You’ve heard before about the need to balance your home and work life.  This is generally said to tell someone that they are working too much.

Balancing your life is great… without balancing it, eventually something will slide too far and you will generally end up feeling miserable, whether because of loneliness, financial stress, or something else (it depends on what you let slide).

The problem is that there are not two aspects, there are three… and each one has a different “weight” for different people, meaning that how much of one you need varies.

What You Are Balancing

The three aspects of your life that are required to remain in balance for you to have a truly happy, fulfilling life are: work, social (family and friends), and personal (you).  Each of these areas has both a positive and a negative side. The positive side adds to the overall positive energy and feelings in your life, while the negative side drains from the same.

The fact that each aspect contributes to (or detracts from) the whole of your life means that any one of them being too far into the negative can damage the others, too.  Think about it this way:  If your work life is negative enough, it is going to be harder and harder to overcome that to have truly good time with your family and friends, which makes it even harder to have the good time for yourself.

The Details Of The Aspects

• Work
  The positive side of the work aspect of your life is the feeling of doing something useful, of accomplishing something and being a necessary part of the “team”.  Along with this is the needto be appreciated… even if you feel like you are useful, or even critical, if you do not feel appreciated, it will overall be negative (in the long run).The negative side of work is feeling like you are not important, or that you are not appreciated… that your work is not valued.  There is also negative available when you are TOO necessary, although that is also linked to the appreciation factor… if your work was properly appreciated, you would get the support you need to be able to do what you do and still be able to step away (to your social or personal aspects).
• Social
  The positive side of your social life is the feeling that there are people with whom you can relax and be yourself.  You do not have to keep up a front, and you can let most of your walls down.  These are people who you can call on for help without needing to specifically do something to pay for it.  Spending time on this aspect of your life helps to let you mentally recover from any drain work may have placed on you.The negative side of your social life is when the balance of helping each other gets tipped too far one way or the other, although the most noticeable, of course, is when it gets tipped in the direction of others.  This can be when you have people in your friends or family who are always taking from you, whether mentally or materially, but it can also be when you are always taking and not giving back… either one eventually makes for a drain from the social aspect of your life, instead of a positive contribution.
• Personal
  The positive side of the personal aspect of your life is feelingthe satisfaction of doing what you want to do, the feeling of having time when you do not have to worry about taking care of anyone but yourself.  Positive personal time is time spent on something you enjoy, with no deadlines.  This time is absolutely critical to an overall positive balance in your life.The negative side of your personal aspect comes from having time to yourself, but not doing anything productive with it.  The definition of productive here is different than what you might think, however… it can be productive to simply sit and do nothing, as long as you are actively choosing to do that.  Non-productive time is when you just default to doing something (time spent on the computer can go this way rather easily, as can time in front of the TV) rather than actively choosing to do something.

 

The most commonly neglected aspect is the personal.  It can be easy for a person with a giving nature to concentrate on work, then after that take care of social, and never really get around to personal.  I am personally guilty of doing just that… I often forget the importance of actively taking time to do something for myself.  Even when I have time, I often simply default to doing something… this is something I intend to change.

So… do you want to make your life better overall?  If so, sit down and take the time to examine all three aspects of your life, and see where you are getting a positive contribution and where you have a negative drain.  Once you have determined where the drain is coming from, take a look at that area and see if you can specifically find out why there is a drain and work on fixing that thing.

Let me know (in the comments) if there is something in particular that you have a problem with, or something that you have overcome, or if you have anything else interesting to say!