Changing your life - with balance

One of the things experts who have changed their lives say, is that with dedication and perseverance - you can change your life. However, the hardest part about changing your life, is balancing all the aspects of your life that you wish to excel in. For instance, how do you manage to have a successful career when you have a strong desire to spend time with your partner and children?  Many successful professionals often find themselves working long hours in order to move up the corporate ladder, or to build successful businesses. Getting the balance right can be difficult.

Whilst their are practical considerations and roadblocks to balancing life priorities (especially when you're trying to make a change to reach a goal), there are two essential ingredients to achieving a good balance:

1) Unwavering self-belief

2) Feeling happy about the balance that you maintain


1) Unwavering self-belief

This is one of the biggest challenges human beings face. Many people find themselves self-sabotaging their successes because they don't really believe they're good enough to achieve or sustain their desired goals. When the goal is set, it appears to be achievable, however, when roadblocks start to appear, or the road becomes a little more difficult, self-doubt creeps in to dint confidence and motivation. This self-doubt usually leads to procrastination. People often assume procrastination is laziness, however, it is usually the result of underlying fear.

One of the easiest ways to build self- belief when you're moving towards a goal, is to continually refocus on where you want to go. For instance, if your goal is to write a book, you may find yourself procrastinating to avoid parts of the process (e.g. writing, editing, promoting) so as to have an excuse for it to potentially fail - as it's not yet complete.  In the moments of procrastination, you must continuously remind yourself why your goal is important to you. You also need to be focused in the present moment, rather than focusing on the outcome of the goal. In the book writing example, you would focus on just the next step, rather than worrying about whether or not the book is going to be liked or well received. This mind shift takes some effort and persistence, because fear can be a very strong motivator for moving away from achieving a potentially scary goal.

2) Feeling happy about the life balance you maintain

Everyone has different desires and wishes for their professional life and personal life. Thus, you need to take time out to think about how much time you feel comfortable spending in all areas of your life and how this sits with those you care about most. Research shows that consistent, positive and quality time with loved ones is very effective at maintaining good quality relationships, so if you have minimal time with loved ones, at least make it count. This way, you can feel good about the time you're spending together and rationalise the amount of time you spend at work, at the gym, with friends and acquaintances, travelling and so on.

It's a good idea to give yourself space and time to reflect on the past year and to think about new strategies you could put into place to make your life more productive, effective and enjoyable. Trust in your self-belief and abilities to make the changes necessary to live a happy and successful life and seek help whenever you need it - to move forward with self confidence, trust and motivation.

Visit Happy Life today for personalised Life coaching and counselling support, or self-help online products, books and programs. See www.happylife.net.au