Balance is a tricky thing to achieve in any aspect of life, but it’s especially hard when you’re trying to juggle work and family. This can be especially true if you’ve spent years working long hours at a job that demands your attention all day, every day. It might seem like the only way to handle it is by working even harder on your side hustle or taking on more clients—but there are ways to get more balance into your life without compromising who you are or what you want out of it.
#1. Prioritize
First, you need to know what’s most important to you. This may sound obvious, but it’s essential that you understand your own goals and motivations—because they will ultimately determine how you prioritize your time and energy.
Once you’ve established what matters most, decide what specific tasks or activities each area requires. It’s helpful to write them all down on a piece of paper so that everything is clear and defined in front of you (and visible at all times). You can use this list as a reference for when decisions about how much time or energy gets allocated get made throughout the week.
#2. Schedule out time
Once you’ve identified your personal priorities and goals, it’s time for the next step: scheduling. It’s easy to skip over this part because it feels like more work, but don’t turn away from this step! As with any other aspect of your life, being organized will make things go more smoothly overall.
Schedule out time for each priority area in your life—work, family, fitness—and stick to it as best as you can. Do your best not just on days when everything seems to be going well (which is how most people operate), but also on days when there are unexpected interruptions or setbacks that throw off plans entirely. The reality is that even if something goes wrong during one part of your day at work or at home, other parts might still go right if they’re scheduled properly; just because something didn’t happen doesn’t mean it won’t happen later in the week or month.
A great way to stay motivated throughout the day is by setting goals: what do I want from my project/meeting/fitness? What goals am I trying to achieve? Setting smaller goals along the way and knocking them off the list keeps us motivated and engaged with achieving the end result.
#3. Maintain a balance
It’s important to maintain a balance among your work, family and fitness so that neither one overshadows the others. If you’re too caught up in one area, you could easily neglect other priorities. Your health and well being should be a priority. Without it you won’t be able to do the other two!
Maintaining the balance keeps our mental health as well as our physical health in check. You won’t be able to be 100% all the time, nobody is perfect and don’t feel guilty when prioritizing one area over another—it’s completely natural! As long as we’re recognizing when this happens and making efforts (even small ones) towards correcting the imbalance, then you can make more progress and sustain a healthier life.
Nobody said this is easy. Balancing work, family and fitness in your life take practice and you have to pay attention to when things are getting out of hand. Schedule the time for each one and keep them in harmony as best you can. There will certainly be ups and downs, but if you have the goals set then the steps to get there will fall in place!
