8 keys to having a good balance in life
Find serenity, despite life’s obstacles? In these eight steps, you will discover how to find balance in life.
Contents
1. Leaving the judgmental posture
2. Don’t be afraid to fall
3. Experimenting and listening to yourself
4. Being aware of what you are experiencing
5. Recognize your contradictions
6. To know how to question oneself
7. Accepting that you may not be doing well at times
8. Develop your skills
1. To leave behind the posture of judgment
My balance is based on three main axes.
The first is to accept my weaknesses. They are neither anomalies nor inferiorities. I received some wonderful things from my parents, others less so. What I am today is not their fault, it is not mine; I have a road to travel that I consider to be a restoration project.
The second is work! This construction site of mine is exciting but it requires a lot of energy. We give up too soon, the intention seems to be enough. In order to change, we have to train, like in a sport.
The last pillar is the meeting. The others are essential to me. Every time I meet someone, I look at what is beautiful and strong about them and how I can be inspired by it. In order to do that, you have to leave your posture of judgment or indifference. We tend to oscillate between one and the other. We are quick to criticize, it reassures us to see the defects. We then neglect the essential, the whole of a person. But there are very few people who have nothing to teach us. We must look at others with benevolence and admiration by asking ourselves what they can teach us. This changes everything because it makes the encounter fruitful.
2. Don’t be afraid to fall
I have had a journey made up of ruptures. Nothing dramatic, because these breaks were often chosen, such as immigration or a change of profession. But each time, I had to take risks, overcome obstacles and then get back up. I think the key to my balance is that I was not afraid to fall. There are always lessons to be learned from our difficulties.
In our society of perfection, it is very difficult to recognize that we can fail at times. But wanting to master everything is exhausting and a source of so much frustration. We are never perfect. To recognize this is to move forward with your own faults.
To do this, you must have the audacity to ask for advice. And be very demanding in your quest. This advice does not suit us? We keep asking for it elsewhere. We need each other to overcome our shortcomings. This modesty places us not in a position of combat but of self-construction with the other. We are here to play a particular role. Without being afraid of others.
3. Experimenting and listening to ourselves
Identifying what really matters to you and always keeping it in mind allows you to move forward in your direction, to nourish your life project, no matter what the context. It’s a bit like sailing: you have to define your course and stay on it. If the weather is not good, you will find your way back. And to know your direction, you have to experiment and listen to yourself.
A good way is not to ask “why” I want this or that but “how”. Substituting our “whys” with “hows” allows us to move forward. The “whys” bring us back to the causes and thus to our anteriority. But we no longer have control over our past. Whereas the “hows” turn us towards the future and lead to change. The “why” opens the field of answers, multiple, infinite, general and largely inoperative. While the “hows” push us to turn to factual, more concrete answers to better act.
4. Be aware of what you are experiencing
You have to keep a form of spirituality around you. In everyone we talk to, there is a magical spark. To experience it helps me a lot. The difficulties we encounter are an opportunity to realize that life does not always bend to our immediate desires, and that we must develop paths to success on our own. We must be fully aware of what we are experiencing. Everything then is more “tasty.
To do this, we must slow down, not do everything at the same time, give ourselves time to stop. Three times a day, you can sit down and ask yourself what emotions, positive or negative, you are feeling at that moment. We refocus on our breathing. This does not last more than 3 minutes. But it’s a very simple way to be more present to yourself.
5. Recognize your contradictions
Understanding myself and my contradictions, like a two-sided medal, has been essential for me to find balance.
To do this, we can start with a given situation that causes us a little discomfort. We take the time to analyze it objectively: what do I feel? And we ask ourselves what this allows us to understand about ourselves. We must be able to observe the resources that we mobilize and the obstacles that are ours.
It is a self-analysis, but in no way an interpretation or a judgment. It is a way to make sense of our behaviors in order to find solutions, not to flagellate ourselves. The idea is to better recognize our resources since they go hand in hand with our weaknesses.
6. Knowing how to question ourselves
Balance cannot rest on one key because in reality, it is a constant questioning. We must constantly question the interactions that our relationships with others can have on us. It is a matter of always looking for another description of things, of not staying on a single idea that would explain everything. Balance means being multi-factorial.
To do this, we must ask ourselves what could be the causes that led us to encounter a difficulty. We always tend to be satisfied with an external causality. Usually, that causality is other people. This is certainly relevant on many occasions, but it is lazy to stop there. We forget to ask, “What about me, what can I do to make it happen, to make the other person happen?” We have to go beyond the single answer, look for complexity and ask ourselves what we can do to intervene in the situation that is causing us problems.
7. Accepting that sometimes we are not doing well
Accepting to fluctuate, to have low periods, has been essential for me. The injunction “you have everything to be happy” often parasites us. It is difficult to recognize our suffering when others around us are seriously ill. However, suffering is not a hierarchy!
We must accept to break down, to grumble, to not feel well sometimes and not to question ourselves constantly. Women are particularly prone to this. However, we must be able to accept to think about ourselves, because it is the best way to then think about others.
8. Develop your skills
Seeking to be who you are rather than dreaming of being someone else, always better, younger, stronger, more successful, more admirable, is the path I have taken. It is not by looking for this other that one finds balance, it is on the contrary by letting go of the matter that one finds appeasement. It is not a question of accepting one’s fate and not moving, but of replacing this narcissistic quest with the development of our qualities.
Developing our skills means working on what we know how to do, like dancing, singing, counting. To develop our qualities is to work on our way of relating to the world, to become more flexible, to connect with others. It is the assurance of entering into relationships that are easier, more nourishing, and that make us happier.