu 07770 538159

I've shared more on life balance on this blog too using Susan Jeffesr model as a base.

Don't let it get so bad you smash up a cup cake shop!

Source: hummingbirdbakery.com via Alison on Pinterest

My blog this month is going to explore the following plea from me:

Please don't allow yourself any excuse for not exploring how to make improvements in your life. And I mean practical things you can do that could dramatically improve your energy, positivity and overall well being and joy for life. Thus allowing you to more easily achieve your goals and live your dreams rather than purely exist.

In other words if you're not happy with how you're feeling, acting or the things you're achieving or not achieving in life, then please do stop using those excuses and do something. You know the excuses don't you:

* I don't have time
* I can't
* It doesn't matter
* I can't be bothered
* I'm happy as I am
* It wont change anything
or even
* It's my age you know

The homeplay last weekend involved observing how you were feeling and then noticing the impact it had on other people and the impact it had on the outcome of what you were trying to achieve.

If your answer was 'I was enthused, energised and very happy and it was contagious' you may already know what I'm going to say. If you didn't then for me the crux is this - if you're feeling negative, tired, anxious, angry, or just down right grumpy it can't but have a negative impact on your life e.g:

* You don't go out to meet friends because you're too tired
* You fall out with a close friend over something silly
* You still don't take up that hobby you've been promising to do for years
* You put on the video for the kids rather than go outside and play with them
* You sit in front of the TV all weekend and eat rubbish
* Your blood pressure sky rockets
* You smash up a cup cake shop or worse (yes someone did just that)

We often act as if that's what life has thrown at us and just get on with it and put up with the anxiety, the grumps and negativity. My blog this month will explore all those small steps we can all take to make the necessary changes - and some of them are sooooooo easy, and even more effective, and WILL make a difference - or your money back.