Living a balanced life serves as one of the best ways to ensure you keep your mental health intact. In fact, taking time away from your responsibilities and recharging helps you avoid burning out or breaking down and keeps conditions like anxiety and depression at bay. So, finding your own personal flow between your work life and your recharge time is an absolute must.
However, this is easier said than done, especially when you have kids. After all, once you come home, you have mouths to feed, homework to help out with, and messes to clean up. And if you have a newborn, you likely suffer from no sleep and a squalling, fussy (even if they’re adorable) baby!
So, taking time for yourself and living a balanced life might seem impossible for you. Fortunately, that’s not true! In this article, you’ll learn:
- How to take inventory of everything you do
- How to identify your values
- How to make time to follow your values
How to Live a Balanced Life with Kids
These tips are designed for people who want to take care of themselves a little better. While they can be helpful for a lot of people, they’re not meant to replace therapy for people who struggle with anxiety or depression due to their life conditions. If you are experiencing mental health concerns, talk directly to a therapist or psychiatrist.
1. Take Inventory of Everything You Do
For the span of a week, write down everything you do and how much time you spend doing it. Since you’re a parent, your schedule is probably pretty packed!
Once you’ve measured how you spend your time, take a look at what activities you absolutely must do. For instance, you probably can’t afford to get rid of your job, but you might be a bit more willing to spend less time on social media or shopping online. Replace these activities with something that truly relaxes you (surprise, the internet doesn’t actually relax you!), such as reading, taking a bath, or going out for a walk.
2. Identify Your Values
The first step to living the life you want to have involves identifying your values. In fact, if you don’t live with your values in mind, you may find yourself drifting through life feeling inauthentic, unbalanced, and directionless.
What makes values so valuable? Simply put, values help you figure out what’s important to you, what to focus on, and how to prioritize your time.
But if someone were to say to you, “Identify your values,” you’d probably think that’s too vague of a directive. So, here are some tips for identifying what matters to you.
Recall When You Were the Happiest
Think back to the time in your life when you felt your happiest. If possible, try to identify an longer era in your life when you were happy, but smaller, happy memories (like a vacation) work, too.
Next, ask yourself what made you happy during that time. Jot down a few words that describe that point in your life.
Remember When You Felt Most Fulfilled and Proud
Now, think about a time in your life when you felt most fulfilled. Ask yourself what you were doing and what qualities made your life worth it at that point.
Finally, take a look at what made you feel the most proud of yourself. Was it when you achieved something at work? Or maybe you felt proud when you watched your kids succeed at something.
Review These Lists
Once you have an idea of what makes you happy, fulfilled, and proud, try to reduce these lists down to a series of words. For example, a person who feels most proud when they get a promotion at work and feels most fulfilled when they face a challenge, they likely value achievement. Likewise, a person who feels proudest of the life they have created with their family and experiences happiness when they see their kids happy likely values connectedness with others.
There are many values out there, and some common ones include:
- Accountability
- Achievement
- Adaptability
- Adventure
- Ambition
- Assertiveness
- Authenticity
- Authority
- Autonomy
- Awareness
- Balance
- Beauty
- Bravery
- Candor
- Cleanliness
- Cleverness
- Communication
- Community
- Compassion
- Compassion
- Confidence
- Consistency
- Creativity
- Curiosity
- Dependability
- Determination
- Empathy
- Ethics
- Exploration
- Fairness
- Faith
- Fame
- Family
- Friendships
- Fun
- Generosity
- Gratitude
- Growth
- Happiness
- Honesty
- Humor
- Imagination
- Individuality
- Integrity
- Intelligence
- Justice
- Kindness
- Knowledge
- Leadership
- Learning
- Love
- Loyalty
- Meaning
- Openness
- Optimism
- Passion
- Patience
- Peace
- Persistence
- Playfulness
- Pleasure
- Popularity
- Productivity
- Professionalism
- Reason
- Reputation
- Respect
- Responsibility
- Security
- Self-Respect
- Service
- Sharing
- Sincerity
- Skill
- Spirituality
- Stability
- Status
- Success
- Sustainability
- Timeliness
- Tolerance
- Tradition
- Trustworthiness
- Truth
- Understanding
- Uniqueness
- Wealth
- Wisdom
- Wonder
Finally, you’ll want to rank your values from most to least important to you. Make sure some of the values focus on what recharges you and not just what you can accomplish. To simplify your life, direct the majority of your energy toward organizing your schedule around your top 3 values.
Look at Your Schedule Again
Are you living your life according to your values? For most people, the answer will be a mix of yes and no. So, if something in your life is according to your values, keep it that way. If it’s not, think about how you can add more of your values into your life. That way, you’ll be more balanced and happier.
3. Getting Time to Follow Your Values
Having a balanced life filled with following your values sounds great, but if you’re a parent, you might be a little skeptical on how everything will fit together. And let’s be honest: it is hard to find time for a balanced life. So, here are some suggestions for how to do this!
Leave Work at the Office
Even if you’re a high-achieving rockstar at your company and want to keep it that way, do your best to leave your work at the office. Don’t misunderstand: you don’t need to give up pursuing your work goals. Instead, try to pack as much into your office hours as possible. That way, you’ll have more time to have balanced activities when you get home!
Spend a Set Number of Hours with Your Family
After you get off work every night, spend a set number of hours with your kids and partner (if you have one). Whenever possible, don’t just do things that are stressful for you and fun for everyone else. Choose activities that keep your kids engaged and require minimal supervision, such as going to a movie or seeing a play.
Learn How to Take Time for Yourself
Yes, you read that right! It’s possible for parents to take time for themselves from time-to-time.
One of the best ways to do this on a daily basis is to have strictly-enforced bedtimes. Once your kids fall asleep, spend time doing whatever relaxes you.
If you want a more foolproof way to take a break, though, consider hiring a babysitter every once in a while. Then, take a few hours away to go out with friends, spend time with your partner, go to yoga, etc.
Don’t Neglect Your Need for Socializing
When you have kids, you start spending most of your time with people significantly younger than you. This especially true for people who work in the education or childcare industries when they’re not at home!
Even though kids can be great, you have a need for spending time with people around your age as well. To socialize, schedule some dates with your partner or ask your partner to watch the kids while you reconnect with your favorite people!
You can also make friends with other parents, too. That way, the two of you can bring your kids and spend time relaxing!
Stick to Your Routine
Once you find a balanced life or self-care routine that works for you, stick to it as best as you can! Over time, the schedule will begin to feel more natural to you, and you may notice yourself feeling happier and less stressed.
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