What is life life balance and how is it supposed to feel?
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What is life life balance and how is it supposed to feel? Can we ever really find it? Is it balance we're looking for or just a state of peace and happy and flow? We can all feel like when we're out of balance, right? What comes to mind when you think my life is out of balance?
When you're always chasing for that perfect feeling, when you're always looking for it, it can really set us up for disappointment.
This is the Creative Life in Motion podcast. I'm your host, Karen Wilson.
So let's talk about balance or flow or debunk it. I'm going to share with you some of the tools that I use when I feel like things are out of whack, out of balance, out of flow. And then I'm also, let's talk about what, what Google says.
I think that sometimes when we're given a list of things to do to restore balance, within that list, there's a list [00:01:00] of 20 or 30 things that we need to do. But they're like minuscule, right?
Like they're not like they're teeny tiny little steps to get there. So you might have one big thing on your list, and you wonder, why can I never reach this goal? It's because you're not accounting for all the little teeny tiny things that are attached to it that take your time. Right? And that take effort.
It's not only time, it's effort and maybe it takes income. So let's, let's just take a look at what Google has to say about finding ways to establish life balance. So to avoid feeling overwhelmed and burnt out, here are five ways to establish life balance. Number one is prioritize your time. Make a list of your daily activities and prioritize them based on their importance.
Fill your cup first. Okay, so Prioritize your time. How do I do that if I [00:02:00] don't know? What my prior priorities are, right?
So, what do you do to figure out what your priorities are? Well, usually, traditionally, and what's worked for, you know, lots and lots of years, there's, this is not going to be anything new to you. You go through a list of 10 to 12 items that are, you know, that have to do with, you know, work and, and relationships and faith and your, your health.
And you, you. Base them on a score, right? How am I doing? Two for zero for this is flat and then you know, 10 for if this is great. And then you take your lowest scores and you look at them if they're meaningful to you. And they're low. That's gonna hurt, that's gonna like, hit you in the stomach, like, ugh.
Say you feel like your mindset is suffering or you feel like You know you're your body is [00:03:00] suffering, you're not looking after it properly, you want to prioritize your healthful lifestyle and you're not doing it.
Well, that hurts. So if you get a low score for that, guess what? There's a, there's a ton of to do lists, to do items to get that back up. So traditionally What's done is you go through this list of 10 to 12 items, right? Or 10 to 12 categories of your life and you choose the ones that mean the most to you that you want to raise the score in and then you set a list of 10 goals.
Now, if you're anything like me, those 10 goals are like lifetime goals. They're not goals that you can get done in 30 days. Most people set goals way higher than the expectation of time, especially if you're someone that's a high achiever.
Because when you set one of those goals, it has a lot of steps that goes along with it. So what I [00:04:00] do. This is, this is how I managed to set myself in a state of flow. Instead of thinking about all of these 12 things, right, which, which are Subcategories of a, of the bigger picture. The, the bigger picture in on a macro scale is what helps to keep us, I feel like in a state of flow, in a state of balance, is if we're working on our mind, we're working on our bodies, and we're working on something that fulfills us in our purpose.
So that's three things. Three things, right? So, if you were to take it down from 12 categories down to 3 categories and you were to say, okay you know, I want some, I want to get better in my mindset, then you can figure out, well, what is it in my mindset that needs to get better? Is it, is it prayer? Is it motivation?
Is it [00:05:00] like, what is it? And then you can, you can have that as your goal. Secondary thing is, you know, I need to, I need to make sure that my body is fueled because my body is my home. My body is my vehicle. I, anything that I want in life, we're, we're attatched So if I want to go and do something, I need to take care of this envelope.
I need to take care of this vehicle. And I'm not talking anything about like worrying about how much you weigh or how you look or you know, anything like that. I'm talking about making sure that it's going to be able to. Come for the ride with you, right? So that's thinking about, you know, how am I moving my body that's going to make it stronger, more resilient, and also feel safe?
How am I going to put things into my body to make sure that it's feeding my cells, nurturing my, the energy that I want [00:06:00] to produce? So those are, those are kind of the things if you're feeling like you're falling short in that category, then set, set a goal, set a goal in that category. So you have, now you have a category for your mind.
Now you have a category for your body. Now there's a category for purpose. Now this, this is something that can fall. into like quite a large catchment area and usually where I find the most powerful thing when I work with people one on one or I found the most powerful thing that within the purpose is usually a project that they cannot put a tangible income to first but they feel a calling to do it.
