The Top 5 Secrets To A Happy and Balanced Life

After writing about how to overcome guilt as a dancer yesterday, and having three separate conversations with friends/family about the importance of keeping balance in our lives, I felt that this post was absolutely necessary.  It’s difficult for most of us to maintain balance in our lives nowadays, because there are so many distractions, and so many demands put on us everyday.

This of course is no reason to settle for a life that is not happy, healthy, and balanced. Although you may get off track from time to time, you don’t have to stay that way. Here are my top 5 secrets to a happy and balanced life.

The Top 5 Secrets To A Happy and Balanced Life:

1) Give Yourself Permission To Be Un-Productive. TV, movies, video games, sports, reading a book or magazine, these are all things we do simply for the pleasure and enjoyment of doing it. It may not help your career or business grow, or help you mark any tasks off of your to-do list, but it sure feels good! Yes it does! Allow yourself to have time where you don’t have to think, accomplish anything, or even be productive. Give yourself time to just be, and have fun. You deserve it, and you need it to maintain your sanity.

2) Keep or Create White Space In Your Life. I read an article online about the concept of having white space in your life, and it’s so important. White space, as far as I’m concerned, is that time where you can just think, and be alone with yourself in your mental space. It’s a bit different from meditation. You can think of it as the space that creates a time for meditation. It’s a time that you leave blank, as opposed to scheduling things to take up every minute and every hour of your day, until you go to sleep at night. It’s basically empty space or time in your day/week, where you’re able to think, process, reflect, and not get caught up being busy doing “stuff”, with no time to actually think about what you’re doing, and why you’re doing it.

3) Stop and Think About What You’re Doing and Why. Be very careful of routine. Sometimes we can get stuck in the routine of doing certain things, while forgetting why we started doing them in the first place. It’s very easy to continue doing things out of routine, so be sure to stop every so often and ask yourself, “why am I doing this?” You may find out that you no longer need to be engaging in a certain activity, task, or job, or with a certain person, or you’ll just get refocused on your purpose and your goals, and get the motivation you need to carry on for another 3-6 months.

4) Learn To Delegate. There are some things that you really shouldn’t be spending your valuable time on everyday, and you (and I) know it. Delegating can be a little scary at first, and can backfire if not done properly. But it’s something you and I must learn to do, if we want to live the balanced and happy life that we’ve always dreamed of. It’s pretty simple. Start with delegating the things that you like to do the least, then move on to those areas that are not exactly your strengths. Take the next step, and find (or hire) someone to take over those tasks for you. You will not only be more productive as a result, but you’ll be happier too!

5) Put Yourself First. Let me clarify this point before I explain it. I put God first in my life, above everyone and everything, then my husband is second, so technically I’m third. But what I mean by “put yourself first” is this:

• Put Your Mental & Physical Health, and Well-Being First.

• Put The Relationships That Matter To You The Most First. (I’ve been known to postpone non-urgent work, in order to spend some quality time with my husband, or a day with my niece at the park, and I’m proud of it!)

• Put Your Priorities, Personal Goals, and Happiness First. One thing that I’ve learned is, what is urgent to someone else, isn’t necessarily urgent to me. Don’t make other people’s priorities, your priorities. Stay focused.

• Put Life Balance First. Your life can not be all work, and no play. Your life can not be ALL of any one particular thing. You need to have balance. Meditation, Exercise, Work, Play, Downtime, White Space, Rest, Relaxation, Entertainment, Learning/Reading Time, etc.