Achieving balance

Balance is what you need to strive for in all aspects of your life, such as Education, Family, Fun, Finances, Health, Spirituality, etc.

At times in our lives it is quite difficult to find balance. Different things require different levels of involvement and attention and it is easy to get into a mode where you are completely absorbed into one area of your life and you may neglect others, which are important too.

You know that you have achieved balance in your life when you are achieving success and feel content with all and each area of your life. At this point you will not feel rushed or stressed out. Yes, I know that teenagers too have stress!

Below is a diagram of my “Wheel of Life”, a simple tool to assess the balance of every area in my life.

You may re-create this for yourself by drawing a cirlce like this with spokes as per my diagram. Then, label the different areas with the labels I used above: Health, Family, Education, Finances, Fun, Spirituality, Friends and Self.

You will notice a circle in the middle with “0” and on the outer radius you will notice “10”. Now, on a scale from 0 to 10 (ten being the most), how much of your time is spent on each of those items? Draw a little dot somewhere between 0-10 and repeat this for each of area on your Wheel of Balance.

Once you have repeated this 8 times, once for each area, you need to play “connect the dots” and you will clearly see where you spend too much or too little time or emotional energy. From there it will be easier to work out where to find balance.

It would be interesting too to do the same exercise in a different colour pen, but instead of writing how much time you spend on each of these areas, you need to stipulate the benefit you get from each. Afterwards compare your two wheels and you will be surprised how much time you invest in things for less of a return than you expect. Re-prioritise your time effectively and get better value out of your activities.