Most people want to live a balanced life, but making it happen in the real world can be tough.
Just think about all the things you have to balance:
- Work
- Exercise
- Personal relationships
- And everything else that is important to you
Well, this article is going to give you a 7-Step Action Plan to help you work towards the balanced life you’ve dreamed of.
Here is what I am going to cover:
- What it means to live a balanced life
- What parts of your life to balance (work, exercise, learning, hobbies, relationships etc.)
- The 7-Step Action Plan for How to Live a Balanced Life
What it Means to Live a Balanced Life
Living a balanced life is a very personal thing.
It depends on a ton of stuff which is very specific to you, such as:
- Interests
- Passions
- Goals
- Values
- Self-discipline
- Skills
- Talents
- Environments
- Relationships
- Etc.
A “balanced life” for one person might be a completely “unbalanced life” for another.
Imagine two extremes:
- Person 1: Dreams of being a CEO who works 100-hour work weeks.
- Person 2: Wants to spend all day playing video games.
Most people (myself included), want to be somewhere in the middle of these two extremes.
But the exact mix varies person-to-person.
So, there is no one “right way” to live a balanced life that you have to strive for.
What Parts of Your Life to Balance (Work, Exercise, Learning, Hobbies, Relationships, Etc.)
Another area that there is no right answer for, is what categories to break your life down into, in order to balance them.
There are a few systems out there, but the main one, is work-life balance.
I’m going to first dive into work-life balance, and why I am not a big fan of it.
Then, I’m going to share my thoughts on what to consider instead.
And after that we will get to the 7-Step Action Plan for how you can live a balanced life.
Work-Life Balance
The “work-life balance” system is the one you have probably heard about the most.
It breaks things down into 2 categories:
- Work: Typically defined as time spent on your main job or career
- Life: Everything else
I am not a big fan of this approach, since it is too simplistic.
The main reason I don’t think the work-life balance system works particularly well is it lumps a TON of stuff into the “Life” category.
- Family time
- Hobbies
- Relationships
- Exercise
- Etc.
When most people think about living a balanced life, they want to know how to balance each of these separate areas.
And the work-life balance system leaves these components out.
An Alternative Approach
When I think about what a balanced life looks like, I know there are many more important categories than work-life balance gives us.
However, when it comes to the exact way those categories are classified, things get fairly arbitrary.
Therefore, I’m about to lay out some categories to consider, but feel free to adjust them to meet your own personal circumstances.
However you modify these categories, it will still work with the 7-Step Action Plan I’m about to provide in a little bit.
Here are nine areas I try to balance when I think about how I want to live a balanced life.
- Career: Work you do to help businesses/organizations or running your own business/organization
- Learning: School and studying, as well as any reading/learning you do outside of school (even if not in school you can strive to continue learning, teaching yourself new skills, etc.)
- Physical Fitness: Working on physical health (exercise, diet, etc.)
- Inner Growth: Working on mental/emotional health (meditation, therapy, spirituality, religion, etc.)
- Financial Health: Managing your finances (banking, budgeting, etc.)
- Relationships: Connecting with other people (friends, family, dating, etc.) and helping others
- Productive Activities: Hobbies that require skill and active participation (playing an instrument, writing, etc.)
- Errands: Regular tasks/chores you need to do for general maintenance or to meet government regulations (groceries, supplies, going to the DMV, etc.)
- Leisure: Activities you do to decompress, relax, or for entertainment (internet browsing, social media, Netflix, etc.)
Note, you don’t have to give EQUAL weight to every area of your life
On the contrary, some of them you may want to minimize as much as possible (e.g., errands).
And others you may want to devote a ton of time too (e.g., relationships and career).
But these life categories do a fairly good job of painting a complete picture of how I spend my time (for me at least).
And that helps me figure out which aspects of my life I want to devote more or less time to.
But again, there is nothing magical about these categories. So feel free to choose your own or modify to what makes the most sense for you.
The 7-Step Action Plan for How to Live a Balanced Life
Now that you’ve thought about what it means to live a balanced life, I am going to walk you through the 7-Step Action Plan to create that balance you desire.
Step 1: Cut Out Things Which Aren’t Helping ANY Aspects of Your Life
Think about whether there is anything you are spending time on that is NOT leading to ANY positive benefits
And work on cutting those things out of your life.
This is the low hanging fruit.