So it might be writing a book, it might be creating an online course, it, it's something that right now the investment is time and maybe a little bit of money for somebody to help coach them through the process. But that's a difficult one to grasp on to. And [00:07:00] that's usually when, just like the body thing, it slides off our to do list because everybody and everything else seems to have, seems to win, like.
The spot in what we do for the day, so when you sit down to do your to do list, you'll notice more and more like once, you know, and tell me, tell me if this happens to you, right? You look down at your to do list and you notice that your entire day is based on everybody else's priority. Right? And if it gets to that point, that's probably in a spot where you, you know, you're, you're out of balance.
You're, you're out of flow. And, and you're not happy because there's this little voice that does never stops. It won't stop. Once you start it, you cannot stop. So you might know that, yeah, I need to get up and I need to [00:08:00] move today. Then the email comes in, or the, or the phone rings and you're called into work, or, you know, or whatever, like the emergencies start to happen, and you put yourself aside.
Well, the same can be true for anything working along in your purpose. So the same can be true for if you're trying to write a book. Right? And everything else is taking up that workspace and work time. So you don't have that dedicated hour a day that it takes to write a book or maybe write your podcast or do your YouTube videos.
Whatever it is that you're doing that you cannot justify a monetization on it yet. You can't say I'm doing this because it's making money. So you don't. You don't, you don't do it. You do everything else. And quietly the whispers are [00:09:00] calling on you to fulfill this purposeful thing.
You don't need a validation through money. to make it valuable. It's one of the most valuable things that you have in your energy vortex. When, when you combine These three things that I'm talking about when you combine the mindset, the healthy mindset, whether that's feeding it with more education that's going to help you get to the next level, pulling in the positive vibes and, and, and the positive energy and really connecting with the universe.
Pulling that through the body. So as you move your body, you move that energy through. If you're not moving your body, energy becomes stuck and it just sits there. And then, so you're moving it through your body and then your purpose, it will just completely leak out. It's effortless when the three of them are flowing together.[00:10:00]
Things are more synergistic. And I think that that's the state by which we feel balance with, with that state of bliss, that state of flow when we're activating all, all of these, all of these things together. So that's, that's how I approach the priorities. So when I sit down and I'm like, okay, well, what's my priority for this month?
I'll look at those three categories. And whichever one has been getting the least amount of attention, that's the one that goes at the top. Do the hard thing first.
It's a no brainer.
Okay. So let's go back to Google. I've had my little rant on that. I'd love to hear what you think about it. The second thing that helps you avoid feeling overwhelmed and burnout. So the first thing is prioritize your time. Number two, is create a schedule. Plan your day in advance and create a schedule that includes [00:11:00] time for work, family, friends, exercise, and hobbies. Make sure to stick to your schedule as much as possible to avoid feeling overwhelmed. I don't know about you, but I think that that's a lot to pack in in a day.
In one day, I need to make sure that I have time for work, family, friends, exercise, and hobbies. And stick to my schedule as much as possible. Have you worked from home ever? Have you ever had a home office and been disrupted 20 million times a day from all these different things? And, you know, sometimes they're hobbies, sometimes they're friends, sometimes they're family, sometimes they're dogs.
And then you try to get everything done on time. Well, I do have a way that I, that, that helps me stay on track with the schedule and I kind of talked about this in the previous chunk about making sure that the day starts [00:12:00] with me, my, my morning routine, my grounding and my, I work on my mindset first and then I I dig deep into my purpose with whatever I'm writing, whatever I'm putting out into the world.
And then I will exercise. So that's, that's how I start my day with those three things stack to stack. Then the rest of the day, I usually use time blocking. I have usually more than one project on the go at any given time. And if they're not scheduled during the day, Then they, they don't get the time that they need.
What I found in bouncing back and forth from time blocking to time daying, like sometimes I'll work on just one project per day it's, it's very difficult to try and figure out which one is best because usually you're always leaving something undone. And if there's no white space in your calendar, like that's, that's another thing danger that can happen from packing too many things in, [00:13:00] is that you end up eating lunch at your desk or you end up, you have no white space to go to the bathroom.
Like you've scheduled yourself too thick packing in your days. So when you do. So, schedule your day, especially if you work from home like I do, ensure that you have a lot of white space. So, for an example, I have two activities that I do per day that, that take me away from the desk. And this is during the work day.
