By Naomi Rabon, NW Fitness Team Trainer
 

Do you feel like you’re forever in pursuit of balance in your life, like it’s some mythical creature you’re chasing? Well, my friend, I hate to break it to you … but it is like trying to find a unicorn, and I’ll explain why.

Fitness, finances, faith, family and friendships. These are all major aspects that encompass your world that – when working simultaneously in perfect magical “balance” and harmony – can create a wonderful, stress-free, healthy, happy fit mind, body, soul and life.

But when these things are working against each other – or if one or two areas are slacking while the other area is being over-worked and things feel out of sync – it can cause inner turmoil, chaos stress, conflict, depression and perhaps even send your life in a downward spiral for a season.

We have all felt this at some point in our lives (maybe you’re feeling it now, like things are “out of wack”… out of “balance”) and we asked ourselves the dreaded question: What am I doing wrong? How can I fix this? How can I restore the balance in my life?
 

BALANCE DE-BUNKED

I want to completely debunk the idea that life is all about “balance.” There is really no such thing, because balance requires an element of stillness, and life is in perpetual motion and constantly changing.

This means that priorities might change, different areas of our life might need “tending to” at some points in our life versus other points and we need to figure out how to recalibrate and reprioritize our attention in a flexible way so that important aspects of our lives don’t fall by the wayside or become completely neglected.

Let’s say you are going along your fitness journey and you’re feeling strong and seeing results. So, you decide you want to step it up a bit. You add a few more strength training workouts to your weekly routine which means now you are doing about seven workouts per week instead of five.

Then you decide to add more cardio. Before you know it, between strength training, cardio, yoga, etc., you are working out seven days per week, sometimes twice a day. You are giving so much attention to your fitness that your family and friendships might start feeling neglected.

In contrast, we can allow our health and fitness to suffer because we are paying too much attention to, for example, making money and end up working 60-80 hours per week.

For example, I have coached a number of clients who put their health and fitness on the back burner for 20-plus years in order to raise a family, or in order to make work a priority so they could provide for their family, and ended up 50 to 100-plus pounds overweight with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, Type 2 diabetes, low bone density, etc., as a result.
 

RECALABRATING LIFE’S PRIORITIES

Because life is ever-changing, as is our health, fitness, finances, and the lives of our friends and family, we need to constantly be tweaking and fine tuning in order to ensure various important aspects of our lives are being nurtured.

At some points in your life you may need to give just a little more attention to your family and do the best you can with your fitness and health. Then there will be other times that you’ll be able to give more attention to your fitness, and your family will benefit from your good health (and your sanity from being able to workout regularly!)
 

HOW TO REASSESS AND ADJUST

Remember, this is your life, your fitness, your health, and your finances (well, maybe you share finances with a partner) so in order to tend to and nurture all of these areas will be completely different for every person.

Of course, you can get advice and bounce ideas off the people close to you or a coach or advisor, but you are ultimately the only person who can determine what feels right and “balanced” for you.

Here are a few ways you can do a self-assessment on your priorities to make sure important aspects of your life aren’t being neglected. Ask yourself the following questions:
 

1. Do you feel unsettled, uneasy or uncomfortable with how things are going in any important areas of your life? If so, which ones?
 

2. Do you feel that you are giving a lot more attention to one of these areas and the other areas are suffering as a result?
 

3. What will happen if you continue to neglect one or two of these areas, and how will the other areas of your life be affected if you don’t start prioritizing neglected areas of your life?
 

4. How can you readjust your schedule, your time, and your priorities to create more of a harmony with the important aspects of your life?
 

5. What will the long-term benefits be for you and those you care about if you are able to readjust and recalibrate to make more time and give more attention to areas that desperately need nurturing?
 

Just as the body is always striving for homeostasis (a state of neutrality, harmony, balance) we are also constantly seeking harmony within our life with our fitness, family and friends, and finances.

With the right amount of effort, and planning, I’m sure you will be able to recalibrate what needs tending to in your life – which will continuously change (keeps things exciting)!
 
 
 

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One of the trainers on Nicole’s elite NW Fitness Training Team, Naomi is a certified Personal Trainer and Fitness Specialist through the National Academy of Sports Medicine. She is a NPC Figure competitor who has been involved in the health and fitness industry for over 12 years.
 
Go here to find out more about training with the NW Fitness Training Team!