Here are some examples of those kinds of things:
- Spending time feeling guilty
- Regretting things that happened in the past
- Complaining
- Arguing
- Destructive behavior
- Bad habits (side note, I have a full guide on how to moderate bad habits which you can get for free if you sign up for my newsletter!)
- Etc.
It’s hard to eliminate these things completely – everybody’s human and does these occasionally.
But the more you can REDUCE these unhelpful elements; the more time you will have for all the OTHER aspects of your life you want to focus on.
Step 2: Reflect on Your Current Life and How Balanced It Is
Think carefully about the different components of your life, and how much time you spend on each.
For example:
- You may find you spend a ton of time on your career. But not that much time on physical fitness, relationships, or inner growth.
- Or perhaps you have a ton of leisure time, because you spend a large chunk of your hours playing video games or spending time on the internet. And you wish you devoted more time to studying, meditating, or productive hobbies.
You could even assign percentages to each of your life categories if that makes it easier for you.
For me, I spend a huge chunk of my time on my career, relationships (particularly my relationship with my wife), and physical fitness.
And I spend a little time on other stuff, like learning and leisure.
Step 3: Imagine Your Ideal Scenario
Now, think about how much time you would WANT to spend on things in an IDEAL world.
Envision where you want to be and what it would look like for you to live a balanced life.
For example, you may want to spend at least a few hours each week studying, meditating, exercising, practicing guitar, and spending time with friends.
In my case, I want to spend more time on:
- Relationships with friends and family. (Fortunately, I see my wife a lot, but I don’t see my family and friends as much as I would like.)
- Inner growth, as I’ve gotten increasingly into meditation.
- And learning, because I love discovering new ideas.
Step 4: List Specific Steps You Can Take to Get Closer to Your Ideal Scenario
Next, make a list of things you can change to get closer to living the balanced life you just imagined.
The more specific you can get the better.
For example, here are some goals I am setting right now for my life.
Learning (increase):
- Read at least 30 minutes before bed 3+ nights a week (easy)
Relationships (increase)
- Call friends more (easy)
- Visit family more (medium, due to traveling back-and-forth)
Inner Growth (increase)
- Spend 5 minutes each day meditating (easy)
- Devote longer periods to meditating (hard)
Leisure (decrease)
- Reduce time browsing the internet before bed (easy)
After you list out the specific steps you can take, your path towards a balanced life will start to get clearer.
Step 5: Prioritize Which Steps to Focus on First
The next step is to determine which of your goals to prioritize.
There are two factors to consider:
- How important the changes are to help you live a balanced life
- How difficult the changes will be to implement
Here is how I am prioritizing my goals, with #1 as the top priority.
(I listed how hard I anticipate each step will be for me in parenthesis.)
- Leisure: Reduce time browsing the internet before bed (easy)
- Inner Growth: Spend 5 minutes each day meditating (medium)
- Relationships: Call friends more (easy)
- Learning: Read at least 30 minutes before bed 3+ nights a week (medium)
- Relationships: Visit family more (medium)
- Inner Growth: Devote longer periods to meditating (hard)
Of your list, I recommend just focusing on the top 1-3 goals you listed.
Keep in mind, if you try to tackle too much at once, it may get overwhelming and lead you to give up entirely. So, it is better to start slowly.
In my case, I am just going to focus on these 2 goals initially:
- Leisure: Reduce time browsing the internet before bed (easy)
- Inner Growth: Spend 5 minutes each day meditating (easy)
Both are low hanging fruit for me, since they are relatively easier to do than the other tasks on this list.
But they still help me work towards living a more balanced life.
Step 6: Execute
Now you are ready to work on the steps you just laid out.
Remember, even if you encounter obstacles or it’s harder than you thought initially, don’t give up.
Sometimes it just takes some time to create the balanced life you desire.
Step 7: Re-Assess
After you’ve spent some time working towards those initial steps, the final step is to re-assess your situation.
At this stage, you have a few options:
- Keep working your way down your initial list of priorities (the ones you put as relatively lower priorities initially)
- Give it some more time and re-evaluate things farther in the future
Every so often, it’s helpful to re-assess things.
As life circumstances change, so may your priorities.
Conclusion
Whether you execute it exactly as described, or modify it a bit, the 7-Step Action Plan can help you lead a more balanced life.
That’s not to say it will be easy, given all that life throws at you.
But if you focus on where you are at currently and what your ideal balanced life looks like, you can start making incremental changes to get there.
Want more tips which can help you live a balanced life?
Here are some articles you may be interested in: