Finding the right balance between work, home and happiness can be challenging for most of us. As a working mom, I always wanted to do it all, but after awhile I realized that doing it all meant I was just doing a lot of things poorly and, often, with a bad attitude. For women like me, it is sometimes hard to delegate tasks as it feels as if I’m conceding defeat, that I can’t live up to the challenges put before me.
Finally, there came a day when I realized that I wasn’t doing anyone any favors by spreading myself thin. I knew that I had to find the right balance to my life and that I needed to rid myself of some of the tasks and demands on my life in order to feel less stressed. I started by making a list of the things that brought joy to my life and those that didn’t. While it may seem like these things would be obvious, it was interesting and eye-opening to put them in writing.
For one thing, I always thought I enjoyed shopping. It was fun to buy new things, but after writing, “shopping” down on my list, I felt a twinge that I recognized as an unpleasant feeling. It was then I realized that shopping actually placed a lot of extra stress on my life. I always felt a sense that I was wasting time when I was in a store, which only added stress to my life when I got home and was faced with tasks I still needed to finish. In addition, there was the guilt I felt about spending money and the added stress of trying to find places to put the new things away. It wasn’t until I wrote the list that I realized that activities such as this actually made my life feel out of balance, and I needed to eliminate them to reduce my stress levels.
There are plenty of other ways to get in shape and feel good; one way to is to change your diet. If you are drinking too many sugary drinks and eating an excess amount of carbohydrates with little protein, your body will become sluggish and lethargic. By decreasing the amount of carbs you are eating and replacing simple carbs with more complex carbs, your energy levels will increase helping you to feel a lot better on the inside as well as look a lot better on the outside. Also, adding fresh fruits and veggies to your daily diet will assist your efforts for a healthier lifestyle.