In our fast-paced society, feeling imbalanced is not uncommon. Slowing down can be really difficult because we are constantly striving for more in all of the different areas of life. The problem of imbalance occurs when we don’t choose to slow down and examine how we feel. Without self-awareness, we cannot have harmony.
Are you ready to make a plan to create harmony in your life? Get out some paper and something to write with and follow these three steps:
STEP ONE: IDENTIFY WHERE YOU ARE FEELING IMBALANCED
For each of the following categories, think about how life looks. I recommend free writing about each of these categories and answering some of the questions below:
Work, Career, and/or School: How much time are you spending on work or school related activity? What do you enjoy about this work and what do you dislike? What’s your stress level like? What passions are being fulfilled? What responsibilities are being fulfilled? How are finances?
Family: What’s your family like? Who do you spend the most time with? How much enjoyment do you get from being with family? What’s stressful in your family, and what’s joyful?
Social Life: What’s your social life like? How often are you doing social events? What’s your relationship like with your friends? How connected do you feel to friends? What do you like about your friends and social life? What do you dislike? Are you more introverted or more extroverted?
Health: How much time do you spend making a conscious effort towards managing health? Think about physical health. Think about mental health. Think about emotional health. Think about spiritual health. What kinds of efforts are you making? What works? What is not working? Anything being neglected?
Fun & Leisure: What kinds of activities are you involved in that provide joy, that provide peace, that provide rest? How much time is being spent on hobbies and interests? How much time is being spent on relaxation? When do you find yourself laughing?
STEP TWO: PRIORITIZE
You should now have a sense of what exactly is happening in the different areas of your life. So, it’s time to assess how satisfied you’re feeling.
On a 1-10 scale (10 being high, like “I couldn’t be anymore satisifed”, and 1 being low, like “it’s the worst”) how satisfied do you feel in each area you just wrote about.
Which are the lowest? Which are the highest? For the lowest rating, write a sentence or two about the problems. If there are multiple low ratings, go ahead and do this for each one.
Pick 1-3 of these problems you want to work on.
STEP THREE: TAKE ACTION
You have identified what needs to change in your life to feel more harmonious. Just by thinking about this, and identifying issues by writing them down, you have already begun taking action. Self-awareness is the first step!
Now you can create a goal. Once you have a goal, then you turn it into an action.
Here’s an example:
The problem: “I’m staying up too late at night. I get lost in social media, YouTube, and reading the latest news”.
Goal: “I want to get enough sleep, like 7-8 hours.”
Action: “I will set a timer that allows me to have 30 minutes of free time to be on my phone at night, and then I will go to sleep.”
By setting a small goal, and by taking action, you have started yourself on a journey of balance & harmony!
THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND:
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Don’t set too many goals at once. This just becomes overwhelming, so make sure the amount of goals you work on is doable.
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Life is always changing, and something which seems like a great goal becomes unreasonable given changing circumstances. It’s okay to edit goals to be reasonable.
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To be living a harmonious life means staying self-aware, so re-visiting the different categories and rating satisfaction is important. There are times where work/career/school is a priority and times where family or fun may be more of a priority. Again, life is always changing.
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Sometimes extra help is needed. Sometimes counseling, joining a group, or taking a class is exactly what someone needs for an extra boost of support, accountability, or guidance to reach goals.
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