Creating Life/Work Balance

Too Busy Making a Living, You Have No Time to Make a Life?Essential Strategies to living a well-balanced life while reducing stress.

With Marni Blythe Borelli, Life & Business Coach

Designed exclusively for:

Welcome and Introductions

Marni Borelli, Life & Business Coach

Co-Owner, Dragonfly Health & Fitness in Holly Springs, NC

Today’s Agenda What is work/life balance discussion What it means to be balanced How to find your balance 10 steps to find your balance Possible obstacles Thank you for coming!

Why Do You Want Work/Life Balance?

Let’s go around the room and discuss…

Why do we want this? What does work/life balance mean to

you?

What Does it Mean to Be Balanced?

To me, it means that you have a handle on the the various elements in your life and your heart or mind aren’t being pulled too hard in any direction.

More often than not, you feel calm, grounded, clear-headed, and motivated.

How Do You Find Your Balance?

2 categories: internal and external. Often times, people focus on one more than the other.

If you focus on external things too much–like work, relationships, and activities, you may pay very little attention to what is going on inside your heart and mind.

If you spend too much time being self reflective (internal), you sometimes miss out on the experience of living.

Other people may be fairly balanced between the two but might want to balance out some specific elements within each category.

Internal: Mind, Heart, HealthElement How it Relates

Mind Challenging yourself intellectually vs. creating opportunities for your mind to rest

Heart Giving love vs. receiving love

Health Eating, drinking, exercising properly vs. resting and treating yourself to some extra yummies

External (Work, Social, Family, Fun)

Element How it RelatesWork Pushing yourself to achieve goals vs. seeing the

bigger picture and enjoying the rideSocial Satisfying your social desires vs. taking time for

yourselfFamily Fulfilling your familial responsibilities vs. creating

healthy boundariesFun Allocating time for things you enjoy doing vs.

making sure you don’t overdo it

Achieving Balance

Let’s Begin Going through Our 10 Steps Now

Step 1: Acknowledge and Examine

Take a few minutes now, lets take a look at your life,

your state of mind, and how you’re feeling.

Be honest with yourself and notice the areas

of your life that you’re neglecting.

YOUR AWARENESS IS KEY TO YOUR HAPPINESS AND BALANCE

Step 2: Setting goals for ourselves

Look at the outline to help you decide which ways you want to balance your life. Make a list.

What are some goals you might want to set for yourself? I want to create more

time for family… I want to create more

time for fun…

Step 3: Plan tasks

Make a list of daily, weekly, and monthly tasks that you will need to do to achieve each of these goals.

Time management comes into play here!

Step 4: Time Audit

For one week, try keeping a log of everything you do professionally and personally, from washing laundry to browsing Pinterest.

Then go over the lists, pinpoint …what do I need… to start doing? To stop doing?

What do I want to do… more of? less of? Differently?

YOU HAVE CHOICES!

Step 5: Prioritize

We all like to be over-achievers! Someone says, “achieve,” and we jump right to it.

We even achieve multiple things at once.

We make lists of projects we have to do. Then each project becomes a collection of to-do items.

We add those to our to-do list. Pretty soon, we have more to-do items than Imelda Marcos has shoes

Step 5: How to Prioritize

You can have it all… you just can’t have it all at once.

“We’ll never make it to every social event while also working extra hours and making home-cooked meals every night…. we have to prioritize!”

Step 5: How to Prioritize

Urgency and Importance Are Different

Urgent Important

Step 5: How to Prioritize

When setting priorities, decide which quadrant your activity belongs in. Then use the quadrant to prioritize the activity.

Quadrant 1 Quadrant 2

Quadrant 3 Quadrant 4

Step 5: How to Prioritize

Quadrant 1 = OMIGOSH!

Step 5: How to Prioritize

Quadrant 2: Quadrant of Becoming Awesome!

Most of the things we need to do to become awesome are important, but not urgent.

Long-term planning, classes, time with your significant other & friends, personal development, rest and relaxation, recaulking the bathtub…

Visiting quadrant II will help you to create the infrastructure that will handle emergencies in quad 1 before they become urgent.

BIGGEST BOOST

QUADRANT!

Step 5: How to Prioritize

Quadrant III: Temptation! These are things that aren’t

important, but they sure are “urgent.” “Time suckers” – things that seem

like they urgent and important… give us a shot of adrenaline and make us feel like we were productive.

Not-quite-emergencies often fall into quadrant III.