The number one. First one is either a workout or a walk with my dog. The second one is either a workout or a walk with my dog. Depending on weather and my schedule, one will usually get done at lunch, and one will get done At in the morning, which means I take an extended lunch because I'll have to clean up and I allow myself that space because then I'll usually go back to work from two to five.
I have this rejuvenation of creativity, a creative splash, if [00:14:00] you will, and then that allows me to shut off at five. It's, it's not easy. You know, there's, there's always things that will distract you from your own schedule. And so when I start at the beginning of the week, I always look at, okay, what do I know is achievable this week?
And then I usually cut that in half. Because you have to allot the time for distractions. So if you think that your timeline, for example, if you think that you could, you can build somebody a landing page. For their, for their website, say you're a creative person like me or you help other creatives and you're building a landing page and you know that that project is going to take you about 12 hours, right?
It probably will only take you six. Pretend like it's going to take you 12 because there's always going to be other things that go along with it There's going to be emails back and forth with the client. There's going to be Looking for [00:15:00] things looking for resources looking for you know pictures you get the gist of it There's, there's going to be a lot of things that are attached to that one item that you might not have even planned for.
So that's another tip that I always use when I'm scheduling my week so, so that I'm not feeling overstuffed, right? Because once you feel that overstuffed, then everything starts to fall off the plate. What's next that Google says? Set boundaries, yes, ensure that you have time for yourself and loved ones.
Well, I think that this is a whole setting boundaries. I think it's a whole podcast on its own because again, it's a whole thing that's attached to a million different things on its own, right?
Sometimes, you know, you can, you can put those walls up a little too high. I've done that too. That's a whole exercise in itself. One of the, the best boundary builders that I have is a smartphone boundary builder, right? [00:16:00] I've done, I've used that myself and it's in the ideas in motion planner in journal. And it's basically a lot of times the biggest the biggest boundary we need to put on is, is our smartphone.
So we're not answering clients in the grocery store lineup or, you know, when we're playing in the park with our kids we're not answering emails that are coming in where we're really present to where we are. That's going to help you feel like you're in a state of flow or balance. If you can just shut that off how set yourself quote unquote work hours.
Even if you work for yourself, you have to have. work hours. You have to have off hours. All right, what else does Google say? Practice self care, sleep, eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, and taking time for relaxation, relaxation and stress relief. Okay, so we've already, you know, touched on that and, and I feel like that could be [00:17:00] done with a solid morning routine.
However, that can also get you in a danger zone if you exercise first thing and then you sit all day. Right. So, you, you know, putting in that taking care of your body, not just trying to like, you know, lose weight to disconnect is number five. So set aside time each day to disconnect from technology, social media. Spend time in nature, read a book, engage in a hobby that brings you joy. Learning to disconnect can help you and recharge and be more present in your personal and professional life.
Yeah, and so that is coupled with the boundaries. If you have good healthy boundaries, then you will be able to disconnect. That will be quite simple. Okay, so before this gets too too long, I want to, this is where Google got it right. Balance is not something that you achieve once and for all, but rather something you [00:18:00] need to actively work on every day.
Well, that's the same with the state of flow. You can actually, you can actually feel it when everything is kind of out of flow.
I get all kinds of warning signals, and then I know that it's It's, it's time. This feeling of unrest that you might be feeling. Just go back to what we were talking about in the beginning and think about, you know, what am I doing for my mind?
What am I doing for my body? And what am I doing for my purpose? And when you activate all three of them, the state of flow starts to come. It doesn't happen overnight. Right. It didn't, it never happens overnight when you become you, when you find yourself in a state of, you know, not feeling your best, it never happens overnight.
It's a cumulative effect of many, you know, many months, sometimes many years. And then all of a sudden it's like bonk. And so it takes [00:19:00] time to reset everything. It takes time to reset yourself. So make sure that you're patient with yourself in the pursuit. of balance. Now if you found this helpful or flow, do you think of, do you think there's balance?
Like how, how do you feel about that word? Do you feel like it's achievable? Have you ever been there? And what's your secret?
Like, do you get that feeling in your gut that just starts to churn where it's like, Oh, this can't, this can't be good. This can't be good. I'm about to fall off the, the, the teeter totter. That's what it is. And, and then you readjust. Creative life in motion, and it's all about, you know, our life. is in motion and we're all creative. So when we fuse that altogether like look at the magic we make, right? Anyways, bye for now. I'll see you next [00:20:00] time.
