Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Areas of Success - Achieving Balance

Balance is quite possibly the most important and unassuming quality a person can have in their lives.  You can tell the people who have it, they are energetic but not frenetic, decisive but not rushed, and prioritize their time according to their area of focus and achieving the goals they have set for themselves.  They usually don’t feel the need to push, convince or judge because their world is more calm than many others, and they don’t even feel the need necessarily to share with others what their goals are or be boastful about success.  They usually also wish for others, balance and success such as they have because they can probably remember a time when life for them was not as tranquil (even if it is still busy) as it is once they have achieved that balance.

When thinking of success and keeping the balance in my life, I try to break life down in to the elements that are important to me and then see how I rate each of the areas.  It is important to realize that these are dynamic, changing priorities with the ebb and flow of life and will be different for everyone.  For me at the moment the key areas to be balanced out which help me to feel successful in my life are:

  • Children (spending quality time with my 3 angels and continually learning from them and others how to be a better person and parent)
  • Love Life (keeping the passion and spark alive in relationship with my husband)
  • Family (maintaining a quality relationship with parents, siblings, in-laws and other extended family members)
  • Finances (having financial freedom to have the time to spend on the people and things that are important and enjoyable to me)
  • Spirituality (feeling a sense of connection to something greater than “I”).
  • Contribution (helping others, giving something back, you may call it paying it forward)
  • Personal Fulfillment (doing things that keep me inspired, this might be music, painting, photography, horse-riding – whatever)
Now of course the first three can be bundled into one area called “relationships” or “family” but I found that there are times when certain relationships can come into competition with one another and I found it very helpful to separate them out and prioritize them in importance so that I could make good decisions during times when relationships may have been putting the “squeeze” on me.

It can be helpful to rate each of these areas (and your own may be different) on a scale of one to ten to see which areas you feel you are most successful in and also least successful in and therefore which areas you might want to work on first!  Sometimes in doing this exercise you might be surprised that something you spend a lot of time on isn’t actually one of your priorities.  This can be an incredibly valuable insight to ensure you stop spending time on things that are not adding to you feeling successful in your life and reprioritizing to those areas that emerge as important to you.

Now some people will groan and say “can’t be bothered with that, I know what is important to me”.  Well I’d like a dollar for every time I heard someone say that, then actually do the exercise and hear the surprise in their voices when they discover they didn’t know their inner self as well as they thought they did.  It takes time – you have to spend time with yourself, concentrate, dream, meditate and play, you might be surprised what you find there!  As Socrates said “The life which is unexamined is not worth living”.  Not only might you be surprised at what you learn, but you will most likely find better balance in the things most important to you and with that comes a very enjoyable sense of inner peace in this very busy world as well as a much greater sense of success!  Let me know how you go!

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