Balance.
What does that mean?
What does that look like?
Why is balance so important?
Balance in one’s life is super important because without it, you’ll go crazy :) We were all created for a purpose and oftentimes without focus and balance in our lives, things get off-kilter and we find ourselves worn out, stressed, and not enjoying life. That does not sound like fun to us!
Take the below Zach & Jody Quiz to see where you are on the balance scale.
- Do you wake up in the morning and the very first thing you do is check your email/Twitter/Facebook/Instagram?
- Do you find yourself wearing your PJs all day and the only reason you get dressed is because you have a client meeting?
– Do you look at the clock reading 4pm and realize you haven’t eaten lunch yet?
– Do you find your spouse and/or kids coming up to you asking you, “When are you going to be done?”
– Do you find that while you’re eating dinner (when you had to be forced away from the computer) the last thing you can think about is being with your family and you’re more focused on your To Dos for your business?
- Do you more often than not have to say “no” to friends when they ask you to come and hang out?
- Does it take you longer than 10 seconds to answer the question, “So what do you do outside of photography?”
If you answer yes to any or all of the questions above, then your life could be a bit off-balanced.
To be brutally honest, it’s a CONSTANT struggle for us to maintain our life balance. It’s a conscious effort we have to make every day to keep what’s truly important, important.
We have to remind ourselves the below:
Our jobs do not define us.
We do not want to work for our job, we want it working for us.
The reason we have a job is so we can take care of our family FIRST… not last.
Our job is not the main focus of our life. Our faith and family is the main focus and our job is just a part of that.
Business & Life Coach, Dan Miller writes in his book, 48 Days to the Work You Love, that your job is just a slice of what makes up your life. Figuring out what your purpose is (write a missions statement!) will help you determine what to say yes to, and what to say no to.
Here area few practical things that we do to keep work in it’s place to help maintain balance in our lives, help to feel more fulfilled, and less stressed:
1. We have a whole room in our home dedicated to working. We do not work in the living room, we do not work in the bedroom. When we’re done with work, we close the door and leave.
2. Every morning it’s our goal to eat breakfast together (and drink some tasty coffee) and connect in the morning before we tackle the day together.
3. We set the tenor for the day by having our devotionals each morning. It’s always a great reminder that GOD (not us) is in control and we can cast our burdens on him because he cares for us (1 Peter 5:7).
3. We have set working hours. We work from 11:00am-5 or 6pm. Sometimes we do work later, but only if we agree on it first together as a couple.
4. We have all social media notifications turned off on our phones. Specifically with Twitter, we only have the notifications hitting our phones during our working hours.
5. Once we leave the office our phones go in the bedroom, which has really helped us to keep our focus on each other and not business.
6. Whenever we have a wedding on the weekend, we make sure to take Monday off.
Before we wrap this up, we want to leave you with a great quote. This past weekend, Sandy Puc (pronounced – putch) was on creativeLIVE and we were only able to catch not even an hour of it, but what I (Jody ) heard, was very inspiring and SMART! This woman knows her stuff. One thing in particular really struck me and I wanted to share it with you:
“What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it.“
We realize that what we are doing day in and day out IS what our life is about. We want our lives to be about loving God and each other, spending time with each other, with family and with friends, giving to those who need help and enjoying it when we are working. We don’t want to exchange a day of our lives for something that, in the grand scheme of things, does not leave a legacy behind that will help others.
We hope you find encouragement from this. Let’s all go back to enjoying life, our family and the things God has blessed us with instead of becoming stress-balls chained to our desks.
Share below one (or more) guidelines below that you are going to implement (or have already implemented) to help you keep balance and sanity in your life.
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