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A
legacy. Here
is a powerful motivating image that I picture
with regularity: Picture a family gathering five
years after your death. What will it look like?
What will the people be talking about? How will
they remember you? What will be the quality of
their lives and how will you have been
instrumental in that? These are questions that
we can, for the most part, answer now by how we
live our lives (for better or for worse). Our
lives make a difference in the lives of others!
This is a tremendous reason to bring life into
balance!
Once
we answer the “Why” question, and root it
firmly in our minds and hearts, we come to the
“hows.”
First,
we sit down and prioritize. Have you ever taken
a couple of hours and listed everything that you
are involved in or could be involved in and then
prioritized it by importance? You may come up
with a hundred items but that is okay. You will
want to separate them into some categories as
well, such as Work, Family, Health, Friends,
Hobbies, Spiritual, Financial, Intellectual,
Emotional, etc.
Now
you have something to look at and see what is
important. This will help you in the process of
eliminating areas from your life that you are
spending time on that you shouldn’t be. And
that is an important part. Frustration comes
when we get involved in something that isn’t a
priority and we kick ourselves the whole time we
do it. If we stick to priorities, we eliminate
much of that.
The
next step is to learn the most powerful word in
the human language: No. Just look in the
mirror and practice saying that word with a
smile on your face. This may be the most
important part, learning to decline opportunity.
It all depends on whether or not it fits in with
our priorities.
Here
is the principle that drives this: Good is
the enemy of the best.
There
are lots of good things we can spend our time
on. But because they replace those things that
would be the best things we could spend our time
on, they become our enemy. They become
counterproductive to a successful and balanced
life.
So
ask yourself: Is this good? Or is it the
best? Do the best you can to stick to the best!
Schedule
your time. The more we fly by the seat of our
pants, the more apt we are to lose control of
our time. If we schedule out our time, we can
become a bit more objective and bring our lives
into balance. For example, you may make it your
goal to be home by six o’clock every night. In
your schedule book, you write in that you have
an appointment at six. You schedule to leave the
office at five-thirty. Now when a co-worker
comes in with an “opportunity” for you to
work on, you say, “Sorry, I have an
appointment at six that I can’t break. Let’s
get together on it first thing in the morning.”
Scheduling your time, coupled with saying “no,”
will do wonders for bringing your life into
balance!
Another
aspect for us to look at is the area of external
pressure that causes us to be out of balance.
For example, financial obligations may be what
keep us working too much. So we should look at
those obligations and see if we can eliminate or
reduce them.
The
last thing I would challenge you with is to give
some thought as to what the secret pleasures of
being out of balance may be. For example,
sometimes we let ourselves over-commit because
we don’t like conflict. Peace is our secret
pleasure.
Sometimes
we allow ourselves to become out of balance
because we like it when people say, “Boy, she
sure is a dynamo. Look how busy she is.”
Admiration from others is our secret pleasure.
In
review:
Find the right reasons
Set priorities
Learn to say “no”
Understand that the good is the enemy of the
best
Schedule your time
Manage external pressures
Be aware of internal “secret pleasures”
* * * * * *
Reproduced with permission from the Chris
Widener Newsletter. To subscribe to Chris
Widener's Newsletter, visit chriswidener.com.
© Chris Widener International. All rights
reserved worldwide.
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