“My nails look terrible and everyone will notice and will think terrible thoughts…this is urgent.”

Step 5: How to Prioritize

Quadrant IV: Time Wasters! Stuff that’s neither urgent nor

important. Watching Real Housewives, some

meetings, many emails fit in Q4, checking your Facebook.

Next time you feel tempted to do something in quadrant IV, do something useful instead, like something in quadrant II – like make plans with a friend or family member!

Step 6: Reflect

What is the most important thing you’ve accomplished in the past? How did you stay focused toward this goal? How did you handle your fears, doubts, anxieties, worries, and

negative self talk? How does it feel to know that you accomplished the goal in spite of

these parts of yourself?

Step 7: Prepare

What is your inner “stuff” that will try to keep you from sticking to your plan? (i.e. fears, worries, doubts, negative self talk etc.)

Can you specify the things you will say to yourself to push you off track? (i.e. “just one more bite, I’ll start eating better tomorrow”) Make a list.

Step 8: Empower

What do you need to remember in those times?

What are things you can say to that self-sabotaging part of yourself?

Be kind to yourself. Balance won’t feel good if you’re cruel to yourself in creating it!

Be aware of the obstacles!

Obstacles to Overcome…

Check your engine light!

Obstacle: Create Healthy Boundaries

When our boundaries are weak, unguarded, or unclear, we let in all sorts of stuff that isn’t actually our stuff, and we give away our own personal energy unconsciously.

Breach of your energetic security system and a leak of your own personal energy.

You’re looking at warning signs indicating that some work needs to be done, some boundaries need to be shored up, and you need to return to center.

Obstacle: How to Create Healthy Boundaries

Grounding is akin to the way a tree sinks her roots to stay secure in a storm. It’s the first tool in creating healthy boundaries—nurturing a connection with ourselves, our centers.

Obstacle: How to Create Healthy Boundaries

There are as many ways to ground as there are people. I like to take five minutes to actually imagine my root system connecting me into the earth, like a giant oak tree. Here are some other ideas (all these are great stress reducers!): Meditating Saying a prayer, affirmation, or mantra in the shower in the

morning Offering a blessing over your morning meal or beverage Chanting or repeating affirmations in your head as you walk to

work Try different ways—you’ll find the one that works for you! Get an “anchor” to bring you back!

Come back to this anytime you are feeling “off balance”

Obstacle: Notice the people and places that tend to drain you

Before engaging, take a few minutes to imagine breathing a bubble of protective energy around you.

Think of it as a space that will only allow love and positivity inside it, deflecting anything else. Really see it and really feel the force of it around you. Then recognize what you need to do to maintain that space.

Building boundaries is like any muscle or practice—the more you work with it, the better it serves you!

Obstacle: Overwhelm, Take it One Day at a Time

One clever tip is to combine your work and personal calendars so you don’t necessarily prioritize one set of responsibilities over the other in advance.

Each day, you can decide whether the staff meeting is more important than getting lunch with an old high school buddy, or vice versa.

Step 9: Connect

Is there a person or a tactic you can use to keep yourself supported, motivated, and focused in those hard times?

Connect and share your inner process with someone who can help you challenge your inner demons, and celebrate your little accomplishments.

Ultimately, work-life balance is about finding a way to juggle all the different kinds of relationships in our lives.

Don’t be shy about asking other people to help you manage your responsibilities.

Step 10: Plan

Just like accomplishing any goal in life, it takes time and effort to overcome your habitual patterns and create new ones.

If you stay on track with this detailed and intentional process for three whole months, then there is a good chance you will create new habits to enjoy a more balanced life going forward!

????????????????????????

Need extra help? I specialize in helping people: reach a goal, make a change in

their life or figure out how to get “unstuck. If you are frustrated with an aspect of your life, not sure how to

stop making the same choices you keep making or just want to have more happiness, peace of mind and passion — life coaching can help you.

Professional coaching brings many wonderful benefits: fresh perspectives on personal challenges, enhanced decision-making skills, greater interpersonal effectiveness, increased confidence, improvement in productivity, satisfaction with life and work, and the attainment of relevant goals.

OFFERING A FREE 45 MIN STRATEGY SESSION

FOR ANYONE WHO IS INTERESTED!

Marni Blythe Borelli Contact Information

www.marniblythe.com 646-413-4872 marni@dragonflyhealthfitness.com 121 Quantum Street Holly Springs,

NC 27540