Learn to manage your time and energy wisely to remain balanced.
Do you juggle too many responsibilities simultaneously, leaving you stressed and overwhelmed? Does this drain your energy so that you constantly feel exhausted, just rushing from one thing to another? It's a common challenge for many of us to balance work and the different areas of our personal lives. In this blog post, I'd like to provide practical tips and insights from Stoic philosophy that inspire you to take actionable steps to achieve a balanced, eudaimonic life.
I won't go into the details of Stoicism or its history to keep this blog post as straightforward as possible. If you're new to Stoicism, you can read about it here.
TL;DR
- Balance is not static; it's constant movement.
- Life balance is about managing your time and energy.
- Knowing your priorities is essential for effective time and energy management.
- The Stoic virtues offer guidance for managing life balance.
- Applying Stoic teachings can help to find and maintain balance.
What Is Life Balance, And Why Is It Important?
At its essence, life balance is about allocating your time and energy. It's the harmonious equilibrium between the different aspects of your life, such as work, relationships (family and friends), personal interests, and health. Achieving this balance isn't about equally dividing your time and energy to those areas of life. Instead, it's about consciously allocating enough attention to each based on your personal goals and values.
A healthy life balance is crucial for your health and happiness, as it helps to reduce stress, prevents burnout, and reduces health risks like heart disease.(1) Furthermore, it can decrease the potential for workplace mistakes and injuries.(2)
The challenge lies in determining how YOU want to distribute your energy. This responsibility rests solely on your shoulders. No one except you can figure this out.
6 Elements for A Balanced Life
Consider the image of a tightrope walker. They never stand still; instead, they make minor adjustments, constantly moving to maintain their balance. Balance is dynamic, not static. Stopping, getting distracted, or losing focus are the quickest ways to fall.
But you need strong legs and a solid core to walk on a tightrope (or slackline, if you prefer). These are the muscle groups mainly required to stay in balance. Similarly, six elements form the legs and core of a balanced life.
The legs:
- Self-Awareness
- Right Mindset
The core (Stoic virtues):
- Wisdom
- Temperance (Self-Discipline)
- Justice
- Courage
Developing those muscles anchors us and gives us the strength to maintain balance as we navigate the tightrope of life's challenges and responsibilities. Achieving balance is not a one-off task; it's an ongoing process where we must constantly adjust and adapt to the shifting demands of our work, personal interests, and relationships.
How Do They Help? Understanding the 6 Elements.
Before we move on to the actionable steps, let's quickly explore our six components.
1. Self-Awareness
The first leg - self-awareness. It's about understanding who you are, your values and goals, and your current state of affairs. How could you balance your life without knowing your priorities? That's impossible and one of the main reasons for imbalance. Because we don't know ourselves, we fail to find the sweet spot in life where everything is in harmony.
To discover who you are and develop a better sense of self-awareness, read my article "How to Get To Know Yourself: Stoic Strategies for Self-Discovery."
As a starting point, here are some questions you can ask yourself:
- What's essential in your life? Imagine an ideal but realistic day (don't cut out work or business; it's unrealistic that you magically don't have to work anymore). How would you distribute your time and energy to each area of your life?
- What do you need to fuel your engine for the obligations you can't avoid? Which activities give you this energy?
2. Right Mindset
The second leg is the cultivation of the right mindset. You can't expect to move forward without movement and rebalancing when walking the tightrope. The storms of life will put you out of balance, and it's your job to rebalance! You need to stay focused in the present moment, feeling your body movements and recognizing when a breeze becomes a strong gust of wind or even a storm.
Read more in my blog post about developing a Stoic mindset.
Legs are done; let's build our core.
3. Wisdom
The Stoic virtue of wisdom helps us to make the right decisions. It's no wonder that achieving a well-balanced life is so difficult. We have so many tasks and obligations fighting for our attention that it quickly becomes overwhelming. Wisdom is the virtue that helps us consider our next actions - it teaches us how to recognize what's within our control and prioritize.
4. Temperance
Without self-discipline or temperance, we are easily tempted to waste our time. The distractions of everyday life are just waiting to put us off balance. Self-discipline is the tool you need to stay focused. It helps you to manage your inputs, allowing you to remain fully in the present.
5. Justice
You deserve a happy life! You can apply the virtue of justice by living according to your goals and values. Respect your priorities. It's also okay that you want others to respect them, too. Once you have determined your priorities and how you want to balance the different areas of your life, live by them.
Of course, that's not an excuse to behave like an idiot going through life with a dog-eat-dog mentality. Justice goes in both directions. Do you want to be treated fairly? Then, treat others fairly.
6. Courage
Lastly, there's courage - the fourth building block of our rock-solid tightrope walker core. You need courage to stand up for yourself and your decision about how to balance your life. People will tell you to do differently. They will try to get more of your time to fulfill their needs. You will feel fear of refusing someone's needs. You will feel fear when you begin to work less, prioritizing your family more. You will feel fear before saying no to someone or yourself. But behind that massive wall of worry lies confidence, freedom, and a balanced life.
Great, we now understand our six key elements. Now, let's move on to the fun part. Actionable insights and practices you can start doing today!
Create a Balanced Life
You know yourself and where you want to go in life. You have the right mindset and understand how the Stoic virtues are helping you balance your life. Your legs and core are prepared, and you're ready to jump on the tightrope.
