How to Find the Missing Component of Your Life Balance
Posted on Balanced Lifestyle | June 16, 2010 | 17 Comments
This post was written by Anastasiya. Follow me on Twitter or StumbleUpon and keep your life balanced!
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You can reword the title of this post into “How to find the missing component of your happiness.”
I want to show you a simple technique that will help you identify which areas of your life are already in balance (and that make you happy) and which ones can still be improved.
Please ask yourself a question “What is my life?” Can you answer it with just one sentence and capture the full meaning and essence of your life? I can’t because my life has too many twists and turns and different colors and shapes… My guess is that yours is the same way. This is the reason why it is so difficult to find the components that will make you happy and balanced.
Let’s forget about our lives for a second and think about a football coach. What is his main goal? To win a football game of course. Is there one fool-proof strategy that will guarantee the victory of the team? Of course no.
Every coach must study his team and know its positives and negatives. When he knows those positives and negatives he can find a way to maximize the positives and minimize the negatives. For example if a team has a weak defense then the coach’s strategy might be to control the ball and keep defense off the field. If the team has a bad offense but a good kicker then his strategy might be to get as many field goals as possible.
Your life also has its positives and negatives. Your happiness strategy should allow you to take the maximum advantage of the positive factors while diminishing or eliminating the negative ones.
I want to show you a technique called Tug-of-War that I have found in the book Thinkertoys by Michael Michalko.
Blueprint:
- Goal: Live a happy and balanced life.
- Best case scenario: you are happy.
Worst case scenario: you are sad and unhappy. - Your factors: you need to write down all the factors that can influence your satisfaction with life. You can focus on the following areas:
- Family
- Health
- Friends and social communication
- Career
- Hobbies, interests, passions
- Money
- Emotional and spiritual balance
You can add as many factors as you want as long as you feel that they can affect your quality of life.
- Tug-of-war. Note which of the factors listed above are pulling you towards happiness and life balance and which ones are drawing you towards dissatisfaction and unhappiness.
In the image below you can see the example of my Life Balance Tug-of War. Factors pulling me towards happiness and balance are: happy marriage, good health, positive energy that I get from my kids, working on exciting projects, living in a perfect location for me. The factors that are pulling me away are: my close friends and family are far away, not enough quiet time for work, not enough time for exercise.
(Click on the image to open it as a pdf.)
In order to move your (and my) life towards a more balanced and happy state we can use the following scenarios:
- Maximize positives.
- Minimize negatives.
- Add more positives.
I hope that by this time you already have your tug-of-war table ready and handy. Now you know what components your life balance is missing and we can concentrate on improving your happiness level.
Improve your life balance and happiness
- Focus on the strong points. Be grateful and appreciative of what you have in life. Try to get as much positive energy as possible from your strong points (spend more quality time with your partner, devote more time to your hobbies and kids etc.)
- Minimize negative points. It is helpful to reframe each of those negative points into a challenge and look for possible solutions. Here is my example:
In what way can I spend more time with my family and friends?- plan a vacation to visit my family
- communicate with my friends and family on Skype
- make new friends
In what way can I get more quiet time for work?
- hire a babysitter to stay with the kids a few times a week
- get up earlier or go to bed later
- maximize my productivity: turn off the cell-phone, sign out of chat and social media, check email only when my project is finished
- find an inspiring place where I can get more done in less time
How can I get more time for exercise?
- go for a walk with the babies
- exercise while playing with the babies (push-ups, sit-ups, jumps, running in place, lunges etc.)
- quit going to the gym and exercise at home. This way I can be more flexible with my workouts and cut out time sitting in traffic
- become a fitness instructor so that I can get paid for exercising or start a fitness group with my friends so that I can spend time with them and get motivated for exercise at the same time
- Add more positive forces: adding more to your lifestyle might be too overwhelming but it is still an option. If you have free time then you can try new hobbies. You can get a pet (dogs and cats have proved to lower the stress levels of their owners) or think about changing your career.
This is it. It is a simple plan that will help you find the missing components of your life balance. I encourage you to do this exercise right away (if you procrastinate then you will never get it done and you will miss out on the opportunity to greatly improve your life.) If you have trouble minimizing negative factors in your life, please share them in the comments below and I’ll be glad to help.
Please let me know how this exercise worked for you. I am looking forward to your feedback.
Keep it balanced!
Smart Thoughts (17)
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Hello, 
Anastayisa -
I like this technique. i’ve used a similar one with my clients looking at energy flows (what activities in life bring energy and which take them away). It can get quite creative and fun to make the positive arrows really big and get rid of some of the small ones. It doesn’t create balance – but it does bring lots of good energy! Thanks for sharing this – great post.
Phil
Energy is an essential part of balance so your exercise might be as useful as this one for finding life balance. Thanks Phil for stopping by
hi,
for some time now i have been searching for similar ideas, and i must say i like the simplicity of this model. i am at work at this moment, but later this day when i get back home, i will try it and see what i have to think about more deeply:) thank you, i do like it.
