“I have a ‘carpe diem’ mug and, truthfully, at six in the
morning the words do not make me want to seize
the day. They make me want to slap a dead poet.”
~Joanne Sherman
I believe that this quote is probably something that we have all thought at six in the morning. It’s the time, the morning that is, that so many people wake up and rush to brush their teeth, take a shower and ready themselves for the day ahead; however, sadly it is also probably the most hectic part of the day. We sleep until the last second, which leads to a rush through our AM process to ensure that we get to work on time or get the kids to school before the final bell rings.
I understand that sleeping in is great, but on the road to achieving a life balance this isn’t healthy. The morning is an excellent time to spend a moment with yourself doing what you like to do. The following are five life hacks for managing you morning and achieving a sense of calm rather than a overwhelming feeling of stress.
(1) Have your breakfast on the balcony
Being outside can be an excellent opportunity to realize a genuine sense of calm. No one around except you and the surrounding environment allows you to think about the day ahead and remove yourself from your household surroundings that raise you level of anxiousness. Furthermore, this is a prime time to eat breakfast which is by far the most important meal of the day. After all, a person that does not eat breakfast is 400 times more likely to be obese.
(2) Watch the news or read a periodical with your coffee
Instead of drinking you cup of jo while you are shaving or getting dressed, drink it while you are watching the news or reading something. Staying up on current events gives you an edge on the world and something to talk about around the water cooler. Doing it all with a cup of coffee means that you will be excited about it, and you will be helping diminish your risk of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
Right now you should have established a total of ten goals – one short-term and one long-term goal for each pillar. Each personal goal is objective and you should be able to measure your success against the goal. These goals really are your indicators whether you are moving in the direction of establishing a balanced life, or if you are continuing to waiver on your commitments. Remember, you set the goals, so you are responsible for meeting them.
By having both sets of personal goals, long- and short-term, allows you to attack the here-and-now while keeping a focus on the future. You are effectively forcing yourself to think about what you want to achieve, but setting goals that eventually lead you there. Quite simply, focus heavily on your short-term personal goals but make sure that you keep reminding yourself what you want to achieve over the long haul.
With all of that said, it is now time that you (we) create a scorecard for our lives. This can be either very easy or exceptionally difficult. It really depends on the level that you want to track your progress. Some of the following are options that you may want to use to track your goals:
(1) Use a notebook to track your progress
One of the simplest ways that I know to track goals is to write them down in a notebook (use a few pages for each goal). About once a week take time to track your progress for your goal. Write down applicable notes about how you have done and what you have learned. Also, make sure to write down the numbers. For example, if my 6-month goal is to achieve a weight of 165 pounds I may mark down my weight, average calorie intake and waist measurement each week.
Today I was skimming through some of the blogs that I read on a regular basis and I discovered The Daily Mind. The blog had a very brief post about a Nike commercial featuring Michael Jordan. Based on the commercial, and the post, I started to think and expand on the message: Success is about failing.
In the past I was a very passionate coach. I worked with kids as young as 8 to seniors in high school. I coached football, basketball and track, and I absolutely couldn’t get enough of it. As a coach I had an excellent record – that is, I simply won more than I lost. I often wondered why this occurred. Yes, I had very skilled teams that executed fundamentals well. My assistant coaches were knowledgeable and passionate; however, I often attribute my successes to my (and my teams’) ability to overcome adversity and failure. We all had a willingness to reflect on what went wrong and how to improve for the future.
With a list of possible personal goals we need to decide which ones are the most important and will have the greatest effect on your life. This exercise requires honesty as well as evaluating your priorities. Quite simply, you have to be realistic. You don’t want to set goals that are so unrealistic that you are only setting yourself up for failure; however, it is important that you set goals that require you to stretch yourself and become a better person.
For example, I listed two personal goals: “Quit living paycheck to paycheck” and “Purchase a home”. Realistically these goals are probably not going to occur in parallel, and deciding to pursue them both would only end in devastation. Instead, a more realistic approach would be to set a personal goal like: “Purchase a home while starting an emergency savings plan”. In terms of achieving a life-balance this goal is realistic, because it is practical. It won’t drive me to focus solely on it and ignore the other goals; however, it is stretching me to change how I manage and invest my money.
Take some time and re-evaluate your goals. Once you are done, select one short-term and long-term goal for each category. Note that this may even mean re-writing some new goals that are ultimately a hybrid of your original objectives.
Setting 10 personal goals is not going to be an easy task. Think about it, how much stuff could be considered for a short-term goal? Brushing your teeth three times a day maybe? Balancing your checkbook every day? Doing cardiovascular exercise three times a week? You get the point. The list can be very, very long.
So, let’s start by making that very, very long list. Note that each potential goal you write down doesn’t mean that it will eventually be your goal. In fact you may end up with a hybrid goal that is essentially the summation of multiple goals that you wrote down. So, here are the definitions we will work by:
Personal Goal: The state that you intend to achieve. Short-Term: 6 months to 1 year Long-Term: 1 year to 2 years
Step One
Take out a sheet of paper and write down “Short-term Options” as the title. Under the title place you personal vision. Then, write five headings: Health, Spiritual, Relationships, Career and Finance. Make sure to leave some room under each heading so you can make a list.
One of the biggest challenges that I have as a blogger and a person is keeping it real. So many other books and blogs offer wonderful advice – in theory. They are written by people with good intentions, and most of the advice that they give will help. The problem that I have always found is that maintaining the suggested methods is difficult. That is why I have created this blog. I wanted to offer miscellaneous tips for achieving a life balance, as well as a simplified process for a complex problem.
Well, here is a tip that I think we all need: Keep it real. Remember that you are human and problems will arise and you will fall off the bandwagon. It’s going to happen. The key is not getting so frustrated that you decide to get permanently off. Remember, to error is human.
For me this is an exceptionally hard concept. I constantly need to remind myself that someday I will have a balanced life. I get frustrated, angry and even a little depressed sometimes because I feel like it is never going to happen. But remember, these feelings are natural and almost everyone has them. So what to do?
Achieving a life balance is very difficult and can be a frustrating endeavor. We have discussed the five pillars of life, and creating a situation where all five of the pillars are being addressed can be difficult. As I have described in the past, when focus on one pillar, finance let’s say, another one tends to fade into the background, say spiritual being. Well, people who are successful at life management don’t have this problem – they can effectively manage to balance focusing on one pillar without losing site of the others.
I’m sure that almost everyone – except maybe a select few – has had problems losing site of the many aspects in their life when they have set a goal for the future. Unfortunately though, achieving balance in our lives is going to require setting some, if not many, personal goals. The key here is that when we set goals we won’t focus so heavily on them that we lose focus of everything else in life.
One of the blogs that I read often, Zenhabits, suggested that it is necessary to focus on a single goal. Though the argument the author gave makes a ton of sense, I personally don’t buy it. He states that focusing on a single goal helps ensure that we meet the goal. When we focus on multiple goals, or set additional goals, we lose site of the original goal and eventually make things worse.
With a list of possible personal goals we need to decide which ones are the most important and will have the greatest effect on your life. This exercise requires honesty as well as evaluating your priorities. Quite simply, you have to be realistic. You don’t want to set goals that are so unrealistic that you are only setting yourself up for failure; however, it is important that you set goals that require you to stretch yourself and become a better person.
