Do you ever feel like Wonder Woman? I have. As a woman juggling a ton of things I’ve wondered “what the heck happened to my life?”
In fact, there have been times when I wondered if I had much of a “life” at all.
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The multiple roles we play
You know what I mean. As a woman you play multiple roles.
You’re a daughter, grand daughter, sister, niece, girlfriend, wife, business woman, gal pal, volunteer….and sometimes community leader, politician, or in the ministry.
And you’re exhausted!
You want to do it all and do it all well. You don’t want to let anyone down, and yet you’re losing it.
Okay, so maybe you don’t need to be checked into to a hospital, but your energy and enthusiasm is slipping, your health is waning, and you wonder if you can keep it all together.
The solution to the problem I’ve often heard is to have “work-life balance.”
I understand the intent, but striving for balance hasn’t worked for me.
The idea of balance is that I evenly divide up my time and energy for every area of my life, like a see-saw with a whole bunch of sides to it with equal weights.
But, my life isn’t divided up evenly, nor do I think it should be.
Right now for example, to grow my business takes a better chunk of my time than, let’s say, making dinner, working out, or taking care of pets.
I say forget “balance”. Strive for sanity instead! Sanity is feeling at the end of everyday feeling internally satisfied that you used your time and energy on what’s most important to you.
7 Tips For A Great Work-Life Balance
Here are seven secrets to getting there.
Secret #1 is Know What You Want
Be clear about who and what’s important to you. Then make choices to support your decision.
If you don’t know what I want, there will always be someone who will try to determine it for you.
Secret #2 is Say “No” Without Apology
When you’re saying “no” to what you don’t want you’re saying “yes” to what you do want. Saying no doesn’t mean you’re being mean or hurting someone else.
It means you’re taking care of yourself and, often, those you most care about. That’s something we should never apologize for!
Secret #3 is Focus on What’s Going Right
Focusing your attention on those things that are working and helping you feel good about yourself gives you the necessary self-esteem and staying power for dealing with difficult situations and creating sanity.
Secret #4 is Stay Away From Whiners
Life is too short and requires too much of us to be spending lots of time with people or in situations that don’t cheer us on to the best we can be and go for our dreams.
Secret #5 is Get Someone Else to Do It
You really don’t have to do it all! Get someone to do the things in your life that really can be done by someone else.
Secret #6 is Take Care of You and You and You
Take care of all of you – the physical you, the emotional you, the mental you, the social you, and the spiritual you.
Taking care of yourself gives you staying power. You’re not only worth it; you are the only you you’ve got.
Secret #7 is Be Serious About Not Being So Serious
Don’t miss the fun along the way. Be playful! Laugh as much as possible and find the humor that’s begging to be discovered.
The demands of your fast, full life temporarily melt away.
Set Goals For A Better Balance
You can have a better work life balance if you set goals.
Set career goals but be sure to also set personal goals, family goals and life goals.
Why Set Goals?
Why are goals so important?
Can’t you achieve things in life without ever having to go through the hassle of writing down your objectives, creating plans and tweaking it constantly?
Why bother setting goals?
It’s a fair query. With the hassles of everyday life, work commitments and family matters setting goals may seem like the last thing you want to do.
In fact, our lives are busy enough!
So is there really any point in using up what little reserves of energy we have left setting goals and trying to work through a plan to achieve them?
There are two main reasons for setting goals.
The first is fairly straight forward – if you don’t set goals then you will probably never get what you want.
When you set a goal to achieve something and write it down, however, you have just placed yourself ahead of 80% of the population and are 85% more likely to get what you want!
The second reason for goal-setting is simple also.
If you don’t set a goal for yourself and work towards achieving it then you run the risk of getting something else – perhaps something that you don’t want!
You do not want to find yourself 10 or 20 years down the line playing the “what if” game!
What if you had taken a chance?
What if you had set a goal to do that thing you always wanted?
At the end of life most people do not recall the mistakes they made, just the opportunities they never took and the things they never got round to doing.
Don’t waste your life!
There is an old Chinese proverb that is fitting for this discussion, actually there are two but we will start with “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”.
What does this have to do with goal-setting and your life?
Take small consistent steps
Small steps taken regularly and consistently can lead you anywhere.
If you took only a few steps everyday day but kept going in the same direction everyday you could circumnavigate the globe – all it takes is time!
Put it this way – if you take a few small steps towards your ideal life everyday where will you be in 5 years, 10 years or 20 years?
This question leads me to the second Chinese saying.
This is the ancient Chinese definition of insanity and it states that you are insane, “when you keep doing the same thing, in the same way and expect a different result.”
How does the Chinese definition of insanity fit into all this?
Simple!
If you don’t take a few small steps everyday towards your ideal life and the things you desire where will you be in 5 years, 10 years and 20 years?
Doing the same thing that you have always done, in the same way, will get you the same results!
Don’t you think it’s time you made a change?
Would you like to set and achieve major goals in your life while bettering yourself as a person, experiencing more love and feeling immense peace and happiness?
Then read about the The Release Technique now!