Manage Your Emotional Habits and Thought Patterns: 4. Balance

Seek greater balance in your life

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Balance and imbalance

Life is a journey of experiences. We have the choice to allow events to happen and we respond passively, or to take a more proactive role in managing them.

Neglecting to manage your life can lead to a loss of balance, but managing your life more effectively leads to greater balance and smoother sailing. When things are out of balance, stress, anxiety and physical tension can often follow. This your body’s way of telling you that something is wrong and that you need to do something to put things back in check.

Too much of anything can be a bad thing and lead to imbalance. The rabid party animal may not achieve as much professionally, but the stressed out workaholic is likely to burn out and lose all joy in life.

Achieving a more balanced life is really about how we manage our lives, energy, and time. A well balanced person often feels energetic and optimistic. An imbalanced person will feel unfulfilled or drained.

Creating balance

A simple formula to use is to strike a roughly equal balance between:

a) Fulfilling your responsibilities, whether professional or to your family, or working towards a career or study goal;

and

b) Doing something for yourself that you enjoy and makes you happy;

and

c) Doing something that gives back socially or to the community; bond with people or seek some form of adding value to the society around you; embrace connections with others around you.

Why?

a) Doing what you need to do is an act of professionalism and being responsible. If we let it slack, we will get ourselves into trouble or let others down. E.g. neglecting your kids/parents, or missing deadlines at work or school.

b) Doing something for ourselves that makes us happy is an expression of self love that takes care of our emotional well-being by making life fun and enjoyable. Remember the expression: “All work and no play make Jack a dull boy”. Make sure you do something that you like, and solely for yourself. This is not an act of selfishness. If you can’t even love yourself, how will you love anyone else?

c) Doing something for the community and/or connecting with people is about keeping our humanity alive and fostering social networks. It can be anything from volunteering with an NGO or religious organisation, to helping a stranger in need, to spending quality time with friends and letting them know how much you appreciate them. The idea is to offer your value to others and send love out. It’s also about connecting yourself to others and fostering a sense of human connection to discourage human isolation. A lot of depression and addiction stems from prolonged isolation leading to sufferers feeling alienated. Such loneliness and not having anyone to relate with can lead to substance abuse or even the loss of the will to live.

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