It is SOOOO easy to be lazy and goof off. The temptation to relax and do nothing beautifully is all around us. The environment may be beckoning you (a fabulous spring day), or maybe it’s your friends begging to you to play hooky and come play with them. Sometimes it’s the open road that calls, or even the TV enticing you to do some binge watching.
And while you know that your work is important, you long for the freedom to do what you want, when you want.
Can’t you have your cake and eat it too? Of course, you can!
Life/Work Balance
The answer is a strategic balance between your work and your personal life, and the glue that makes it actually work is called self-discipline. YOU have to push YOU to do the things that give YOU what YOU want. You can’t sit around whining that you have no time to do the things you want … that is just an admission that you haven’t planned appropriately or used self-discipline to get it done.
Theodore Roosevelt once said, “With self-discipline most anything is possible.” And Jim Rohn stated that “Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.”
Define your Goals
You have your work, whether it’s owning a practice or working for someone else, and the fact is that you chose that job and you can make it as fun and exhilarating or boring and horrifying as you want. No goals at all, drifting along from one day to the next, or not succeeding at the goals you did set and getting dejected – all these can be changed by making the decision that SOMETHING HAS TO CHANGE and then DEMANDING of yourself that you get busy and start changing things. Make a plan with step by step actions and get going on it. Set deadlines for accomplishing each major step.
Self-Discipline
Pushing yourself is the key to getting what you want. Don’t wait for life to hand you everything you want. YOU make your own life. You can suffer through life (martyr yourself) or you can create a new path and make it happen and be happier. Sitting around complaining is not doing anything constructive to change things up. Get those changes worked out to give yourself the life you want and then GET GOING.
Here’s the Good Stuff
Now work out what rewards you would like to give yourself for reaching each deadline on your plan. A day off to shop, or to go to the beach, or to learn how to play the violin, or to go to a day spa? No problem! Put it into your schedule. YOU EARNED IT … YOU DESERVE IT.
A weekend away from the maddening crowd? Depending on your finances and resources, there are many solutions … go to your cottage, rent a cottage, buy a tent and go camping, fly to the Bahamas and lay on a beach for 2 days, hide out in your house or at a friend’s house and binge watch your favourite movies. As long as it’s a goal you are achieving, you will feel a nice sense of contentment.
Bottom Line:
Balance out the “I gotta do its” with the “I want to do its”, and be ridiculously happy!
