WAHM’s: Retrain Your Brain for
Balance
What is Balance?
How do we achieve it? Is it
possible to balance our writing lives and our families?
Reframing
What Balance Means
There’s a principle call
the BE, DO and HAVE principle that focuses our lives.
Think of it like a pyramid with who we’re BEing at
the top, what we’re DOing in the middle and what we HAVE
to show for it as the widest part at the bottom.
The parts above influence what’s below, but not the
other way around.
A few years ago I was
working a job I hated, feeling the stress and pressure
every day, and getting more and more miserable.
I wanted a sense of ‘balance’ in my life, but I
thought that meant adding the things I wanted to do to my
already overwhelming ‘to do’ list. It
didn’t work.
Then I learned about the
BE, DO and HAVE principle. I realized
that while I was stressed out, I was BEing someone who put
others needs before my own to my own detriment.
I was BEing someone who focused on all the things I
wished I had instead of enjoying what I actually did have.
As I learned to shift my focus into BEing someone
who was grateful for all the little joys in my life and
BEing someone who took care of myself, my stress level
came down – and my to-do list became easier to accomplish.
The person I was BEing
was reflected in what I was DOing and what I had in my
life. As I adjusted who I was BEing,
the ways that it showed up in my life also changed.
How to BE
in Balance
If your desire is to
find balance in your life, then it’s highly likely that
there was at least a moment when you felt it once.
It’s that moment that’s created the longing for it.
-
Ask yourself:
When have I experienced this desired state of
balance before? Focus on the first
thing that comes to mind and allow yourself to
re-experience it – the sights, sounds, smells, feeling,
and emotions. Write it all down.
-
Now focus in on
yourself in that moment and ask: Who
was I BEing in that moment that allowed balance to
happen? What qualities and
characteristics was I living in that moment.
Were you having fun? Were you
with friends? Where you alone?
Whatever is true for you, write it down.
Now you have everything
you need to recreate that experience of balance in your
life no matter what you’re DOing or what you HAVE.
When you feel yourself becoming stressed out,
simply take a moment to BEcome the person you want to BE
by reminding yourself of those qualities and
characteristics that created the experience for you
before.
