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Balancing Your Priorities

By IDEA

You've decided to make your health a priority in your life. You're going to work out regularly, eat right, manage your stress. There's only one problem--what about all the other priorities in your life? You can't help wondering if your work, family, social or personal life will suffer from this time-consuming new commitment to healthy living. After all, there are only so many hours in the day.

The problem is a realistic one that most people face, says Minneapolis lifestyle coach Kate Larsen. "Our lives are so busy with various demands and commitments, that--sadly--it is common for healthy habits to get lost in the shuffle. When we decide to make our health a priority, we usually have to change our whole way of life, including our priorities and our attitudes.

The first step to changing your priorities is to assess your existing ones. (See "Priority Planner") If you have no personal time to begin with, you may resent your fitness program before you even start. If your family and friends are currently neglected, adding a new commitment is bound to cause resentment.

After you have assessed your "out of balance" areas and determined ways to correct them, your healthy new habits will have a much better chance of surviving.

Perfectionism is a common pitfall for people making behavior changes; they believe they can strike a "perfect balance" in their new lifestyle, if only they work at it hard enough. "Sometimes I don't even like to use the word 'balance,'" says Larsen, "because people think it's a permanent, achievable state of being. It isn't. Living a balanced life is like surfing. It's always changing. You ride the waves of circumstance and you try to stay balanced, but you're going to get knocked off your board and go under sometimes. That's part of life. You just get back up and try again."

How can you balance your new healthy habits with the rest of your life and make sure they remain a top priority? Larsen offers these tips:

Write It Down. Write your daily, weekly and monthly goals in your journal, daytimer or computer organizer. Schedule all your priorities: fitness time, grocery shopping and meal preparation time, relaxation and family time. Writing things down helps build your awareness and increases (but doesn't guarantee!) your chances of following through.

Think "No Matter What . . . " For each day, week and month, plan the priorities that you put in your "No Matter What" category: "I will exercise no less than four times this week, no matter what" or "I will take at least 20 minutes of quiet personal time each day, no matter what." Remember that you already have many activities that are "no matter what." Would you go a week without brushing your teeth, or only getting four hours of sleep each night? You want to think about your new healthy habits in the same way.

Set Rules. Your life slides out of control (and your priorities go haywire) when you don't set boundaries or rules. (If the idea of "rules" scares you, think of them as gentle guidelines.) Set the number of nights you will allow yourself to be away on business travel, the number of overtime hours you will work, when you will and will not answer the phone and e-mail, how often you will entertain, how many hours of sleep you will get, etc. Of course, some circumstances may create exceptions and you need to be flexible. But guidelines will give you a standard for making decisions that align with your values and goals.

Create "Sacred Time." Create pockets of time that you will not allow to be compromised by any other obligations. For example, "Every Friday night is family activity night," or "6:00 to 6:30 am is my time to relax, read and meditate." Remember that creating balance for yourself is about making personal choices. It takes courage to stay committed to balance. Don't let others decide what balance should be for you.

Priority Planner.
Rate how balanced your life is in each of these priority areas, then answer the two questions that follow:

What specific things can I do to correct the areas that are out of balance (i.e., call my brother once a week, work with a nutritionist, revive a neglected hobby)?

How will I integrate my planned changes with the other priorities in my life? (i.e., include family in my fitness plans, plan new activities into my budget)?

Article provided by contributing editor, =Chad Tackett= (President of Global Health and Fitness) and by IDEA, The Health & Fitness Source, the leading organization serving personal trainers, exercise instructors, and business operators. Visit IDEA's website at http://www.ideafit.com.