Monday, 30 December 2013

Overcoming obstacles to balance

BEING HUMAN MEANS A SIMPLE LIFE WITH GOOD FAITH AND ACTION

Overcoming obstacles to balance


By incorporating health, relationships, and
purpose into every day, you make sure to keep
yourself fed and thriving, so you can keep
getting better and better, and happier and
happier.
Taking care of yourself is a commitment. When
you think about tending your health,
relationships, and purpose every day, do you
feel anxious about when you’ll find the time?
Most of us are overtaxed and stressed,
scheduled to the max and rushed during most
of our time. That, too, is an obstacle to
happiness.
The problem with life is that it’s finite. You
can’t do everything—it’s impossible. A lot of us
act as if this isn’t the case, but it is.
If you can’t do everything, some things have to
go. You’ll never get to them. Shouldn’t those
be the things that are less important?
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A lot of us don’t really consider the relative
importance of the things we do, we just do
whatever is most urgent, or whatever is
easiest, or whatever somebody has nagged us
about most recently. But the fact is, many of
the urgent or easy tasks are really not that
important. If you want time to take care of
yourself, build your relationships, and do
meaningful work, you may have to cut out
some things that are less important. That’s
what it takes to improve your life.
When looking for things to cut, some prime
areas are meetings, web surfing, email, and
television. These four activities are huge time
wasters for many people. A more systematic
approach is what I call the to-quit list. If you’re
like most people, you probably have a long list
of things you’re supposed to do, either in your
head, on a piece of paper, in a computer file,
or on a flurry of Post-It notes stuck
everywhere. Gather the whole list together in
one place and give it a good, hard look. How
many of those things give you a feeling of
dread or aversion when you think about them?
Start a new list called your “to-quit list” and
put all those things on it.
Of course, if you quit everything on the list
right now, there will probably be some pretty
bad consequences. It’s tempting to say “I can’t
just quit my job!” or “I can’t quit the X
committee—the whole thing would fall apart!”
But the fact is, it’s not a matter of “can’t.”
What if you were in an accident that lan

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