Bronco Riding, Fence JumpingAnd Other Tricks To

Finding Balance

Learning Outcomes

• Identify the elements in your life that are in (and out) of balance.

• Learn key strategies for increasing balance.

• Feel more control over life’s imbalances.

Life is like riding a bicycle, to keep your balance you must keep moving.

—Albert Einstein

Balance: What the heck is it?

1. A weighing device, especially one consisting of a rigid beam horizontally suspended by a low-friction support at its

center, with identical weighing pans hung at either end, one of which holds an unknown weight while the effective weight in the other is increased by known amounts until the beam

is level and motionless.

Balance: What the heck is it?

2. A state of equilibrium or parity characterized by cancellation of all forces by equal opposing forces.

Balance: What the heck is it?

3. The power or means to decide.

What are the obstacles that get in our way of being balanced?

Are you a human being…

Or are you a human doing?

Doing Your Life is…

• Checking things off a list• Going to meetings• Preparing dinner• Driving to work• Helping with homework• Creating care plans• Exercising• Ruminating about everything

Being in Your Life is…

• Connecting with your values• Not getting hooked into what is unimportant• Seeing the beauty in the mundane• Breathing deeply • Saying “no” and saying “yes” • Extending your heart• Recognizing gifts• Tuning in

Balance is finding the sweet spot between the doing and the

being.

To Be (Balanced) or Not to Be (Balanced)—

That is the question!

Fun & Recreation Career

Financial Health

PersonalDevelopment

Romance

Friends/Family

PhysicalHealth

PhysicalEnvironment

Spirituality

Life Balance Wheel

Budget/FinanceMeetings

Paper Work/Regulations

Professional Development

Other

Downtime

Patients/Families

Environment

Peers/Boss

Work Balance Wheel

Complete your Life Balance Wheel

How balanced are you?

• Identify the two areas that you’re most satisfied.

• Identify the two areas that you’re least satisfied.

Assessment

• Reflect on the two areas in which you are most satisfied.

• What do you do to achieve a high level of satisfaction in those areas?

• What would change for you if you became dissatisfied in those areas?

Satisfaction

• Reflect on the two areas in which you are least satisfied.

• What contributes to that level of dissatisfaction?

• What would change for you if you became satisfied in those areas?

I can’t get no satisfaction

Think of a moment in your life when you felt completely balanced. What exactly was

happening? What were you doing and how were others involved? How did you feel?

• Of the things that contribute to your imbalance, what do you have control, influence or no control over?

• Record on your Sphere of Influence.

Your Sphere

Sphere of Influence

Control

Influence

No control

• What surprises you?

• What doesn’t surprise you?

• What occurs to you as you look at your Sphere?

Results

Write down your responses:• What do you need to say no to in order to achieve

more balance?• What do you need to say yes to in order to achieve

more balance?• What will happen if you don’t say yes or no to those

things?

Yes and No

Balancing Acts

• Breathe• Walk, move• Eat, drink, sleep• Stand up/Sit down• Plan an unplanned day• Do the unexpected• Connect with someone you

wouldn’t• Connect with someone important

to you• Play

• Ask for what you need• Laugh, giggle, chuckle, chortle• Enlist a balance team (massage

therapist, manicurist, spa, friend)• Leave town• Electronic fast• Slow down• Remember what is important• Disregard what is unimportant• Use your Sphere of Influence

Commitment

Write down one thing you’re committing to for the next 30 days to help you achieve more balance.

What do you need from your team mates to help you achieve balance?

We can be sure that the greatest hope for maintaining equilibrium in the face of any situation rests within ourselves.

—Francis J. Braceland