You’ve heard it said that you must balance your home life and your work life to be successful. But why do so many not get it right? As far as juggling/balancing acts go, having only two things up in the air doesn’t seem all that tough. So many struggle with it and get it wrong because the advice is wrong! Or at the very least, incomplete and misleading.
Your life, my life, everyone’s life, is a complicated thing made up of many many parts. There is just no way you can condense anyone’s life down to two components… a work you, and a home you. Besides, it is way too general. And guess what? Your mind doesn’t work in generalities, it can only handle specifics. So, specifically, what do you have to juggle and keep in balance to have a great life? No no, don’t start thinking of all the gazillion little things that make up who you are, I’m going to give you the answer. It’s a little more complicated than “home you and work you”, but not overly so…
The Primordial Foundations of Life
I love that word, “primordial”, don’t you? It conjures up such wonderful images of beginnings and strength. And that’s exactly what we need. A good strong beginning, a solid foundation upon which we can build an extraordinary life. As I hinted at above, there are more than two. In fact there are six. Here they are in their glory…
- Physical
- Spiritual
- Social
- Mental
- Financial
- Family
They are in no specific order, they can’t be, they are all as important as each other. These are the things you have to balance to keep your life balanced. These six foundations are the backbone of your success. You simply can’t neglect any of them. Lets take a brief look at each one of “the six” in turn.
Your Physical Life
Bottom line here… you have to pay attention to your physical health. You have to eat right. You have to sleep right. You have to exercise right. No you don’t have to become a health food junkie or an elite athlete. You can still have your pizza and your beer, just apply some common sense and get some real food into you as well. Get a good night’s sleep most nights. I’m talking a minimum of 6 to 8 hours solid snooze time, folks. And do something about exercise. Whether it be a structured programme in a gym, or simply chasing your kids around the park 2 or 3 times a week, it doesn’t matter, but you need to do it.
Your Spiritual Life
When you talk about spiritual things some people start to get worried or fearful because they think you are going to preach the gospel to them. Others get excited for the exact same reason. 
No I’m not going to preach the gospel to you. In fact, I’m not sure that I even believe in a God. I’m fairly agnostic. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not a spiritual person. And you are too. This is the area where your morals and ethics stem from, and everybody has those. I’m not going to go into this one in any depth here because it is going to be the subject of my next post. Just let me ask you a couple of quick questions: Are your morals and ethics defined well enough that you can write them down on paper? How quickly and easily are your morals and ethics compromised?
You Social Life
You can’t go through life as a recluse or a hermit. Occasionally you have to interact with people. So it stands to reason that you need to devote some time to doing just that… interacting with people. There’s no need to turn into a social butterfly and host enormous parties every night. But I think everyone needs friends and acquaintances, and everyone needs to be able to interact with those that they do business with. Imagine how tough it would be if when you went to the shop to buy some milk neither you, nor the shop keeper said or did anything? Bottom line… be friendly toward people and don’t be afraid to show a bit of your inner self to others.
Your Mental Life
Education! It is important, people. Don’t neglect it. The day you stop learning is the day they should be putting you in a pine box. Read. And yes, fiction is just as important to your mental health and well being as any text book or manual. Go out to a museum, or a play. Get a bit of culture into your life. Stimulate your mind instead of wasting it. Learn how to cook and make yourself a healthy dinner (have the pizza and beer tomorrow instead).
Your Financial Life
This is the area where we either spend too much time on, or we tend to neglect it completely. You absolutely must keep your financial affairs in order. Do you have a budget? Do you even know what a budget is? You can’t live beyond your means so you must keep an eye on things. You have to pay your bills. You have to pay your taxes. But most important of all, you have to pay yourself. You have to save. You also have to know how to manage and control debt.
Your Family Life
Most people would probably say that this is the most important of “the six”. It is very important, but it is no more important, or less important than the other five. I mean, look at it this way… if your life sucked in any of the other areas, what shape is your family life going to be in? And adversely, if your family life sucks, what shape are the other areas going to be in? Your family is important and they deserve you at your best. Give your family the best quality time that you can. Do that by balancing all six areas of your life.
Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end of this rather long post. Well I think it is long, considering that it is only introductory in nature. I’ll tackle each area in a lot more depth in coming posts. I hope you get something useful from this and from the posts to come in the future.
Till next time…
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nomnomnomnom food for thought
Twitter: HorstBurkhardt
Glad it’s making you think, Horst. Hope once you’ve digested it a bit you’ll come back with a more meaty comment.
Twitter: SteveYoungs
Great post Steve and well timed as it’s got me thinking about what areas of my life I need to work on as we start another year.
I’ve been completely neglecting my physical life this year. My fitness levels come from 7 years of martial arts but over the past year I’ve really let my training slip. My fitness has plumetted and old injuries have started reappearing.
2010 is definately going to be a physical year I think.
Thanks for the food for thought
Hi Ben!
Welcome to my little piece of the blogosphere, it’s great to have you here.
Yes it is very easy to neglect one or more of the six areas, especially when you are working so hard on the others. That’s why the balance is so important.
Thanks very much for your comment, and for the retweet, Ben. See you again soon!
Twitter: SteveYoungs
For me, the biggest and most important point you made Steve, was Spiritual.
The mind has to be a good place for the body to follow. I believe heavily in the law of attraction and as such your mind has got to be in tip top shape.
Going on from what Ben said about physical well being. I spent ten years in the military running ultra marathons and training the boxing team, so i’m more than happy keeping healthy by walking etc!
I’m good with money have no debts and if I can’t afford something I save for it ,simple.
Steve Make sure you attack 2010 brother!
Hi James!
Thanks for your great comment. Glad you got something out of the article. And yep, 2010 is looking to be an awesome year!
Twitter: SteveYoungs
Forgot… Thanks for the retweet, mate!
Twitter: SteveYoungs
I guess spiritual is the most powerful of them all. After all, our true essence is our spirit. You are wise to share this wisdom.
Hi Walter!
Thank you for your comment. Yes, the spiritual aspect of our lives is very very important. But I would not say that it is the most important or most powerful of the six. The point I was trying to make is that all six are every bit as important as each other and having them in balance makes for a great foundation to a great life.
To take your analogy a little further, Walter, if our spirit is our essence, then our physical, mental, financial, family, and social aspects of our lives make up the cup to hold that essence. If the cup isn’t complete or has a hole in it, pretty soon you’re left with a dry empty shell. Likewise, if your cup is whole but you have nothing to put in it…
Thanks again for your comment, Walter. I hope to see you back here again soon!
Twitter: SteveYoungs
you need to surround yourself with like minded people so that on occasion when you fall off the path they help steer you back on it.
Twitter: bigredtomato
Hi Matthew!
Yes, that’s very good advice. And in fact, I touch on it in an upcoming article on “family”.
Thanks for visiting my site, mate. Hope to see you here again soon.
Kind regards,
Steve.
Twitter: SteveYoungs
Hi Steve,
I’ve come to this party a little late after following a link on a post on James’ infoblog but now I’ve found you I’m looking forward to having a good look around. As soon as I’ve written this I’m going to see where this intro leads because it sounds interesting.
I’m one of your folks who gets excited when people start talking about the spiritual. I read somewhere that religion and politics are big no-nos on Twitter so I get very excited when people talk spiritual. Organised religion has done an awful lot to make itself something not to be talked about when personally I believe religion and spiritual stuff are often too distinct things.
Anyway, enough from me. Just wanted to say hi really!
Eleanor
Hi Eleanor!
Welcome to my part of this crazy thing we call the internet. There’s not much here yet, but it’s only early days. You’ll just have to keep coming back.
Yeah, it’s sad how conversations about religious, spiritual, or political things tend to get people hot under the collar so quickly.
Kind regards,
Steve.
Twitter: SteveYoungs
Hi Steve,
I just wanted to add that I’ll definitely be back
El
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