Day 1: Pursuing a holistic life
One of the most challenging lessons I've learned was that to live a fulfilled life, I have to spend a lot of time investing in different aspects of my life and not just one. Ideally, I would like to pour myself into my work and then have everything else work out automatically without much effort from me. But that's not how life work. Life has taught me that you only get what you put in, and if you excessively focus on one area of your life to the detriment of others, they will suffer. This is where balance becomes extremely important.
Your life's dimensions
Before I share what my idea of balance is and what it has to do with planning and goal-setting, let's explore what these various dimensions of our lives are. The following diagram depicts how I categorise the different areas of my life. Each person has to develop categories that makes sense to who they are and what they value. For example, if you are a student, you'd have to add "Education" as one of your life dimensions. If you are single, marriage and parenting may not apply to you.
These categories help us visualize our lives as a whole and will form the basis upon which we will set our goals as we embrace that we cannot and should not ignore any of these areas when we do our goal-setting.
What does Balance mean to me?
The idea that we ought to pursue fulfillment and success in more than one area of our lives has resulted in a lot of debates about what balance means and whether we can indeed have it all. So I think we should address this very early on in our journey because while my intention is to encourage us to ensure that no area of our lives is neglected, it is important to also be honest about the fact that sometimes in order to focus on a specific area of our lives, some areas may have to be neglected for a while. Which brings me to my idea of what balance is. I believe that we can "have it all", but that we can't have everything ( a successful career, a buzzing social life, abs and a healthy balance sheet) at the same time. I believe that balance is something that we have to consider over a life-time. After I had my son, I realised that in those first few months when he depended on me to breast-feed him every two hours, I was limited in what I could pursue outside of being a milk-factory. As a driven career-woman, it was important for me to make peace with this. This means that in specific seasons of our lives, specific goals will make demands of our time, resources and energy over others. What is important is that what we prioritise in those seasons, should be determined by us and not by other people so that we can take ownership of the sacrifices we have to make at the time.
To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven - Ecclesiastes 1:1
Focus for today:
Our focus for today is to buy into the idea that we are more than just one-dimensional beings, and that we ought to pay attention to every area of our lives that are relevant to the season we are in.
Journal Reflections:
1. What are the different dimensions of your life you need to include in your goal-setting in this season of your life?
2. Take stock of how you feel about the different dimensions of your life. Reflect on which areas you have put the most effort in and the fruits you have yielded there, and then reflect on which areas you have placed the least effort in and analyse the fruits you have borne in those areas. Journal your thought process.
Use the Life Score tool by Michael Hyatt, Author of "Your Best Year Ever," to assist you in taking stock.
Feel free to share your views in the comments section as others may benefit from your views on the topics shared.
