In today’s reading, we were asked to appreciate the small moments and acknowledge that change is inevitable. By releasing what we know we need to let go of, we have an opportunity to start over. This involves releasing the things that aren’t working for us anymore, the situations that hurt us or impacted our well-being in some way. We let those go and we can focus on finding balance. We can reset the scales, so to speak, all through a fresh start.
So we’ve seen the self-help posts, books, and videos. We’ve heard the advice and believe it can help us. We acknowledge that we are too stressed, too anxious, too focused on all the wrong things. We are in search of balance. So why isn’t it happening?
In 5 Reasons You’re Struggling to Find Balance in Life, Beard (2018) explains some reasons we can’t find balance could be that we either haven’t defined what balance means to us or we are lacking consistency in our actions and self-care. Are we wanting balance between our personal and work lives? Are we wanting balance in our relationships? Have we actually committed to this? If so, then what steps are we taking?
In line with the idea of defining what balance means to us, in 5 Ways to Find Balance in Your Life, Barth (2014) believes we need to reframe balance as an ongoing process. It’s easier to see this idea of balance, as something we have to reach, a final goal. In reality, it is something that we need to consciously practice. It isn’t something that happens once and suddenly we are calm, content with all aspects of our life. It takes smaller steps that eventually lead to bigger steps that then become habits. It is something that we decide to pursue on a daily basis and then make sure that our actions match with this pursuit.
At the end of the day, the best advice that we can seem to find is to make finding balance a daily ritual. Identify steps that can be taken that are in line with this idea of balance. If we want more balance between our personal and work lives, then we set a goal of stopping work at a set time every day. We set a goal of not checking our work phone or email on our days off. If we want more balance in our relationships, we focus on setting boundaries. We get to decide what we are comfortable with and work on staying strong when others challenge it. Ultimately, it takes practice and will be an ongoing process, but we can’t reset the scales if we don’t try.
Image by Einfach-Eve from Pixabay
Midnight Crab Oracle 