Balancing Act
Life Balance can bring richness to your personal life that goes far beyond the possession of material things, and significance to your business life that goes far beyond financial success.
Here are some things to consider as you seek balance in your business life:
Slow vs. Fast
Doing things quickly can save you time, and that time may be spent doing more important things. But doing things in a rush, before you've had time to think through the repercussions, can land you quickly in the wrong place. Life Balance requires that you know what results you expect before you take action. It requires that you focus first on where you're going and how you plan to get there. It requires an assessment of obstacles and strategies for overcoming these obstacles. Only when you're focused on the destination, the ways, and the means is it advisable to proceed with all due speed.
Taking Risks vs. Playing It Safe
If you risk too much, you may lose everything. If you risk nothing, you will gain nothing. Taking risks is a balancing act. Intelligent risk-taking is a key to success in any endeavor. The baseball batter who stands at the plate and never takes the bat off his shoulder will never hit into a double play. Neither will he ever hit a home run. The best he can hope for is a base on balls. The worst he can expect is a strikeout. The batter who swings at the pitch is aware that the odds are against his hitting safely. The batter who hits safely 3 times out of 10 is considered a good hitter. Not since 1941 has any Major League batter hit safely better than 40% of the time over a season. But games and championships are won by players who swing at pitches, not by those who never go for the pitch.
Focus vs. Being Distracted
Some people are easily distracted. They'll stop what they're doing at the drop of a hat and enter into an unrelated conversation, focus on a different train of thought, or embark on a different task. Others become so absorbed in what they're doing that they're oblivious of everything going on around them. It practically takes an explosion break their focus.
Life Balance enables you to know when to keep your focus and when to surrender to the distraction. If you allow yourself to be distracted by every minor interruption, every unplanned circumstance, you'll never accomplish anything constructive.
Suppose your teenage daughter wants to talk to you heart to heart about a problem she's facing. Should you ignore her in favor of the column of figures you're adding up, the speech outline you're working on, or the specifications you're drawing up for an important project?
A few minutes invested in connecting with your daughter will, in the long run, more than compensate for a few minutes in which your business interests are put aside.
Receiving vs. Giving.
There is joy in giving, so allow other people to give as well so they can also experience joy. When you perform as an artist and people applaud, allow them to finish their applause; people want to show their appreciation. Be worthy of both giving and receiving.
Kahlil Gibran explained the two-way benefits of giving and receiving this way: …It is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower, but it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee…and to both, bee and the flower, the giving and receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy."
Less vs. More
If an action moves you farther from your goals, it's best to heed the words of Lin Yutang, Chinese author and scholar who made the trek from Christianity to Buddhism and Taoism, then back to Christianity: "Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials."
Hard work vs. Laziness
A life of total leisure is the hardest career to pursue. But being overworked can cause stress and anxiety, which inhibit productivity. Life Balance means finding a middle ground between the two.
Quiet time can lead to ingenious ideas. A few moments spent in total relaxation can be more productive than hundreds of hours spent at hard labor.
But if you spend all your time relaxing and meditating, your ideas will never make it out of your imagination. To implement your ideas, there's no substitute for hard work. So dream to bring your future into focus and act to bring it into reality.
Short-Term Imbalance
Once in a while it may be necessary to allow for temporary imbalance as a means to achieve long-term goals. Such imbalance is tolerable, and even desirable, if it is just for a short time. But if it continues long-term, it can lead to danger. An author working on a book may have to work extra-long hours to meet a deadline, or may have to go to extraordinary lengths to conduct research. Athletes training for the Olympics may have to push their bodies extra hard to whip them into shape for world-class competition. A contractor may have to push extra hard to bring a project in on time and avoid severe monetary penalties.
An occasional imbalance is OK if you're working toward something that will contribute to long-range stability. But make sure that the imbalance is temporary. And let your family and others close to you know what to expect.
Material Responsibility vs. Spiritual Responsibility
At the end of the day we leave this world as we came – with nothing. So in the final analysis, material things become short-term and spiritual things long-term. But if we ignore our material responsibilities, we won't be able to sustain our spiritual side. So the balance between the two is important. In fact, if we were to marry the two it would be a good blend: pursuing material things with a spiritual foundation. We have multiple needs and we cannot ignore our spirituality by being obsessed with material well-being.
To buy online:
Life Balance the Sufi Way by Azim Jamal and Nido Qubein at Flipkart.com
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