LIFE BALANCE

This week I am working on a life balance programs. I have read a lot that others have published about this subject and really wanted to dive into it myself. Over the past year, through choosing to create my life coaching practice and start another business, I have learned to see balance in my own life.

Most content I find on the web – be it articles, blogs or stories – seems to talk about balance between two things that can easily be in conflict: work and life; family and personal; church and home. The list goes on and on. Over my life, it seems to have been that way; it was always a balance between two things in my life. After several business ventures, when I look back I see that it was a total life balance that was what I needed. And if I needed it, how many other people are in the same circus act trying to do a million things with the few hours in each day, week, or month that we are given on this earth?

In Brian Tracy’s book, Million Dollar Habits, he mentions that a person has confidence in life only to the point that person has control of his or her life. If you are living out of control, sooner or later you are going to crash. So know your own limits first. One thing I encourage you to do is to take things one step at a time. Let’s imagine one of those tight-rope walkers. If they are 50 stories up between two buildings they really have to have balance perfected to make it across.

I’ve often mentioned the rock stars of my younger years. Many of them lived fast, partied hard, and some died young from that way of life. Now, if you are walking that tight rope, 50 stories up in the air, and you’re living out of control like that, when you fall, it’s certain death. But if your tight rope was 10 feet in the air and you partied and lived on the edge, the fall from there would not hurt that much. If you want to soar with the eagles, go to great heights, you need to get your balance right. Learn to balance on the first floor and once you’ve learned that, move up a floor. In my personal life when I was down, I started out with small goals to get myself back up.

Next, build on your confidence. As you are learning to achieve balance in life, get better at those things that will help you build confidence. You don’t have to do everything. I used to watch the circus as a boy and watch a clown who would juggle. He would start with two pins, then work in a third, then four, then five. It’s great to see this. We all just think he is so great to be able to take on more and more because he made it look easy. But as I got older, and tried this in my own life, I was met with failure. You see the only thing that clown can do is increase his chance of dropping one, then one by one they all start to fall. That’s why it’s so important for him to start with just one or two, get good at that, then add more.

In my own life, I’ve owned businesses and worked for others. When working to manage another man’s business, I was ready to try to prove myself and impress the man I worked for. I wanted to be a prize employee, to show I could do the job. What my boss could see that I could not was, the more you take on the sooner you will drop something. This is one of those things I learned with age. I hope to pass this on to those who are still trying to do as much as they can to impress some boss. So build your confidence in the small things you can do well and once you become so good at it then build to the next one.

Until next time, I’m Tim Gillette, Rocker Life Coach, telling you to Live, Love, and Rock on.