During a recent “not so busy” evening, I decided it was the perfect time to try out a spoon bread recipe my God sister had given me. Although I’m not a great baker and hate following recipes, I thought I would attempt to make this spoonbread. After taking inventory of my pantry, I discovered I did not possess a couple of the ingredients: buttermilk and cornstarch. I substituted the buttermilk for regular milk and decided the cornstarch was not necessary.  My thought was it would not make much difference. It wasn’t long before I knew this spoon bread was not going to turn out well. You would have thought I had learned my lesson because I had a similar experience with zucchini bread. The lesson I learned in both these situations was it takes every ingredient to get the best outcome.

Life is like the spoon bread. It is made up of several ingredients: spirituality, love and relationships, health, career and work, finances, and personal development. When one of the ingredients is missing or out of balance, it throws life off. For example, if you are experiencing financial difficulties or having a health challenge, it affects your entire life and can throw it out of balance; or if your career or work life is out of balance, it could throw your personal life out of balance.

In his article titled, “The Best Way to Find Balance in Your Life,” Gustavo Razetti offers five tips for bringing balance to your life:

1. Integrate all aspects of your life: Stop seeing work, personal time, and social times as separate compartments. Rather than competing against each other, they should collaborate.
2. Lose balance to find balance: Letting go of control is key to letting things fall into place on their own. Sometimes, you must lose balance to find it. Be open to taking risks. Try something different.
3. Prioritize your activities: Put first things first. You may have to say “NO,” to something so you can do what you want. Most of the time, we blame others, but we are the ones that are not making a choice. Let go of unnecessary tasks, ask for help, be open to adjusting your goals and priorities.
4. Develop a balanced mindset: Balance is not something external; it lies within you. When something is bothering you, ask yourself: Why? An out-of-balance context can definitely affect you, but training your mind can counteract against the distractions. Balance is a state of mind, not a productivity hack.
5. Practice journaling: Set some time to reflect. Track how you spend your time by identifying the stressors and make the necessary adjustments. Acknowledging the positive things that occurred throughout your day will make you feel grateful rather than stressing out.

What is out of balance or missing in your life? I challenge you to identify your stressors and develop a strategy to bring your life back into alignment. Remember, this is a process and won’t happen overnight.

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