Recognize these four warning signals that
indicate the tilting of your life’s balance
I love my car even though it’s three years
ago. It has an in-built mechanism, which beeps when anything in the car goes
wrong – a gauge tells me when servicing is due, when fuel is low or when tyres
need attention. Should anything go awry, the mechanism will be brought to my
attention before it’s too late ensuring a safe and carefree drive.
Danger
signals in Stress
We too have an inherent mechanism that
warns us of our life going off balance. We need to be able to recognise the
signs so that we can keep a tab on them and heed to them when they show up.
Here are a few of those signs and the formulae on setting things right.
The health signal
Your health is the strongest barometer of
balance. If you feel exhausted all the time, it means that your health needs
attention. Therefore, tending to your body becomes urgent and holds priority
over your work, your family or anything else that falls in your schedule.
Your
health is the strongest barometer of balance
Imagine if your car shows low fuel. No
matter where you are headed, and how hard you try, you won’t reach there if
your fuel supply is inadequate. It’s the same with your body. Pushing yourself
over the limit abuses your body, making the balance tip against you.
It’s better to take a power nap when tired,
keep yourself replenished with minerals and vitamins, keep a few energy bars
handy and make sure that you get six to eight hours of undisturbed sleep every
night. Make no compromises on your health or your body will make you the slave
to its idiosyncrasies. Ignoring the needs of your body is the first step to
disturbing your life balance.
The attitude signal
Your attitude shapes your world and
determines your success. When you find yourself negatively inclined, when you
find yourself frequently irritated, when your temper flies out of control often
and your foul mood becomes public knowledge, it means your life has gone off
balance. Even distributing your time between work and family doesn’t help if
there’s something wrong with the attitude. Rather, the people around you become
victims of your misplaced attitude.
This is the time to stop and spend sometimes
with yourself in reflection. Go for a walk instead of rushing home to put the
blame on someone else. Go for a drive alone, read a book in a coffee shop, stroll
in a park with music in your ears, make a new friend or just go pump some
weights at the gym.
Go
for a walk instead of rushing home to put the blame on someone else
Get your mind and body away from the
environment that is challenging your attitude. Sometimes just getting away
allows you to see what’s wrong internally. Sometimes all that we need to bring
back the cheer and enthusiasm we first started out with ia a little break.
The creativity loss signal
The ability to create is a direct
measurement of your mental and physical wellbeing. Creation is the highest
state of existence where magic unfolds for all involved. When life gets mundane
and boring, and no ideas visit your mind, it’s the time to bring whatever you
are doing to a screeching halt. Without your creative edge you are nothing, you
can create nothing and you will achieve nothing. You may still do some robotic
work that needs no thinking or resolving, but that’s not how one works or
lives.
We all work and live to create, to create
alternate realities that are in sync with our purpose. When creativity is lost,
there is little hope for progress. Take an immediate break and rest. A tired
mind is a dead mind. Worse, it is a destructive mind. Rest. And when you are
done resting, help someone. Helping someone with solutions is the fastest way
of getting back on your creative feet. A creative mind creates a fascinating
balance for it helps create possibilities and harmony in every area of your
life.
The confused and lost signal
If you ever caught yourself questioning the
purpose of your work or your life or have ever been confused about the
direction your life is taking, you have reached a critical dip in the balance
of your life. This is a red alert that you need to urgently spend time with
your loved ones. One of the primary purposes of your work and your contribution
is the wellbeing of your family. When that purpose gets side lined, confusion
sets in. with the first hint of listlessness or confusion, book yourself for a
family dinner, or an outing, or a movie.
the
first hint of listlessness or confusion, book yourself for a family dinner, or
an outing, or a movie
Plan something exciting. Let me warn you
though, if you suddenly go home early and expect everyone to spend quality time
with you because you have mudled up your priorities, it’s only going to set you
up for a rude shock, for your family may not have time for you. Plan something
with them, even if it is not for the same day. Sometimes just putting a plan
into the weekend brings some peace back in the sudden hollow of confusion.
Clarity and direction are renewed by spending some fun time with your family,
for their needs and dreams make up the crucial contents of your purpose in the
first place.
Balance is a tricky thing because its
character is so simple and its signs are so subtle that one misses them
totally. The consequences of a disturbed balance, however, are so severe that
it misleadds people into believing that they will need to take some drastic
measures to set it right. The reverse is true. Work-life balance is possible,
in fact that is the surest way to lasting success – success that will serve you
and all others involved.
Don’t get it wrong
Work-life balance is one of the most
misunderstood concepts in our modern pressure laden times. Balance means
finding that optimum point where the person works in perfect condition, in
perfect harmony with his environment.
Work-life
balance is one of the most misunderstood concepts in our modern pressure laden
times
Balance does not mean giving equal priority
to everything or dividing your time equally between work and family. Its
fallacy is evident in the dissatisfaction people continue to feel despite their
efforts at that ‘misunderstood’ balance.
“I spend all the weekends with my family
but honestly I still cannot overthrow the stress that chases me the whole
week.”
“Even though I make an effort to switch off
from work, deep down inside the guilt and tension of work that needs attention
haunts me even when I try to ignore it.”
“I do my best to spend time with my family
and no matter what I do, I somehow still fall short of expectations and carry
this nagging feeling of inadequacy to work for the week.”
The answer to work-life balance is not
balancing one’s work with one’s family for that simply means more work; it
means balancing ones work with one’s life. Your life includes your family; it
is not your family. Your life includes you, your health, your spiritual evolution,
your mental vigour, your attitude and tenacity, your social presence, your
friends AND your family. So the balance is essentially between work and your
life, which includes all the above factors.
Let me tell you a secret – you don’t have
to work on the balance, the balance works on you.
