What is Balance in Life and Why is it so Important?
The purpose of life is really about remembering the Truth of who we really are. Susan Sontag, writer and philosopher mused “Truth is balance.” Transformation is all about finding your path in life, finding your Truth. But, how do you find your balance?
The novelist Charles de Lint observed “You’ve got to find yourself first. Everything else will follow.” Jerry Giles, the author, wrote “You will recognise your own path when you come upon it, because you will suddenly have all the energy and imagination you will ever need.” That is how I felt when I discovered Transformative Life Coaching (TLC). It was such an 'aha' moment, I just new that I had found my true purpose in life. As a reconstructive surgeon I was trying to 'fix' people. But they were already whole and complete. I have realised that no-one can fix anyone else as no-one is broken! In TLC I am not fixing you - only you can do the inner work required to find peace, joy, love and abundance. As your TLC coach I am in service to you as your guide.
Equally important to finding your self in transformation is staying on the path that you find. You will come to know when you are firmly on the path, or straying into the nettles and brambles. You will know as it's a feeling. Will you direct your newfound creative limitless energy wisely? How do you ensure that you do this? The answer lies in balance. What do I mean by balance, you may ask?
It’s when you make sure that you focus enough attention on all the aspects of your life, not just one or two. If you only focus solely on work, for example, which many of us do, your life will almost certainly fall apart, however hard you strive. Trust me I have taken that path and it leads to failure, not 'success'. Success is based on your Real Power: Your 'Personal Power.
The author Zig Ziglar wrote “I believe that being successful means having a balance of success stories across the many areas of your life. You can't truly be considered successful in your business life if your home life is a shambles.” A wheel won’t turn if there is only one spoke.
Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk, writer and theologian, wrote on this “Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.” Let's dive in...
Balance: Staying on your path
We focus exclusively on work or one other area
Hilary Clinton said “Don't confuse having a career with having a life.” Are we driven to focus too much on one area in our lives such as work, as we feel the need to obtain external validation, due to inherent feelings of unworthiness? Tara Brach, meditation teacher and psychologist, said “Feeling compassion for ourselves in no way releases us from responsibility for our actions. Rather, it releases us from the self-hatred that prevents us from responding to our life with clarity and balance.” We free ourselves from our life scripts, driven by our traumatised inner child. Our work should be a calling, a decision made with clarity and balance, and we should not be driven to it by our inner critic, our parents or our inherent sense of unworthiness. Cara Delevingne said "When you have balance in your life, work becomes an entirely different experience. There is a passion that moves you to a whole new level of fulfilment and gratitude, and that's when you can do your best... for yourself and for others." Always remember this: You are a human BEing, not a human doing. Olivia Newton-John had it right when she said "There's a balance in my life. There's reality, and there's the part that looks really glamorous, but we're all just people in the end."
The Wheel of Life
What are the areas of life that we all need to keep in balance? James Michener, author, wrote “If a man happens to find himself, he has a mansion which he can inhabit with dignity all the days of his life.” But what are the rooms in that house that need regular attention? The wheel of life, at its most basic level, acts as a visual representation of your eight most important life domains.
An example of the Wheel of Life
These categories vary greatly from person to person and are established by you throughout the early stages of our TLC coaching partnership. If you keep each of these parts (or rooms in your new mansion) in order, your life will be full of joy: Fulfilment in life cannot be maintained by inhabiting a single room, unless you are a hermit or ascetic. Some of the most utilised categories in the wheel of life are health (and self-care), your business or career, finances, family and friends, unconditionally loving connections, personal development and transformation, fun, and contribution to society. The author Gordon Hinckley wrote “The major work of the world is not done by geniuses. It is done by ordinary people, with balance in their lives, who have learned to work in an extraordinary manner.”
Before starting your journey of transformation your joy and fulfilment were at risk because you built a house of cards with no foundations. The new, rock-solid foundation that you are building is the result of looking within and finding your self. If you find your true path and live in alignment with your true core beliefs and purpose, the manor (or your life) that you create will have firm foundations and many rooms. These new living spaces must be well-balanced and follow the ‘Wheel of Life’ principle. 5,000 years ago, Buddha used this concept to teach his followers about enlightenment. Today’s version of personal development is centred on assisting you to recognise areas of your life that are out of balance. Paul Meyer, the founder of the self-improvement firm Success Motivation International in the 1960s, is widely credited with developing the current Wheel of Life:
The Wheel of Life can be used to map out numerous aspects of your life, such as areas where you could practise greater self-compassion, areas where you’re most stressed, or even key aspects of your finances, because it’s so adaptable. You can arrange the eight sections as areas or spokes around a wheel and assess your current levels of satisfaction in each category once you’ve recognised them (on a scale of 1 to 10 from the centre out to the edge of the wheel, along each of its spokes). After that, you can join the dots, on the spokes, to create a visual representation of your current life to discover where you can enhance your levels of contentment. Henri Poincaré, mathematician, engineer, theoretical physicist, and philosopher of science, wrote “It is the harmony of the diverse parts, their symmetry, their happy balance; in a word it is all that introduces order, all that gives unity, that permits us to see clearly and to comprehend at once both the ensemble and the details.” The Wheel of Life can be a really useful tool in TLC for helping you reassess your priorities when your life has been out of kilter. It’s no surprise that the origin of kilter is ‘good condition.’ A life skewed heavily in one direction, like a wheel with a broken spoke or a jagged edge, would not be smooth or efficient. We may use the wheel of life in our first TLC session. It can help you identify problems and areas to focus on, such as being burnt out or suffering from workaholism, feeling trapped, unfulfilled, empty, or dissatisfied without knowing why. It can be used to match your core values, your identity, with how you prioritise your energy and time in BEing the true you.
