I talk about balance a lot in my posts and the importance of maintaining balance in everything we do.  One of the most important tips I can give you on maintaining a healthy balance in life is to take time for family and yourself! It’s just something I have learned throughout my life – I’m not saying that I do it well but I know that when I take things to extreme something always goes wrong e.g. broken bones, depression, alienation of people…….

So, why is this first tip about taking time for family and for you? If you do this and become aware of the value of family time you will get better at  taking a balanced approach to life. As I said above, I am not there yet but I have to say I am much better than I was. Here is my story and what I did about it.

Tip #1 Take time for family and yourself!

It’s easy to give advice in hindsight isn’t it? I wish I could give advice to my younger self about the importance of balance and spending time on family and on self care. I also wish I could mend the many rifts that have been caused in my life because of my lack of balance over the years. My childhood years were lived at a slow, relaxed pace. But once I got through my teen years when I dreamed of becoming a beach bum, I managed to set myself a cracking pace of life that I now regret.

I do wonder how young families cope these days with so many pressures on them to keep up with all the fads in life. So in this post, I will reflect on what my own lack of balance did to me and to my family over the years and I will share a few bits of advice to help you make decisions about what fads to follow and when to say no!

Family Expectations

Family expectations are so powerful at shaping our families. I grew up in a family that gave conflicting messages about having to be a high achiever but at the same time I was constantly told by my grandmother not to work too hard. There were also expectations about higher education but then my grandmother expected that I would give all that up to become a stay at home mum! So what I ended up doing was distancing myself from most family members and becoming a workaholic who set her own incredibly high expectations of success. However, the expectations of others had a strong influence on the values I set for myself. Hard work, success, meeting deadlines at all costs, abhorrence at the thought of failure – these were the start of many of my troubles.

Through the years of raising a family, working, trying to be active in our church and fitting in some recreational activity, I realise now I was totally exhausted all the time but unable to give up because of my own inner stubbornness. I hated holidays because I had nothing to do and used to set myself project tasks to do over Christmas so I didn’t have time to socialise or think. I was always afraid that if I became too used to having time off that I would be unable to jump back into work again. Stupid right?

However, I thought I was happy with that for most of my life until about 5 years ago when something that I had worked hard on for 10 years (board membership) got ripped away from me. Years of working weekends and nights, meetings, official functions etc. all gone and totally wasted. I can’t go into details, but trust me, it was life changing. It was then I questioned my attitude to life and realised what I had missed out on for years and the problems that I had as a result of my work ethic.

A Lack of Balance Will Destroy You

If you are busy all the time you don’t have time to think but you also end up in an exhausted mental state that prevents you from dealing with the deeper issues that arise.

My lack of balance:

Robbed me of years of social time with my husband and children

Led me to place unrealistic expectations on my own children 

Cost me many friends 

Resulted in years of being overweight and in poor health

Cost me years of healthy sleep, and 

Gave me a good excuse not to confront long term family issues, including rifts between my mother and distance from other family members. 

I also became a lazy cook and that bothered me too!

Getting Back into Balance

Over the past 5 years I have gradually come back into balance. I had already turned my weight and health around but needed to be able to give myself permission not to work all hours of the night and day. When my board membership disappeared, I felt completely lost and didn’t know how to deal with the situation. I swam a lot and increased my overall exercise routines to fill in some of the time on the weekends. But I would sit at the computer constantly checking for emails to fill my time. But they didn’t come!

Now, a few years along, I have learned that it’s OK to rest on the weekend. It’s also OK to not take work with me wherever I go- sitting quietly enjoying a coffee is beneficial, not a waste of time! I enjoy my exercise without feeling the need to rush home to work. I also know that if I don’t finish a task at the end of one week that I will be able to complete it next week. Andrew and I have also learned how to talk things through and deal with problems better than we ever have before. If there was one good thing about what happened 5 years ago it is that we now work together better as a team! And similarly I learned to enjoy the time I spend talking with my children. I am no longer just ‘fitting them in’, chatting with them and helping them is an important part of my life and of their lives too!

Of course, this blogging business could be dangerous i.e. I could let it take over. But this time, it is something that Andrew and I are doing together, not something that takes me into my own little workaholic world.

So, what is my advice on achieving balance? Here are a few ideas that I would have appreciated years ago.

Think about what you value in life. Try and define 5-10 values that are of most importance to you. 

Ask yourself if your values reflect a balanced perspective of life?

Set goals that are based around what you value and that reflect balance i.e. ideally you should set goals around health, exercise, eating, other recreation, friends, family and work.

Ask someone to help you work towards achieving those goals and hold you accountable. 

Keep trying, and don’t be too hard on yourself – you’re only human!! 

What Next?

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Until next time,

 

 

Gillian (and Andrew)