Work/life balance is an issue that has been around for years. We often hear of juggling five balls as an analogy to balancing life. The five balls represent work, family, health, friends and spirit. Work is described as rubber and will always bounce back. However, the other four “balls of life” are made of glass and if dropped, will get nicked, damaged or completely shatter.

This view is commonly accepted and the analogy, widely used.  Although I believe this is a great visual analogy, I have one major problem with it. . . . the five balls are separate entities. Our life is one whole.

Many separate the different roles and the different characteristics of their life from each other - work, family, health, friends and spirit - but is any one of these any less important to LIFE and WHO we are? I say no.

Life is made up of all of these components, but each of these components are a piece of the whole.  The way I see balance is not through juggling, but rather through fitting in all of the appropriate pieces to fit in a puzzle that make up who you are - one whole Life.

Society and culture break apart our whole self by giving us “labels’ and “roles” so that we can easily and neatly fit into the compartments of our environment:
At work, you’re a technician.
At home, you’re a mother.
With friends, you’re a jokester.
You get the idea. . . “labels” and “roles” are given to distinguish between each setting or situation.  Often times we buy into these compartments and separate our work life from our home life from our life with friends. This is why there is a need for balance with work and life.

But in reality, you are one entity.
You are you all the time.
There is One Life.
How do you balance that?

Ultimately it IS one life, one entity, so the balance comes by breaking down the walls that separate and divide the whole part of Life. Pulling away from the labels and roles and just “being” who you are. . . . With this concept, if you are “being” you all the time, then work, family, health, friends and spirit would fit into a package that is called YOU, there would be no need for “balancing” and “juggling.”

Life is in balance when every moment of every day you can be fully YOU.

Discovery Tip: Balancing Work and Life

Some ideas and thoughts on how to achieve true balance in your life.

• Give yourself time.
  Achieving “balance” in your life is an on-going process that takes time and many shifts. The way we work, think, behave are all habits, even if they don’t always work well in our life. It takes time to first realize the habits that
  have been formed, figure out what habits would work better and then to re-form those habits in our lives.

• Know what is important in your life.
  The easiest way to know what is balance in your life, is to know who you are.
  The first step to knowing your true self is to ask yourself honestly, “What is important in my life?”

• Look at the “labels” and “roles” you hold in your life now- are they you?
  Perhaps some of the “un-balanced” feelings come from your intuition and doing something you know is “off” for you. Listen to your intuition and your gut feelings for yourself. Are you forcing yourself to be and do things that are just not you? Going against your natural grain will almost always cause a feeling of imbalance. Unfortunately people do not rely enough on that natural “feeling” and intuition we were all born with.

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