ESSENTIAL ELEMENT: Balance
Critical Concept: The daily choices you make.
The key to finding balance in your life is tied to the choices that you make in the daily management of your limited resources. If you ask ten people to describe what would constitute a State of Wellness in regards to the Spark domain of their life, you’d probably get ten different answers. There is a high likelihood that a common theme in the responses would be experiencing a sense of balance.
There are a multitude of economies operating simultaneously in our lives. We spend, save and invest our resources constantly as we navigate through our daily lives.
You have both Limited Resources and Unlimited Resources. Your Limited Resources include your time, focus, energy and money. There is a finite supply of each of these vital assets at any given moment. The key to finding balance in your life is tied to the choices that you make in their daily management and investment.
We are all programmed with a set of Innate Values. These values promote characteristics that conveyed some level of reproductive or survival advantage over the millennia. They are hardwired into your genome. Adherence to the behaviors that are congruent with these values produces emotions and feelings of happiness and fulfillment. Behaviors that are at odds with these Innate Values produce stressful emotions like anxiety, apprehension and tension. This internal GPS (Genetic Positioning System) is in place to act as an emotional compass to guide us through life’s decisions.
When you invest your Limited Resources of time, energy, focus and money in alignment with your Innate Values, you experience a sense of balance and peace of mind. Conversely, if you spend or squander these resources in a way that defies your deepest values, you will inevitably experience uneasiness, worry and imbalance. This disparity is often at the root of most emotional and psychological stress, which will undermine your health in countless ways.
This chronic state of stress in our lives creates hormonal changes in our bodies that affect every facet of our health. The stress hormone cortisol will actually cause our body to store fat in our midsection (the dreaded belly fat). This omentum fat can surround our organs and put compressive pressure on the kidneys, causing elevated high blood pressure. High blood pressure is a key agent in the plaqueing of the arteries leading to heart disease and heart attacks.
The world often places demands on our resources with seemingly no regard for our values. This pull between worldly demands and our inner voice can create a tension that is overwhelming if we don’t recognize it. Being mindful of this dynamic is the first step towards Mindset Mastery.
We must take control of the economy of our limited resources if we wish to experience a sense of balance in our lives.
A Bonfire best practice involves the identification of your Roles and Goals in each of your Life Time Value Accounts. Being clear and specific for each of your lifestyle categories is critical. Consider and identify exactly what is most important to you in each Life Time Value Account. Now audit your spending.
How do you spend your time, energy, focus and money?
A Bonfire vital behavior is to align your schedule with your Innate Values. Time is the ultimate equalizer. Regardless of age, gender or income, we all have exactly the same amount of time to invest every day. Create a schedule that accounts for the time that is regularly reserved for serving your roles and goals. Do not over-commit or over-schedule yourself. Do not over-spend and force yourself into a situation that requires you to work to earn a living at the expense of making a life.
In order to achieve the illusive state of balance in our lives, we must reconcile the discrepancy between what we value and how we spend our resources.
Keep an account of each of these four resources and check in habitually. Imagine that you had a check registry for each of these categories and make it a habit to “balance your virtual checkbook” for each of them regularly. Become deliberate in the allocation of each of these assets. Do not leave it to chance or resort to living in response to the world’s beckon call.
Proactive management of these precious gifts is the surest way to enjoying a balanced life in an unbalanced world.
At this point in the program you should be….
- Establishing your Peace of Mind Account (PMA) using Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT)
- Getting to bed earlier: working toward sleep before 11 p.m.
- Getting up earlier: working toward 30 minute morning rituals
- Remaining focused on creating the life that you want
- Choosing to develop more influence in your life
- Recognizing challenges as opportunities to grow
- Seeking Alignment between behaviors and Innate Values
- Choosing an attitude of Thankfulness and Gratitude
- Seeking opportunities to get connected with supportive people
- Choosing to extend Unconditional Love and Acceptance to others
- Finding Balance by managing your Limited Resources (Time, Energy,Focus,Money)
