Roadmap to Balance

It’s become cliche. The idea of health-nut, yoga, self-help groupies.

We need balance.

You can be anything you want to be if you just find balance. We’re all seeking it, but almost none of us are finding it. Where do we get this elusive balance they speak of? No doubt, millions, probably billions of dollars have been spent on this quest to find it. Careers have been made on this premise, many of them quite lucrative. And it’s all a scam.

To have true balance would mean for everything in your life, let me stress everything, exactly where you want it to be consistently. By all means, if you have this, that is incredible. Literally. We don’t believe you. So, maybe “balance” to you isn’t perfect. Maybe it’s that everything in your life is almost where you want it to be consistently. That’s more realistic, for sure, but very rare. And if this is you, congratulations. You’ve probably done a lot of work to get there.

For the rest of us, seeking balance is something we do every day, not quite getting there, but still trying.

That’s the best we can do. Let’s just let go of the idea that we will ultimately find it or be “in balance” at some point.

I would make a bold assumption in saying that most of us probably haven’t defined what balance means to us individually. So, how can we expect to get close if we don’t even have a map? Getting close is what we’re really seeking, now that I’ve made clear that probably 99.99% of us will never really get to true balance. So, what does close to balance mean to you?

It’s our mission to help people figure out how to get close to balance on their own so that after our time together, they can continue their quest successfully. But, we most often don’t hear from our clients after our work together is over. For the ones that do check in with us, they say that our support and advice has helped them keep their almost balance. In taking our own advice, we are almost balanced most of the time.

So, here’s the roadmap.

1. You’ve gotta eat clean. This means eating real, whole foods most of the time. It doesn’t mean you have to be vegan, though you may choose to. It doesn’t mean you have to be Paleo, though, again, if that’s your choice, more power to you. Eating cleanly is an individual thing. Only you know what’s best for you in the end. You may need help figuring that out, and that’s where we come in (or someone like us).
2. Getting enough quality sleep. Probably close to eight hours. But eight hours of restless sleep isn’t quality, and four hours of dead-to-the-world isn’t enough. Generally, we need about two hours of deep sleep where you don’t dream and can’t be woken easily. We also need those other six hours of sleep that cycle through each other with REM and light sleep. All three types of sleep are important and necessary for true health. If you don’t know the miraculous things that happen in our bodies during sleep that make it necessary to live, check out our podcast ZZZs matter.
3. Move. You know what I mean. Every day, at least a little. Get your heartrate up. Find what you like so that it sticks. Our podcast Move (#16) may help motivate you.
4. Chill out. What stresses you out most? Identify it and figure out how to reduce that stress. Most likely, you can’t make it go away, but you can work on yourself and how you react to it. Identifying your stressors is half the battle. The other half is strategizing how you can not be stressed about them. Some things you can control, so take control. Others, you can’t, but you can learn ways to see them differently. A great blog on this topic is I Can’t Stress This More. Check it out.
5. Who are your peeps? Stop putting off getting together with people. Make it a priority. Connecting with people is vital. Our health depends upon it. Whatever form it takes: one on one with friends, a group, a community, family. . . get together. Regularly. If you need more convincing, listen to our podcast #28 Community Matters.

So, there you are. Do these five things consistently, and you’ll be closer to being balanced as you’ve ever been. I promise. Give it your best effort, and that will be enough.