Work/life balance
The musician and author Patti Smith says poetically “In art and dream may you proceed with abandon. In life may you proceed with balance and stealth.” Being in balance allows ourselves to run free creatively, out of a place of energy and connection, not from a compulsive pressure, hustle and the need for validation. Tim Ferris said “I like work/life separation, not work/life balance. What I mean by that is, if I'm on, I want to be on and maximally productive. If I'm off, I don't want to think about work. When people strive for work/life balance, they end up blending them. That's how you end up checking emails all day Saturday.” I have to say, that I agree and disagree - work should be an extension of who you are BEing. But I agree that it should not dominate or disturb other areas of your life. My interpretation of that is: So, balance may also involve ensuring boundaries between the different areas of your life at times. If you are checking emails on your phone instead of being present with your children, you are not keeping your life in balance. Put all your drama into a ‘God Box,’ it’s out of your control, and step into presence as you address each spoke of the wheel.
There is no re-inventing the wheel
Aiming for balance is a daily reminder of your true path, to have Self-compassion, and what the alternative is if you don’t continue to take the path that you were created for. Take these steps daily and you can let go of egocentric fear and the need to try to control everything. I pray to my higher Self for balance every morning. You don’t need 'to-do lists' – you will intuitively know how to balance each day if you start your day like this. Fear comes from your felt need to try to control everything, where you end up focussing on just a few or even just one element of the Wheel of Life. Just go with the flow. You don’t need to hustle just one spoke of the wheel anymore. You will have success in all areas of your life, and that is true success. Having a billion dollars and a wife and children that hate you is not success. Your balance is the Wheel of Life, and it is your Truth. You know where you are going, your path is your way out of drama to freedom, and people travel faster on wheels. Balance is the golden key to the door to the path of your life, where you will certainly thrive and succeed, and it will keep you from straying off it out of fear. As Sean Penn said “There is no reinventing the wheel.”
As Dr Seuss said "Step with care and great tact, and remember that Life's a Great Balancing Act." Euripides wrote "The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man." Gary Zukav wrote "Love grounds you. It orients you. Love brings your awareness to others and yourself. Love opens your mind and heart to others and yourself. Love settles you and gives you balance." Love is Truth, and together they have the final word.
Sending you love, light, and blessings.
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Olly Alexander Branford MD, MBBS, MA(Cantab), PhD
My gift is to be your guide. Let me know if you would like to continue this conversation...
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“Transformative life coaching uniquely creates and holds the space for you to see your self afresh, with clarity, and step into new ways of BEing, which will transform how you perceive and intuitively create your world. My work is to guide you to raise your own conscious awareness to the level that you want to achieve.” Olly Alexander Branford
My coaching themes and services - I work 1:1 and in groups with men who are looking for: Transformative Life Coaching, Transformational Coaching, Life Coaching, Personal Coaching, Positive Psychology Coaching, Recovery Coaching, Trauma Informed Coaching, Work Addiction Coaching, Workaholism Coaching, Addiction Coaching, Mindfulness Coaching.
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I am very pleased to meet you. Thank you for reading this far. I very much look forward to connecting with the highest version of you, to seeing your highest possibility, and to our conversations. Please do contact me via my website for a free connection call and a free experience of coaching. I am here to serve you.
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Olly Alexander Branford MD, MBBS, MA(Cantab), PhD
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I have a Bachelor's degree in Natural Sciences from Trinity College, Cambridge; a Master's Degree in Philosophy from Trinity College, Cambridge; a PhD Doctorate in Scientific Research from University College London (UCL); a Medical Degree (MD/MBBS) from The Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London and have been a doctor and reconstructive trauma and cancer surgeon in London for 20 years. I have published over 50 peer reviewed scientific journal articles, have been an associate editor and frequent scientific faculty member, and am the author of several scientific books. I have been awarded my Diploma in Transformative Life Coaching in London, which has International Coaching Federation (ICF) Accreditation, as well as the UK Association for Coaching (AC), and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC). I have been on my own transformative journey full time for four years and I am ready to be your guide to you finding out who you really are and how the world works.