Are you the type of person who finds that you have a million things to do in one day? Or maybe you’re the type of person who tries to juggle more than you are capable of doing? You know, the kind of person who puts more on their plate than they can handle.
If so no worries my dear friend because I too am just like you.
One thing that I do consistently every week is make a schedule of all the things that need to get done for the week. I even go as far as to write down specific tasks to complete on specific days of the week. While all of this may sound like it helps me stay organized and on top of things, the truth is that sometimes it drives me crazy.
I always find that I have a lot of tasks to complete in the week, and I try to complete as many in a day so that I don’t have as much throughout the week. The result? I’m always stressed, overwhelmed, exhausted, and super unmotivated to do anything.
The solution? Creating a balance.
Something that I’m striving for in the new year is success all around. In other words, I want to be intentional with everything that I do, and give 110% to everything that I set my mind to. I know in order for me to achieve this goal I need to ensure that I am balancing everything in my life to the best of my ability.
It’s important to create balance in your life because it allows for other things in your life to take up space. This can be things such as engaging in more self-care, exercising more, getting out and doing things, spending more time with your family, and even participating in hobbies that you don’t get to do as often as you would like to.
That’s why I’m going to share with you my top ways on how to create balance for success in the new year!
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Prioritize everything
If there is anything that I have learned about being successful it’s to have the discipline of prioritizing everything in your life.
I’m the type of person who will literally try to complete everything that I have set out to complete for the day. This was such a terrible way to approach accomplishing my tasks for the day. One, because I very rarely ever completed everything that I wanted to complete for the day. Two, because it just adds more stress and pressure to the whole situation.
So instead of trying to go above and beyond I started prioritizing everything in my life. This included the most important tasks that needed to be completed for the day, the workouts, my eating schedule, and even when I engaged in self-care.
What’s the most important tasks on my list? What absolutely without a doubt has to be completed for the day? What is something that I have been putting off for a while now and why? When was the last time I did x, y, z?
These are the type of things that I tend to ask myself as a way of prioritizing important tasks and activities in my life. Once I’ve figured out which tasks and activities are the most important, I focus on those tasks and activities alone. For example, if it’s been three days since I’ve last meditated, I focus on meditating for the next 30 minutes as a way to restore the balance in my everyday life.
Prioritizing everything has helped me experience less stress and overwhelm because I know I am successfully balancing all the things that are happening in my life.
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Engage in self-care
Super important! A big part of creating balance in your life is understanding how to train your mind and body to go with the flow. I’m a control freak, not proud of it but I’m also not ashamed to admit it.
For years self-care was something that I never really put much effort into. I always viewed it as something that I would do if I ever found the time to do it. Man was this the wrong way to think about engaging in self-care.
Self-care isn’t necessarily something that you engage in if you can. Instead, it’s something that you should be engaging in as often as possible.
This is because when we take the time to nurture our minds and bodies, we are training ourselves how to not only be present in the moment (and every moment), but also how to be flexible when needed, and how to bounce back when we must. We are teaching ourselves how to balance the expected and the unexpected.
Since engaging in self-care regularly I’ve noticed a big difference in the way I greet and end every single day. I look forward to engaging in various activities, I don’t feel rushed to get to a specific point in the day, and I don’t beat myself up if I didn’t get to do something that I was looking forward to for the day.
Instead, I acknowledge what I was able to successfully complete and set the intention to achieve the rest the following the day. Less stress and less worries all thanks to the power of self-care.
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Make a list
Make a list and check it twice. This is sure to help you be successful no matter what. This is because lists help us see the little steps that need to be taken and completed in order to get to the overall goal.
Let’s take my weekly/daily schedule for example. I write down things that need to be done for the week, and I break them down into things to complete on specific days. I even go as far as to prioritize specific tasks for specific days. In addition to all of this I also make lists that are related to those tasks.
An example of this is when I was creating the 2020 Challenge. This is literally what I make a list of in regards to this specific task.
- What: 2020 Challenge
- Purpose: to start the year off strong by creating consistency in working out, and building our bodies to have the strength and stamina to crush all our workouts for the rest of the year
- What to do: identify specific workouts for every day of the month
And from there I literally did just that. I created a list where I identified what the specific task was, the importance of this task, what specifically needed to be done in order to complete this task. Then I proceeded to completing it.
The ultimate end result of creating a list for this specific task was that I was able to indeed create the 2020 Challenge for you and I to take part in at the beginning of the year.
