Are you living a life you love? Having a personal vision is critical to having the life you want! Your personal vision is your reason for being; it’s why you’re here on this earth. Your vision expresses your personal sense of purpose and meaning in life. It includes the qualities you’d like to have and what you’d like to contribute to the world. It should inspire and motivate you to be the best that you can be.
Having a personal vision is critical to having the life and career that you want. If you don’t create your vision, it will be determined for you by your circumstances and by other people. Having a defined vision helps you live your life on purpose rather than by chance.
How do you create your personal vision statement? Set aside some quiet time for yourself. Find a place where you won’t be interrupted or distracted. Allow yourself at least an hour or so. Get comfortable and relaxed. Prepare to be open and explore your values and vision. Your mission comes from deep inside you, so listen to your heart’s desire. Answer the following questions thoughtfully.
- What would I most like to have in my life?
- What are my greatest moments of happiness and fulfillment?
- What qualities and characteristics are most important to me?
- What activities in my personal life are most fulfilling?
- What activities in my professional life are most fulfilling?
- What do I want to accomplish in my lifetime?
- If I had unlimited time and resources, what would I do?
- What talents and skills do I have?
- How can I best contribute to others?
- What legacy do I want to leave?
Once you’ve answered these questions, look for common themes. Having done this preliminary work, then answer the question, “What is my personal vision?” Write whatever comes to mind. This becomes your first draft of your personal vision statement. Review and refine it until you feel comfortable with it. The format is up to you. It can be one page (or two or three), one paragraph, or one sentence. As long as it is meaningful to you, that’s all that matters.
Once it’s written, refer to it often. You might even memorize it, so that it becomes ingrained in you. Your personal vision becomes your personal constitution. Use it to guide your day-to-day decisions and actions. By doing so, you’ll find that you’ll move closer and closer to achieving your vision. Then when you reach the end of your life, you can look back with peace and satisfaction knowing you have achieved your mission in life!
Managing a busy household can at times feel overwhelming, especially if you work full-time. Oftentimes, we spend our entire weekend just catching up on household duties, and don’t have any time for our families or ourselves. How can you better manage your household in order to minimize the time spent on these activities, so you have more time to relax and enjoy your weekend? Here are ten tips to help you save time and run a more efficient household.
- Cook in large quantities and freeze meals ahead of time. Then when you come home from work feeling exhausted you can just pop dinner into the microwave.
- Pack your lunch the night before, so mornings are not such a rush.
- Hire a housekeeper. It’s worth it! The time you typically spend cleaning can be spent with family.
- Hire a neighborhood teen to mow your lawn.
- Have a family work day – washing windows, doing yard work, or whatever project needs to be done. Then reward the family with a fun activity afterwards.
- Establish your standards of cleanliness. Determine what is clean enough. (After all, your house doesn’t need to look like the cover of Better Homes and Gardens magazine).
- Shop on-line. Then you can avoid travel time and long lines.
- Buy your groceries online and have them delivered.
- Pay your bills online. Save time… and stamps.
- Consolidate errands. Stop by the post office, dry cleaners and video store on the way home from work.
What time-saving tips can you share with other readers?
Balancing work and life is one of the hottest issues of our time. In fact, according to an Aon Consulting poll, 88% of employees say they have a hard time juggling work and life. Not surprisingly, increasing work demands are a primary factor. With recent downsizing, employees are taking on the jobs of two or three people. Here are some statistics related to work pressures.
- Nearly 50% of all US workers feel overwhelmed by a growing number of job tasks and longer working hour (Families & Work Institute study).
- The average work week is now 49.2 hours (according to USA Today).
- 63% of all employees want to work less (Families & Work Institute study).
This quote from one of my coaching clients, Karen, reveals the result of being overworked. “Working 50-60 hour work weeks doesn’t leave much time to take care of responsibilities at home, which increases the stress level on the weekends to get all the household chores done. This leaves little to no time to enjoy hobbies, family, outings, and such.”
When I ask participants in my workshops what are their biggest work-life challenges, I often hear a couple themes.
- There’s never enough time to do everything that needs to get done. When I ask who feels this way, nearly all the hands shoot up. As a result of feeling pressured to do everything, they feel stressed out.
- Over-committing or over-extending oneself. My workshop participants often have high expectations of themselves, and have a tendency to try to do too much. As a result of trying to meet the demands of others, they oftentimes put themselves last. This comment from a workshop participant, Maria, sums it up. “Between work and family, I put myself last. Some days I get so busy, I don’t even take time to eat!”
What about you? What are your biggest work-life challenges? Please share them with other readers.
Have you ever had one of those days? You’re working against a deadline on an important project and the system crashes. An irate customer chews you out because he received the wrong order. How do you react to such situations? Do you get stressed out? Do you snap at your assistant and then go home and kick the dog? Or… do you take a deep breath, center yourself, and look on the positive side? How can you get back on track and continue to be productive throughout the day? Here are a few stress-busters to help you have a good day!
- Remain calm. Don’t over-react. Pause and assess the situation.
- Breathe deeply. After an especially stressful situation, take a few minutes to breathe deeply. Inhale and count to five and then exhale slowly. As you exhale imagine all your tension leaving your body.
- Tense and relax your muscles. Most people carry their tension in their neck and shoulders. Tense up those muscles, and then relax them. Repeat this a few times.
- Take a short walk. Get outside to get some fresh air or just walk the halls to stretch your legs. The exercise, however short, will do you good.
- Use positive self-talk. Look at stress as a challenge rather than a problem. Use self-talk to help maintain a positive attitude toward stress. For example, tell yourself, “I know I can overcome this challenge.” Focus on what you can learn from the experience rather than how difficult it is.
- Keep things in perspective. Although your current stressor can be frustrating, rather than focus on it, keep the big picture in mind. For example, if you turn in your project late, your boss won’t like it, but you won’t be fired. Ask yourself, “How important will this be ten years from now?” It will likely be inconsequential.
- Talk to a colleague or friend. It helps to have someone you can talk to; someone who will listen and acknowledge your frustration. Oftentimes by talking through an issue with a trusted colleague or friend, you can come up with creative solutions.
- Visualize yourself in a peaceful, relaxing setting. By using visualization you can take a little vacation in your mind for a few minutes. Imagine yourself on a warm, sandy beach soaking up the sun as you hear the waves crashing.
By using these stress-busters, you’ll combat a stressful work situation. So the next time something goes awry, you’ll be able to calm yourself and get focused again, so that you can be more productive and effective in the long run.
What do you do to calm yourself in a stressful work situation? Please share your stress-busters with other readers.
We all get so busy that it’s easy to lose sight of our priorities. Have you ever had one of those weeks where you’re all running in different directions? Between work, school, household chores, kids’ activities, and more, it’s hard to find time for family. How can you make family a priority? Here are 5 tips to keep the focus on family.
- Hold a family meeting once a week. This is an opportunity to give praise and discuss issues (chores, homework, etc.).
- Schedule family time to do something fun together each week.
- Plan to have dinner together at least three times a week. With sports practices, music or dance lessons, and dinner meetings, this can be a challenge to eat dinner together as a family.
- Schedule one-on-one time with each child (weekly or monthly). Let your child choose the activity.
- Have a back-up plan. Find one or two people you can rely on in a pinch to pick up kids from school, take to appointments, etc.