Balance was my “one word” last year. As a matter of fact, “balance” is often what comes to my head when anyone tells me to think of a word. My mom has been preaching this idea of balance to me all of my life. “It’s all about balance, Amanda,” I can distinctly hear her say. While I wholeheartedly have always believed that our words matter, It’s funny that I even like that word at all after having it drilled in my head since I was four years old. Especially in my teen years, I would always roll my eyes and huff, but Ive always understood the importance of creating balance in your life.
In this lifelong journey to find balance I have teeter tottered quite a bit along the way. I think we all have. In fact, I’ve come to realize that actual balance isn’t really an end goal, its more of a way of thinking, and it’s more innate than we realize. There are times when we have natural ebbs and flows, so it’s unrealistic to think we will always be well balanced. Creating balance in your life is all about preventative care and maintenance are essential.
Finding balance
Finding balance is not a simple task. It’s not something you can pick up at the store. There’s no formal certification process that says “Hey, You’ve got balance.” And if there was such a thing, it would pretty much expire the next time life shows up.
Creating balance in your life is an everyday task. Really, every minute of your life. I have learned that it’s not the same for everyone, because everyone is not the same. What works for me may not work for you. This is something I grapple with in the era of social media. There’s a “how to” for everything. We have so many millions of examples of what works for everyone else. This can make it feel overwhelming to know where to start. But the real “how to” to creating balance in your life has nothing to do with everyone else’s life. Instead, it has everything to do with finding out what works best for you. Maybe it’s just a quick tv break. It’s important to stop trying to live everyone else’s life and start focusing on what you need to do in your own current moment. It’s been a tough, but needed, life lesson.
How to create more balance in your life
“Balance” may have a universal meaning, but what it truly looks like in our lives is much more unique. Not one of us is the same. We all live out different experiences and our level of stress and chaos can vary from day to day. Not only does balance differ from person to person, our individual needs also ebb and flow on a regular basis. This makes creating balance in your life a super personal experience. It is important to become aware of our needs and desires when it comes to finding balance. Balance is about evaluating all of our physical, emotional, and interpersonal needs and then coming up with a plan to attend to every aspect as much as possible.
This is why it is super important for us to personally define what balance looks like in our own crazy, chaotic, and messed up lives. What aspects of your life are you looking to change and how are you looking to change them? What areas of your life can’t necessarily be rearranged right now and what parts can? Do you really even need to rearrange anything? Take some time today to really reflect on what balance means in your life. A good way to think about this is to ask yourself what it would be like if you woke up tomorrow and your life felt completely… balanced. What would that look like? How would that feel? Would you brain be telling you something? What would you be doing differently?
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