Alex Shalman.comPractical Personal Development

This article is part of the Life Balance Group Writing Project and is the brain child of Stacey Hoffer Weckstein who blogs at Create A Balance.

“To acquire balance means to achieve that happy medium between the minimum and the maximum that represents your optimum. The minimum is the least you can get by with. The maximum is the most you’re capable of. The optimum is the amount or degree of anything that is most favorable toward the ends you desire.”
~Nido Qubein

I see life balance as a table with 10 legs. All legs must be balanced, or else your table is going to be shaky. Nobody wants to sit at a table that’s going to shake on them, and likewise no one wants to be the sole-proprietor of a shaky life.

On the other hand, it’s practically impossible to be balanced in all aspects of your life. It certainly isn’t human nature to find our personal equilibrium at a place where everything is balanced. I think balance is an ideal, and a fun life challenge to strive for.

If your life is severely off balance then aspects of your life that are low will impede the growth and success of those areas that are high. For example, it’s hard to have good relationships with friends and family when you have temperament and emotional control problems.

10 Essential Components of life Balance

1. Health & Fitness
2. Mental development & Education
3. Work, Career, & Finances
4. Social life & Relationships
5. Home & Family
6. Character, Integrity, Ethics & Virtues
7. Emotion control & development
8. Daily habits & routines
9. Life purpose & contribution
10. Spiritual development

These 10 components are all interwoven within your life. None of them are independent of each other. The closer all of these components are to each other, meaning the more balance you have, the more they’ll act as support for each other in your personal growth.

The Imbalanced Life

Let’s be practical and realistic. Who do you know whose whole life is a perfect balance? I can think of no human being, nor any fictional character who has achieved this ideal. This doesn’t stop me from believing the optimal balance is something we should strive for.

In my own life I think I’m doing fairly well with life balance. However, at the current moment the finance leg of my table is doing sub-par to the rest of my areas. Instead of letting this bring the other areas of my life down I’m figuring out ways to deal with the situation in a positive way and I would even go so far as to say that it is a challenge that I look forward to.

I don’t want to waste money on eating out. I remedy this by buying healthy food and cooking it myself or with Marina. Not only am I spending less per meal then I would at a restaurant but I have leftovers for up to 3 days. I’m also not in a position where I can purchase too much entertainment, so I’ve made exercise as my number one source of fun (next to writing articles for you guys!).

My diet consists of eating well, creating great daily habits, exercising, and fasting. All of these components serve to increase the self-discipline portion of my character. This reflects at work, at my internship, and at the amount of articles I have been putting out lately.

I believe that because the legs are pretty well-balanced that instead of my finances bringing everything down, the rest of the components act together to maintain balance. Am I really broke if I still live below my means and take great pleasure in my life?

What does life balance mean to you? Use this opportunity to tell us about your views of life balance in the comments box below.

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