How to Balance Your Life

Is your life in balance? Do you even know how to answer this question? I went through most of my adult life without pondering this question, and not having a clue how to assess it. For me, no, my life was not in balance. I worked too much, made pretty good money and raised a great family, but other than that, I felt empty. I neglected my health. I neglected my spiritual growth. I was not learning and growing. After deciding to leave a great job in a great corporation to follow my dreams of being an entrepreneur, I came into the concept of balance, and lifetime growth. I’m sure glad I did.

As I work with people, in all phases of life, I rarely come across those who feel that their life is in balance. We are not taught these things in school, and the concepts of life balance are not taught at home or discussed often at the dinner table.

I believe that a life of purpose and passion is best approached from a well-balanced perspective. I use a process to regularly assess my life balance, and to set actions into place to improve where I am out of balance. The process goes like this:

1. Draw a circle with six spokes. The spokes are:

(S) Spiritual
(P) Physical Health
(R) Relationships
(E) Emotional Health
(I) Intellectual & Professional Growth
($) Financial

2. On a scale of 0 – 10, with 10 being perfect, honestly assess your current condition on each of these measures. On the wheel, mark your score at the appropriate point along the scale. Then, connect the dots.

3. Take a look at the picture you have drawn. A life well-balanced will resemble a circle, or a wheel. A life out of balance will show flat spots, like a flat tire. The spots that are flat represent the areas in your life which need work, which need focus to improve.

Just as a flat tire cannot efficiently move down the road, a life that is not balanced cannot efficiently move through time.

Set your goal to be balanced and growing, and the best will be yet to come!