Striking a balance??
Balance.....something that I had been struggling with for a mighty long time, until recently... I reached a point whereby the very thought of neglecting areas of my life which I deemed so important to me actually hurt me and hit me like a tonne of...
Yes, business is important to me, but should it consume me to the point where my own mother is struggling to have a conversation with me on a Thursday evening at 8.15pm because my head is so buried in my lap top trying to get a proposal perfected???
Or having to tell my niece YET AGAIN that I can’t do her hair because I am exhausted from a compact week topped off by a three hour visit to the gym, mainly out of guilt because I didn’t manage to hit my ‘3 times a week’ target that week....
Or apologising to my partner AGAIN for the takeaway dinner, after he returns from a long day at work, because I just didn’t have the time to cook that day, AGAIN...
You catch my drift ;-). Sound familiar??
Ironically, my very own mission in life is to first and foremast serve my King Jesus to the best of my capability, then strive to be a brilliant wife and mother, with the rest to follow...now – how does or did this reflect against my true lifestyle?? Not very well
Sooo, here I am in 2011. Still far from perfect, yet feeling a lot more balanced :-). I launched out independently in June 2010 as a freelance consultant – the main attraction to this being the word ‘FREElance’. I smugly thought, ‘yes, this is it’ working from home, I will keep Monday free for personal development/family etc, work Tuesday -Thursday and Fridays will be my study day. Yeh, rrrrright!
After being consumed by all the runnings of life and juggling a thousand balls at a time, I eventually burnt out by the end of the year and STOPPED. Literally. I had to make a decision, I had to decide to create a balance in my life and stick to it...which of course is the hardest bit.
How was this possible? Going back to my initial statement, the negative affect that my unbalanced lifestyle was having on my loved ones, hurt me, on another level. It drove me to reassess my values/morals/principles and ultimately - change.
Balance.....something that I had been struggling with for a mighty long time, until recently... I reached a point whereby the very thought of neglecting areas of my life which I deemed so important to me actually hurt me and hit me like a tonne of...
Yes, business is important to me, but should it consume me to the point where my own mother is struggling to have a conversation with me on a Thursday evening at 8.15pm because my head is so buried in my lap top trying to get a proposal perfected???
Or having to tell my niece YET AGAIN that I can’t do her hair because I am exhausted from a compact week topped off by a three hour visit to the gym, mainly out of guilt because I didn’t manage to hit my ‘3 times a week’ target that week....
Or apologising to my partner AGAIN for the takeaway dinner, after he returns from a long day at work, because I just didn’t have the time to cook that day, AGAIN...
You catch my drift ;-). Sound familiar??
Ironically, my very own mission in life is to first and foremast serve my King Jesus to the best of my capability, then strive to be a brilliant wife and mother, with the rest to follow...now – how does or did this reflect against my true lifestyle?? Not very well
Sooo, here I am in 2011. Still far from perfect, yet feeling a lot more balanced :-). I launched out independently in June 2010 as a freelance consultant – the main attraction to this being the word ‘FREElance’. I smugly thought, ‘yes, this is it’ working from home, I will keep Monday free for personal development/family etc, work Tuesday -Thursday and Fridays will be my study day. Yeh, rrrrright!
After being consumed by all the runnings of life and juggling a thousand balls at a time, I eventually burnt out by the end of the year and STOPPED. Literally. I had to make a decision, I had to decide to create a balance in my life and stick to it...which of course is the hardest bit.
How was this possible? Going back to my initial statement, the negative affect that my unbalanced lifestyle was having on my loved ones, hurt me, on another level. It drove me to reassess my values/morals/principles and ultimately - change.
This was my personal battle; I recognise that it may not be yours.
Of course there were many practical elements to achieving this change, I had to do some very detailed goal setting, with deadlines and targets, which filtered down into my monthly, daily and at times even hourly patterns – my diary is now compiled in response to my goals as opposed to the other way around. I have to monitor my activity regularly to ensure that I am not slipping away again, being consumed by the suspect areas of my life.
**Thought** As I type, this brings me back to Einstein’s definition of insanity ‘doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results’.....
In order to strike a balance in life, something has to give, to make way for something or someone else....we need to CHANGE to get different results, in this case, a more healthy and balanced lifestyle.
I leave you with the same question I posed to myself in December 2010 – are you really striking a balance?
Melissa x
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