Finding Balance: Selfcare, Work and Life

Every now and again, there will be a moment in your life where you take a step back. A moment when things aren’t lining up correctly and you need to take a step back, look at where you are, gain some perspective and think about where you want to be. That is something that I went through recently and it dawned on my that balance in my life was way out of kilter. I knew that I needed to make a change, and, in this post, I am going to share with you some of the ways that I am going to try and restore balance in my chaotic life.

 

 

What happened to make me take a step back?

As I have shared before, my mental health conditions are not necessarily straightforward. There are so many things that trip me up and it is a daily battle to stay in a good head space. For me, things reached a point where I knew that I had to refocus my priorities and find balance when I realised that I was having more bad days than good. But most of that came down to me feeling like a failure for not being able to juggle the thousands of things that I added to my own to do lists.

 

How I analysed where my time was spent.

When I realised that a lot of how I was feeling was down to personal pressure that I was putting on myself, I had to realise where I was spending my time. Roughly I was aware, but I couldn’t be specific. So, I decided to essentially do myself a timesheet. I recorded how many hours I worked my full-time job, how many hours I worked freelance, the time spent on this very site, my self-care, reading, writing and so much more. It felt juvenile at the time, but it opened my eyes.

 

Speaking to others.

One thing that I did want to do initially was speak to other people. Before completely turning my life upside down, I wanted to get other people’s opinions. This is what I generally do because I know that sometimes, I can get in my own head. I wanted to think about my general day-to-day tasks and put it to the people that I’m closest with to see if they have similar lives, if I’m blowing things out of proportion in my mind or if they too think that there is room in my life for me to make an adjustment.

 

Recognising my goals.

After speaking to the people that I trust, I had to sit down and clearly recognise my goals. Where did I want to be. Whether that is in my personal or professional life. Where did I want to get to in my life and how did I want to achieve that. I am a big fan of having goals, but I also don’t like to get bogged down by them too greatly as I have found that if I don’t achieve them, I can really beat myself up. But I knew that in this instance, I needed that.

 

Making a plan to align with my ambition.

Once I had this clear plan of my goals, not just for the coming seasons, but for the next few years of my life, I had to look back at where I was spending my time. Were the areas that I was spending my time, going to help me align to my future goals. From there, I knew where my changes needed to be. I knew that I still wanted to be a driven individual and be very busy, but I knew that where I allocated my time needed to change.

 

How things have changed.

Since recognising what needed to change, I have been slowly setting things in motion. Generally speaking, it really comes down to blocking my time out much more effectively. The areas where I have seen a big difference are with selfcare and the time that I spend writing. First and foremost, I know that none of these things are going to happen without taking care of myself, that is the biggest change. Then for the rest, it is taking account of my time and ensuring that my focus is where it should be.

 

As always, I hope you guys enjoyed this post and learning more about balance. I have found that balance for everybody is incredibly different. Now that I have worked this out, it is just going to be putting it into practice and ensuring that I stick to what makes me happy. It isn’t always easy and there will always be things to throw you back off balance, it is just about trying to maintain it. As always, I want to hear from you guys in the comments below. Have you had a moment like this? How did you restore balance?