Nikolina, I hope that you will get good results with this exercise. Please let me know if you need any help.
Hi Anastayisa,
Thank you for this post. It looks like a good idea and I want to try it. Unfortunately my mind is very cluttered at the moment.I am having a hard time coming up with categories, good or bad. Any suggestions on just getting started?
Also, for many people, myself included, the categories are going to be a lot worse than the ones in the sample, eg. I’m dying of cancer, I lost everything in a fire, etc. Is it still worthwhile when you have horrific negatives? (I’m sure it must be.)
Steve
Steve, you are asking really difficult questions (I like difficult questions
)
First of all, in order to start out the best thing is to clear your mind. The easiest techniques are to go outside and just walk or sit in a quiet place, just let your thoughts flow through your mind without focusing on anything. You can take a shower or get some exercise done – any of these activities will distract you from your cluttered thoughts. Whenever you are feeling rested, just take a notebook and write down the very first thought that enters your mind. It does not matter if this thought won’t on the subject, just write it down. After that start breaking your life into different areas: family, health etc. (you can see the list above)
At first it might be difficult to do this exercise simply because you will feel weird (I did at least!) Just give yourself some time. You do not have to hurry. Sleep on it, get back to it the next day or the day after that. The right thoughts will finally come, just don’t rush them.
When you have some horrific negatives in your life it is still worth doing this exercise and trying to find your life balance. If it weren’t worth it then we can all stop whatever we are doing and patiently wait until our lives end. Is it the time of life that any of is wants to live? I don’t think so.
No matter what is going on in your life you can always try to improve your life. I can’t guarantee that it will be easy but you can always try. You can decide how you want to live your life, you can make choices in life and you can be happy (or at least happier.)
I hope that you will be able to get through the exercise and move towards your life balance. Thank you so much Steve for your comment!
Hello Anastasiya.
I really enjoy your posts. I think we are like minded spirits. I have posted your site on my blogroll. Take care and keep up the great work!
Debra
Hi Anastasiya,
Thanks for the response. That’s some good advice. Initially just walking or physical exercise and collecting one’s thoughts daily seems like a good idea. Good balancing exercise.
Greetings,
Steve
This is good stuff. I did the exercise and there were a few eye openers
Most of the stuff on the lacking side of my chart seemed to stem from two things: lack of focus + lack of discipline. I tried to re-frame the not so happy part by assigning specific time slots to certain projects and sticking to it.
I would love to get more feedback on focus.
1. How do you focus and maintain balance (i.e. don’t let other stuff fall by the wayside while you are doing the one thing that matters the most).
2. How to minimize scattered brain syndrome and focus on one thing at a time.
Thanks so much Anastasiya for this insightful post.
Manal, focusing on one this at a time is not easy
I must say that a lot of times I have trouble with that too.
“1. How do you focus and maintain balance (i.e. don’t let other stuff fall by the wayside while you are doing the one thing that matters the most).”
Each of my days usually has more than one focus. I find that if I do only one thing then I do not feel satisfied with my day and I do not feel balanced. I have one main task (a work or house project for example) that I devote a certain amount of time (my life has a pretty strict schedule dictated by my little girls.) I never devote the entire day to one project. After I am done with the project or my time limit is out I start focusing on other things: exercise, having fun with the girls, cooking etc.
In my case schedule is what helps me focus and maintain life balance.
“2. How to minimize scattered brain syndrome and focus on one thing at a time.”
Schedule again
I love discipline (sometimes I might love it even too much 
) because it helps have time for everything I need. I have a list of things that need to be done (not only tasks, but also things like going for a walk, calling my friend and so on) and every day I pick my main task and a few fun tasks. When I do not have a list I start thinking about all the projects that need to be done and as a result of that I never get to actually doing anything.
In a nutshell:
-write down everything that is on your mind
-pick the most important task for the day
-pick a few small fun tasks
-forget about the rest of the list.
Thanks so much Anastasiya for the detailed response. It is very helpful. The idea of limiting the time one works on a project appeals to me.
I’m going to try scheduling and see how it goes.
Thanks again
Hi Anastayisa, Thank you for this. i did this exercise before and I did find it very helpful. I have to say what I have done over the course of months to “add more positive forces” and “focus on strong points” is to look deeply at everything with an eye for appreciation and beauty. This lets me feel complete acceptance and surrender. I know that in every moment I am being divinely guided. I really do enjoy this post. I always find your blogposts easy to understand simple principles that I can take with me in real life right away. Thanks for bringing smile and joyful light to my day today.
I appreciate you Anastayisa
Therese, thank you for these kind words!
You are right, looking at everything in life with gratitude and even awe (sometimes at least) is the strategy that can bring more positivity into any person’s life. Simple changes like this one are the strongest ones.
I read this and found it to tie in to my own way of dealing with finding the balance of life, it was interesting and would like to know more, please feel free to email any further information
Hi Gary, you can subscribe to my newsletter if you want to receive updates and tips about life balance or contact me personally with your questions or concerns.
maybe in time, thankyou