Life is About Balance

We often encounter so many voices that say ‘do this and your life will be dramatically morphed into “HappyLand!” I am sure that is true to an extent but overall I have learned that life is about balance. Balance of your time and efforts towards things spiritually, physically, intellectually, and socially. It really is.

I remember thinking when I was a kid that if only I could just work hard enough to become the best piano player of all my teachers students, or most amazing singer in the region, or make the highest grade possible of my high school I could then be happy. Ambition is awesome but the kind of thinking in “all or nothing” terms or so that you selectively ignore other important aspects of your life actually hampers happiness. Happiness by definition is wholeness or completeness. Therefore, you can’t ignore other important spheres of your life, particularly those mentioned above. Life is about balance.

I love balance. In dance, balance is so critical. Where are you distributing your weight? Are your feet firm and yet are your stretching your head and your spine? My ballet teacher once told us, “that our legs are like steel rods piercing 5 feet into the ground while stretching our spines up, up, and up to the heavens.” Although this is not what is really happening, it’s a good visual to get the point across. What about our arms and center? How do they fit in the picture? What about the placement of the head and the delicate position of our hands? How it applies to motherhood is yes, maybe we are good at keeping a clean home and having it clutter free but how are we doing with playing with our kids, having family meals every night, or reading to them and developing your relationship with them? It is not easy. I struggle too and that is why my blog is dedicated to this- how to relish being a Mom and find the magic in its beauty.

Don’t worry this is not something to add stress to your life or cause you to put labels on our selves or feel we don’t measure up somehow. Say goodbye to any of those thoughts. They are not allowed because they are not justifiable. Just take a deep breath and believe in who you are no matter how little or much you feel like you are doing. You are amazing whether you realize it or not. Believe in what you love, and what is important to you. You are going to do great!

With that how can this actually apply to YOUR life? How do you make this “life of balance” thingy real in your life??? The answer is…. through a weekly checklist! Yes,it is so true and worth every thought-out minute of putting one together for yourself. It is so worth it. It has helped my family and I have a practical weekly game plan to get our personal goals and home goals happening. I have not always been perfect at it or am currently, but I am striving for it and and it is making a difference, a big difference. It is so worth the effort because I remind myself when it gets difficult, that I am developing something very important here – “to-be adults”.  I want them to be responsible and do great things with their lives. It starts with just a touch of order and discipline. They can either learn now while they are more teachable or have it be a whole lot harder learning later in life. The other side of the equation is that I am consistently being disciplined and hard-working myself because in the end you lead by example.  My next goal is to get my hubby on board and have him write his goals out so we can support him, too. We have these on a wall in our kitchen.

The boxes apply with different days of the week. Some rows have boxes under Monday Wed and Friday while other goals have boxes for Mon-Fri. Row 1 of boxes coordinates with row 1 goal. You can write it our by hand and or be more technical and use Microsoft Excel. 

You can totally do something like this if you are not already. Start with just 10 categories of checks.  Make at least one weekly check in each category spiritual, physical/health,  intellectually challenging, and social. For example you’ll see I have a goal to read my scriptures each morning (spiritual), workout and make healthy meals for family (health or physical), practice german (intellectual), and I have goals to get out with kids and friends weekly (social).

I laminated these so we can just use them weekly and wipe them off at the end of the week. If you don’t have a laminating machine you can use small picture frames. When you write on the glass with a dry erase marker you can wipe it off with a paper towel.Here is a post of when I did this before.

Try it! Beautiful things happen when you commit to a life of balance and a life in pursuit of peace.

Marilyn