Finding Balance in a Polarized World
It feels like everywhere I look there is an opinion, a podcast, a blog post. Coffee is good for you...no wait, coffee is bad for you! Exercise 4 hours a day, no you only need 20 minutes.
It seems that we are pulled from extreme to extreme in our culture. Should we not be striving for balance? I feel that we all know that balance is key, yet that new diet will be better for me to get there faster. If I work an extra 20 hours a week, then I will push ahead of my peers.
These thoughts and actions can be dangerous 💀
With these extremes, I find that they often cause a major bounce back in your life. Maybe you are working an extra 20 hours a week, and then additional life is handed to you, and you end up having to scale back 30 hours a week. You pushed yourself too hard and then fell behind.
That diet? Yeah, you lost 30 lbs the first month, the second month you gained 40 lbs. << Been there 😭
I would argue that if you can find and strike a healthy balance, you will get further in the long run. Rather than pushing for 20 hours of extra work a week, you take the organic approach.
So what are the steps to finding more balance?
Be Organic (Not like fruit 😆)
Organic is ALL THE RAGE 🥑! Yet I am talking about the fundamentals of what say, a vine would do. Sometimes the vine will grow straight up, if there is a blockade, it does not stop the growth of that vine, it just goes around, or finds another way. It adapts.
In our life, sometimes being flexible and knowing when to push harder and when to back off because of a busy week is necessary. Finding the balance.
What areas of my life do I strive to keep in balance?
The thing that sucks about balance, is that it affects almost every area of our life 😅. From Friendships to health, to work. Yet, for all of the personalities in the room, let me list it out real quick:
Family Life Needs Balance
Career
Friendships
Physical Health
Mental Health
Personal Growth (Reading books, Education)
Where are you at?
An activity that my church does at their leadership conferences is a simple, yet effective practice.
1. You are given a week schedule (Download One Here).
2. You are asked to fill out where you spend your time, categorized by colors (Highlighters, etc.)
3. You fill it out for the whole week
This will give you a strong visual of where you spend your time. Print off a second one and fill out maybe your balanced version 😉
Remember...balance is hard
Finding balance is difficult, it is not an easy task to say the least. There is a reason we struggle with it from our day to day. There are seasons where there will be a greater need to spend more time doing one activity over another etc. Just make sure you are hitting that need and not pushing beyond what is required!
You got this! 👏
Beginning to Begin is all about growing, changing and giving yourself grace during the process, you will fail if you try, I did just this week 😬.
If you do your job right, EVERY time you go to the gym it is hard. EVERY run is difficult to go on. Yet when you look back after a few months, you realize you are lifting more. Running Farther. Improving.
So if your on the fence, I would urge you to start Beginning to Begin today.