While all your lists do not have to look or be as detailed like this, it’s still important to identify the steps that will help you achieve your goal. Success is something that you earn by being consistent and working hard to achieve.
I believe the best way to achieve our goals is by understanding what specifically needs to get done in order to get that desired end result. This also helps us create balance in our lives by allowing us to see what all needs to get done so that we don’t feel pressured to do everything all at once.
The best way to see the steps clearly so that we can work more efficiently? Make a list.
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Take breaks
Ok I’ll admit it, I’m the go, go, go type of person who never takes a break, even when I know without a doubt that I need one.
The initial idea behind this was that if I just worked straight through and didn’t take any breaks, I would get a lot more done and have more time in the day to just relax.
Wrong.
Working straight through without taking any breaks only left me with less time in the day to have to myself, and more work to do the following the day. This was because I wasn’t balancing all the work that needed to get done for the day. Instead, I was just looking at my schedule, putting myself on autopilot, and hoping for the best.
This is why I believe self-care is important. Once I started to engage in self-care consistently, I was able to recognize moments when I needed to take a break. Usually this would be in-between completing tasks, but there are also moments when I’m in the middle of doing something and have to take a break.
Taking breaks has allowed me to be able to take that time to recollect myself, catch my breath, and refocus. It has most certainly reinforced the importance of having balance not only in my personal life, but my work life as well.
Doing this can help you be successful because you’re taking away the pressure of having to push through something just for the sake of getting things done. Especially when you don’t have the energy or attention span to do so.
Breaks are essential throughout the day. However, how many breaks you should take, and how long those breaks should be all depends on you.
It’s so easy to get caught up in the work that you are doing that you get lost and forget to step back every once in a while. When this happens, we create an in-balance that we have to reset so that we manage everything happening in our lives better than before.
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Meditate, meditate, meditate
There is nothing more important for creating balance than mediation. In fact, the whole purpose of mediation is to learn how to create balance in your life. This is something that I am still training myself how to do, and I do it as often as I possibly can.
Mediating is the act of sitting in silence, checking in with yourself, being aware of everything happening in the space around you, learning how to be present, and most importantly learning how to slow done. Spending just 5 minutes meditating in the morning can help set you up for success in regards to how you approach your day.
And a big part of meditating is intention setting, where you basically set an intention for the day and no matter what happens this intention is what you strive for. This is why I believe that mediation is a key factor for success.
We often measure success in regards to physical things, such as how much money we make, how many new followers we get in a week, how disciplined we were in sticking to our workout routine for the week, and the likes of.
However, the reality is that being successful is much more than just all the physical things we can identify. Success is also measured in regards to all the hard work we put in to achieve those physical rewards.
This is why mediation is important. It’s a constantly reminder to not rush through things, or to try to make anything happen. Instead, you just go with the flow, try your best, and commit to improving a little bit each and every day.
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Create a routine
Plain and simple have a routine. Trust me when I tell you that it’s pretty damn hard to get through the day when you’re just operating on autopilot, and we all have these days.
What I have found to be the most helpful in creating balance in my life is to have a morning and evening routine that helps me get ready for the day, and unwind at the end of the day.
Creating routines are helpful because they alert our minds and bodies about when we need to be in drive and when we need to be in park. It’s so easy to wake up and just be in the go, go, go frame of mind and never come out of it until we literally have nothing more to give.
But we don’t want that for ourselves, remember we are striving for balance in order to be successful.
To help create that balance in order for us to be more successful in life, we need to have those specific times of day when we are available to everyone else, and when we are available only to ourselves. This helps create to less overwhelm, more room for self-care, and more time for self-reflection.
The best way to do this is to create a consistent routine.
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Conclusion
While creating balance isn’t something that happens overnight it is something that we you can start doing immediately. I absolutely swear by these 6 ways to help me create balance in my life. I truly do believe that they are helping me achieve all my goals.
Since implementing these tips, I have found that I experience a lot less stress, I’m not as overwhelmed as I use to be, and I most certainly don’t put pressure on myself to get things done when I have set out to have them done.
Instead, I am more laid back and relaxed, and I take everything in strides. This has allowed me to be able to slow down, be present, and really focus on the things that I am doing.
All this to say that success doesn’t happen overnight and creating balance isn’t as easy as we’d like to think it is. You have to have some kind of formula in place to help you navigate through your day and all your goals, and this is a perfect place to start.
What do you do to help create balance for success in your life?
-Xo
Kimora
