Living a Balanced Life - The Three Pillars
Living a balanced life is the ability to take into equal consideration as much as possible, time and resources spent on those things that play a major role in constituting the entirety of your life and well-being. The things a person considers could vary according to age. Infants may consider playing, eating and sleeping. Students may consider studying, playing, dating. Adults may consider family, career and personal development.
The illustration below is going to focus on the case of working class married adults. The pillars for consideration will be Family / Friends, Career, Personal Development.
OBJECTIVES:
- To provide a guide for working class married adults to consider three key aspects of their lives - family / friends, career, personal development, when it comes to the allocation of time and resources.
- To make adults talk about how balanced their lives are.
STEP 1: Download the pdf file below and if possible, print it out.
STEP 2: Circle any blue box in the three diagrams given you think doesn't apply in your case. For example: If you don't have any investments and savings, circle those boxes in diagram 2 where they are stated.
STEP 3: Highlight all the boxes you think you spent most on your money on. Think of your monthly income and think of how you spend it. For example if you spend 80% of your income on paying for a new course you are learning, go to the third diagram and highlight Academic Improvement and Formal studies or Informal studies depending on what corresponds to your case.
STEP 4: Using a different color, highlight the boxes you think you spent most of your time on. Think of the 24hours of your day. Do you spend most of the time sleeping? That may be considered personal development in some cases. Do you spend most of the time with friends? Do you spend most of the time at work?
STEP 5: Find a box that applies to your case but you have never spent any time or money or other resources on and highlight it. For example: You have never spent any time with your spouse's family and have never spent a cent on any of their problems. Go to the diagram one and highlight those boxes.
STEP 6: Study your results you have on the three diagrams and prepare a 5minutes talk about how you live a balanced life at the end of which you have to score yourself on 10.
STEP 7: The first page of the pdf you downloaded has instructions for an exercise you can do as homework. Make a copy of the pdf and use for the homework. Here is a good tip: Make a deal with a close friend of yours to crosscheck each other's progress on living a balanced life.