Saturday November 25th 2023
Kate Flory from Kapow Coaching.
This article has been written by local coach Kate Flory.
Have you ever noticed how people are either half full or half empty, happy or sad, rich or poor, full or hungry, or see life as a balance between good and bad?
We live in a diverse world with an abundance of choice and colourful living, yet for most of us we seem to default to looking at life from one extreme to another. Searching for the middle ground or balance in our lives is something that we yearn for when the scales are tipped firmly to one side. If you’ve ever found yourself at one end of these extremes, you’ll also be familiar with the experience of how quickly you can find yourself at the other end.
Finding balance is something that more and more people are striving for, including me, especially at this time of year. The concept of life being a seesaw can add excitement at first, but after a while it can make us feel quite queasy and unduly stressed. Yet the key to finding balance is not the science of equilibrium of where everything is equal, but more the correct proportions of key areas of our life, established by crafting our own rules and tolerances for what is and is not in balance.
The starting point is uncovering what balance actually means, specifically for you. For some it can relate to having time, levels of personal energy, degrees of happiness, or even the amount of choice we have. Once you have clarity on what balance actually means, you can start to assess are you actually in balance or not.
An old coaching favourite is the wheel of life. Draw a cross, then cross through again creating 8 equal segments. Take the word or statement that balance means for you, and now think which areas of your life and / or work do you want to measure it against. Add these titles to the 8 segments, for instance you might want to focus on family, health, happiness, fun, or consider motivation, opportunities or stretch. Now give yourself a score from 0 to 10. This will show which areas are feeling in balance, and which are needing a bit more attention.
Coaching follows the ACA rule of awareness, choice and action. Being aware is the starting point to change, then being motivated to consider new choices available, before moving into action. How often do you feel out of balance but don’t have the emotional or mental capacity to do something about it? Timing is everything, so if not now – consider when? How small can that change be? James Clear author ‘Atomic Habits’ suggests implementing 1% change – so tiny not huge changes. Support can make the difference, finding an accountability buddy to check up on you or just someone you can tell and hear yourself say out loud what you plan on changing.
We are never going to find our lives in perfect balance, yet, what we can strive for is less seesawing of the highs and lows in the key segments of our life. With greater awareness we can find our own balance, based on what is most important to us and what we are willing and able to do.
We can all become our own life-coach and create more balance in our lives.
You can read more from Kate at www.kapowcoaching.com
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