1. Focus on What You Can Control
"There are things which are within our power, and there are things which are beyond our power. Within our power are opinion, aim, desire, aversion, and, in one word, whatever affairs are our own. Beyond our power are body, property, reputation, office, and, in one word, whatever are not properly our own affairs." Epictetus, Enchiridion 1
Stoicism advocates focusing on what is within our control while accepting everything else. But in the chaos of our daily lives, we get easily distracted and overwhelmed by external factors. The essential skill lies in learning to distinguish between them.
Your task:
- Make a list of situations or aspects in your life currently causing stress and imbalance.
- Separate them into two categories – those you can control and those you cannot.
- Dedicate your energy to addressing and improving the former while letting go of the latter.
2. Establish Priorities and Set Your Schedule
"Aiming therefore at such great things, remember that you must not allow yourself any inclination, however slight, towards the attainment of the others; but that you must entirely quit some of them, and for the present postpone the rest. But if you would have these, and possess power and wealth likewise, you may miss the latter in seeking the former; and you will certainly fail of that, by which alone happiness and freedom are procured." Epictetus, Enchiridion 1
You can't juggle too many balls at once. That's why having too many obligations soon becomes overwhelming. So, set priorities and allocate time accordingly. Having a fallback solution is also helpful if something goes against your plan. Maybe your family is more important than your hobbies, so when something gets in your way of following your hobbies, remember your priority. Is it something concerning your family? Go for it without regrets! Is it something with less importance? Leave it where it is and do it later, or decide not to do it at all. But never ever let those things disturb your mind. You are in charge! You make the decisions!
Determine what matters most to you and allocate time accordingly. That involves setting boundaries to protect your time and energy for what truly matters.
Your task: Reflect on your values and identify the key areas where you'd like to invest more energy. Then, create a daily or weekly schedule to allocate time for these priorities.
3. Master the Present
"All those things at which you wish to arrive by a circuitous road you can have now, if you do not refuse them to yourself. And this means, if you will take no notice of all the past, and trust the future to providence, and direct the present only conformably to piety and justice." Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.1
A balanced life requires enjoying the present. When your mind constantly wanders to the past or the future, you remain unbalanced and miss the chance to fully embrace each unique moment. Remember our example of the tightrope walker: don't get so lost in the past or future that you get out of balance and fall.
Your task: The best way to quickly focus on the present is to reduce your inputs. With fewer external stimuli, you don't get distracted that often, giving you the mental space to be in the moment. If needed, disconnect from digital devices, consider muting your phone, or allowing only important calls to come through.
4. Learn to Say No
"'If you seek tranquillity, do less.' Or (more accurately) do what's essential - what the logos of a social being requires, and in the requisite way. Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less, better." Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.24
Maintaining balance in life is all about knowing your limitations. Do what's meaningful for you and confidently say no to everything else.
Your task: Practice politely declining invitations or requests that do not align with your priorities or values.
5. Interconnect the Areas of Your Life
"Frequently consider the connection of all things in the universe and their relation to one another. For in a manner all things are implicated with one another, and all in this way are friendly to one another. For one thing comes in order after another, and this is by virtue of the active movement and mutual conspiration and the unity of the substance." Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.38
Don't look at the different areas of your life as something independent, separated from each other. They are all a part of your life, and once you have set your priorities, you can integrate them, considering them as what they are - vital aspects of your balanced life. They are interconnected and relate to one another. Such a perspective can give you a lot of energy as you perceive the various aspects of your life as integrated elements that contribute to your well-being and happiness.
Your task: Take a step back from your daily routines and observe the bigger picture. Look for ways to connect the different areas of your life and how nurturing one aspect can contribute to other elements. For example, if you love drawing, this could improve your presentation skills, or if you like hiking, you could use it to reduce stress, improve your physical condition, and spend time with family and friends.
6. Maintain Flexibility
"We have various abilities, present in all rational creatures as in the nature of rationality itself. And this is one of them. Just as nature takes every obstacle, every impediment, and works around it - turns it to its purposes, incorporates it into itself - so, too, a rational being can turn each setback into raw material and use it to achieve its goal." Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.35
Adapting to change is crucial to remain open to life's unexpected shifts and keep your balance. Manage your expectations and stay flexible. A rigid and unyielding tree may resist the wind, but when pressure increases, it may break or get uprooted. On the other hand, a flexible tree that bends and sways with the storm can withstand the force and bounce back to its original form. Make the storms of life into your material to maintain your balance. Stay on your tightrope, move and rebalance, and bounce back.
Actionable Step: Make space for flexibility within your routines and prepare for them. Use negative visualization to establish a flexible mindset and prepare yourself for worst-case scenarios. If A happens, you do B. If B doesn't work because of C, focus on C and return to B afterward.
7. Reflect and Rebalance
"Look within. Let neither the peculiar quality of anything nor its value escape you." Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.3
"Through not observing what is in the mind of another a man has seldom been seen to be unhappy but those who do not observe the movements of their own minds must necessarily be unhappy." Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.8
Reflection on your experiences is another vital element of creating and maintaining a good life balance. How else should you know that you're still balanced? How can you adapt to challenges when you're not recognizing that something's trying to get you off balance?
Your task: Set aside a few minutes each day for reflection. Make it a habit to identify the positive aspects of your life and express gratitude for them. Notice when something went wrong and work on that to improve it.
Wrapping Up
Balancing your life is a journey, not a fixed destination. There will be times of great turmoil and struggles but also times of calm and tranquility. The art of balancing life never ceases. By applying the principles of Stoicism to your everyday life, you'll build a strong core fortifying you against the storms of life trying to get you off balance.
Let the storms come; let someone try to bring you off balance – you're ready to stand firm on your tightrope and find serenity and harmony amidst the chaos.
Resources:
