A Simple Strategy to Make Sure You Stay Balanced AND Achieve Your Goals

Joshua with hazelnuts and oranges;)
Joshua with hazelnuts and oranges;)

I know that you’ve got some amazing things to accomplish this year. As a true Freedom Junkie, your plans for the upcoming year are bound to have some elements of expanding your comfort zone, going on adventures, expanding love and passion in your life, growing in your career (or changing to a new one!), and feeling yummy in your body, mind, and spirit.

I also know that many of us Freedom Junkies have a hard time fitting in everything we want to do – especially in a way that leaves us feeling centered! I recently wrote a post about how I got seduced away from balance while on a three-month adventure in Africa, and how I brought myself back to center again. The key thing is to try and prevent that in the first place. While I have been known to say Balance is Bullshit, I am more speaking to what balance means for YOU, and what happens when you feel you are moving away from what you know works for you.

I want to share with you an analogy that I think works really well for helping to understand how to make it all work when you’ve got a lot to juggle. One of my health and nutrition teachers, Joshua Rosenthal of Integrative Nutrition, does a demonstration he calls Big Rocks:

That’s Joshua up there. He’s standing by some hazelnuts and some oranges and a glass jar. Here’s what they represent:

The hazelnuts are the tasks and duties we have to do in life. The “stuff.” The small stuff that takes up HUGE chunks of time unless you’re careful.

When you toss in an orange here and there and keep adding hazelnuts, there isn't enough room for your oranges - the things important to you
When you toss in an orange here and there and keep adding hazelnuts, there isn’t enough room for your oranges – the things important to you

The oranges are the things in life that are of utmost importance to us – our major goals, our most important values that we want to honor.

The glass jar is the time and energy we have available to do all those yummy things we want to do, like our dreams and goals.

Oftentimes, what we end up doing is picking one “orange” – like the new project we want to launch in our business this year, for example – and focus on that for a bit. Then little by little (or sometimes in a flood!) we pour in a bunch of “hazelnuts,” like mowing the lawn, checking email, perusing Facebook, helping a friend edit an article, watching a movie…get it?

Then we remember another orange, like, “Oh shizzle! I told myself I was going to spend more time with my family and friends this year!” So we do that for awhile. The we add more hazelnuts like starting that other project that is shiny and new instead of finishing the one we wanted to finish, or doing loads and loads of laundry, or carting around that friend of ours who refuses to buy a car because it isn’t “environmental,” or drinking too much and being hung over the next day.

Then we remember yet another orange, but there is VERY LITTLE SPACE LEFT. In fact, before we know it, the hazelnuts of to-dos have taken up most of the space, and we have some lonely – and important – oranges sitting outside of our life. There isn’t enough room

When you put ALL your oranges in first, the hazelnuts will work themselves around the things you've prioritized
When you put ALL your oranges in first, the hazelnuts will work themselves around the things you’ve prioritized

for everything.

And that is exactly how it feels, because there ISN’T enough time when that’s how you do things.

The good news is there is a different way of doing it: put ALL your oranges in FIRST. Pick the top three to six things that you want to get done, and before you do anything else, get those things done or focus on getting them done, no matter what. Get really clear about what “getting them done” or accomplishing them looks and FEELS like.

When you put the oranges in FIRST, and let the other stuff work around your most important values and goals, there is plenty of room for what is important to you. Even the hazelnuts fit (well, most of them!). And it feels much better to not have a few hazelnuts fit than some of your oranges.

So there ya go! This year, practice this technique. You can even do it for each month, each week, each DAY!

“What is most important for me to do today?”

Everything fits. See Joshua's smile!
Everything fits. See Joshua’s smile!

Another tip: ask yourself, “What is the next most IMPORTANT thing to do?”

It’s my hope that as a result of this, you’ll spend more time doing things that are truly valuable to you, that help you grow, that help you feel and taste success, and help you make 2013 your best year yet;)

Note: Ana Verzone is a personal life and health coach, mentor and the original Freedom Junkie™ She helps passionate women awaken their lives of freedom, adventure and purpose, from their cells to their spirit. Her monthly Ziji Up!™ eZine goes out to thousands of subscribers. If you are ready to take your life and your world to the next level, you can learn more about her coaching programs, schedule a free life assessment, and download her FREE Clarity + Courage ecourse by visiting www.anaverzone.com.

*Images from Institute of Integrative Nutrition

Days 139 to 149 – Balance is Bullshit

If someone says to me, “You’re too busy, it’s not a balanced life,” one more time, I am going to…go get another massage. The day they are feeling just as in love with their lives as I am, then maybe I’ll listen.

Check this out:  When you’re doing something you love so much that you could do it all day for free, when what you’re doing fills your soul and jazzes you up like nothing else matters so that you can stay up all night AND be super pleasant to be around, when creative ideas are flowing through your being and you can implement them one after another but not fast enough, you kinda don’t want a “balanced” life. Because the life you’re living is kicking ass.

My most creative periods have had me up till 5am – happily! Or I multitask and forget to go to yoga. Or I am so excited about what I’m creating that I eat pizza two days in a row and have expensive italian food delivered to my door – with a bottle of Chianti thank you very much – because I don’t want to go to the grocery store. Yes, even though gluten makes me feel bloated.

It’s awesome.

And you know what? When I launch that product or have that special call, I see others light up because of coming into contact what I’ve created. They set out into the world to make a difference, they live their lives on their own terms, they create their dreams. They are TURNED ON. Then, and ONLY then, can I rest. Seriously!

Guess what else? I KNOW this is the case with the entrepreneurs and other creatives out there that I know. Maybe not all, but lots (perhaps even most). Lots of happy ones, with fulfilling lives. My friend, Frederick Schilling, who created the wildly successful organic chocolate company Dagoba, says, “Passion is the fuel for doing the undoable.” Danielle LaPorte, author of The Fire Starter Sessions and one of my fave mentors, loves to quote David Whyte: “The antidote to exhaustion isn’t rest. It’s wholeheartedness.” She goes at it full-on, then unplugs from everything for a month at a time. And yes, she has a kid. My own personal business coach, Christine Kane, works joyfully for weeks – even weekends – then takes a month off (and she does this several times a year). My friend and coach Andrea Owen just spent weeks totally immersed, and cranked out a kick as Self Love Revolution program and then took a week off away from her family (gasp!). She has two kids. Maybe three. Not sure. (I point out the kids because not having a kid myself, I am often reminded how much is “not possible” once you have a kid).

Are we manic? No. We are inspired. It doesn’t mean we don’t get massages or acupuncture or have coaches that help us through the wild ride. It doesn’t mean we don’t hire people to help us do the things we don’t want to do like mow the lawn or fold the laundry. It doesn’t mean we don’t create special time for kids in our lives, or for our partners. It just looks different.

For me, I follow those wild times with not writing a single work item for a month, or not creating another product or training call for MONTHS, or sleeping in and waking up sipping tea and rocking in my hammock, or traveling to Africa and not having anywhere to plug in my iPhone for weeks. It is balanced…eventually. Just not the way lots of peeps think it “should” look.

So, perhaps I can rephrase: Balance is bullshit when you expect it to look like an 8 hour day, 8 hours of sleep, a session of sex and three meals a day and 30 minutes of cardio and 1 hour of yoga for everyone. That certainly works for some! It is also perhaps a balance of time, but what about a balance of energy – YOUR energy style?

Personally, I prefer the all-nighters of sex, then sleeping in, cranking out a program segment over the next 3 days, then going into the wilderness for awhile and sweating and having backcountry sex; Making green drinks every day with huge crunchy salads for lunch and organic yummies for dinner for a week or two, then having pizza and PBR and whiskey and staying up until 4am. I prefer days and days of creation, then lounging in my hammock and having hammock sex at lunchtime (see a theme?) and watching three movies in a row. I prefer forgetting to eat until its 2am and I’m starving and there’s nothing open to have anything delivered (see another theme here?) so I bake my frozen shoestring french fries and top them with leftover shredded parmesan and garlic salt. And maybe an egg. Then I make a green drink in the morning and practice yoga for an hour and a half. I love that feeling when I have created what I wanted, and then I sleep the deepest slumber and wake up psyched for what will show up next.

Find YOUR balance. How do you groove? Don’t spend so much energy balancing time. Balance your energy. Go with YOUR flow. (Hint – The the only caveat:  if you’re ornery, you are likely not balanced. Ask me how I know ;)

You need to know when you’re at your peak and what type of work you need to do at your peak…It’s basically figuring out those times where you’re really creative, or really productive, or really energized, depending on how you want to look at it, and finding all that high leverage stuff, and doing it during those times, not trying to push those things when you’re tired.” ~ Charlie Gilkey (another inspired creative)
Please share with me in the comments below what YOUR version of balance looks like (and yes, it’s OK if you sleep 8 hours and have 3 meals a day;). I’d love to see what variety is out there!
Signing out (1am;)