How to Create Balance in Your Life
There is room for fun too!
by Behnam Bakhshandeh

How can we find time in these busy, fast paced and overwhelming life and work experiences to find balance in our life?

Before that, we have to find out what we mean by balance. Because sometimes balance is a different experience for different people, or we have a different expectation of what it means to have balance in life! What I want to know is, what does balance mean to you?

So, I am looking forward to your answer to this question right now! Let’s get a piece of paper and write down what balance means to you.

• To have time for yourself.
• To have time for others (family, wife, husband, children).
• To have time for pursuing your interests in life.
• To travel and have fun.
• To sit and do nothing.
• To play your musical instruments.
• To take the love of your life to classical music concerts.
• To go to Rock & Roll concerts and let it rock.
• To be able to read, write or think anytime you want.
• To go places without reservations (or concerns) of time or money.

So, if we look at everything that you have said, what do we get? All that you all want is to have more time in life to spend with your family, spend it doing what it seems fun to you, pursuing interests in life, enjoying your life and coming home soon to everything you love, right?

But what is in the way? Who is stopping you? You are! You might ask, how? OK, let's see!

•Who is running your business?
•Who is driving your car?
•Who is not keeping his/her schedule?
•Who is complaining that he/she has no time?
•Who is deciding for you?
• Who is holding on to so much crap in his/her head and heart that there is no room for possibility?
•Who is holding on to so much resentment in life and pointing the finger to everyone except himself/herself?
•Who is making promises to himself/herself or others with no intention of keeping them?
•Who is breaking promises and agreements left and right and always having so many excuses and justifications for it?
•Who is hiring a productivity or life coach and then doing whatever he or she wants anyway?

You! Yes, you! Don’t act like you don’t know what I am talking about!

I have to tell you this right now; I want you to stop writing notes, because these notes will never be useful to you, if you're not listening. If you’re not listening like your life is depending on it, and you know what, your happiness, joy and fulfillment is depending on it, so your life is depending on it! Get it?

So please listen and apply the distinctions that I am talking to you about directly in your life. So let's begin.

•Do you know you have an inner voice that decides for you?
•Do you know that you always listen to that voice anyway?
•Are you aware of the impact that listening to that voice has on you?

•What is your internal dialogue about free time?
•What is your internal dialogue about balance in life?
•What decisions have you made about life in general?
•What is your inner dialogue about your staff?
•What is your inner dialogue about your business?
•What decisions have you made about business in general?
•Can you see that it is really busy in your head?
•Do you see what's going on in there?
•Can you recognize that chatter in your head?
•What are you gaining by continuing to entertain these inner dialogues?
•What is the decision you made about yourself and your abilities?

Yes, what you are gaining by entertaining this inner dialogue is lack of responsibility for having balance in life.

You might say by now, what do you mean by that? Look, if you want to be right about:

•You have no time.
•Your staff is not a good staff.
•Your business is not growing.
•Your business is not the right business.
•You have to work hard.
•Nobody knows your sorrow.
•Nobody understands the things that you have to do.
•And blah, blah, blah

Then nobody can keep you responsible or hold you accountable for having balance in your life.

If you really look at your daily schedule, you see how much time you're wasting. You need to take a hard core look at what you really are committed to! Because you might really not be committed to success! Every day, you see people who are saying one thing and doing something else! Like you, here we are in September of 2006, what happened to your New Year’s resolution? Gone with the wind! What happened? You're the same person, aren't you? But if you notice, you will see this familiar pattern each time that you make such a commitment. It won't take that long for everything to go down the tube.

Why is this so? Because you're right!
You're right about you're inabilities!
You are right about your lack of self esteem.
You are right about your shortage of luck.
You continue to do the same mistake over and over and over again.
As Rita Mae Brown said:

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, expecting different results.”

So, let’s look again and see what your repetition in your life is.

What is the thing that you keep doing and not getting a different result?

Could be something like:
•Not keeping your promises to leave your business at a certain time
•Not making sure you stay on your schedule all the time
•Not holding yourself and your staff accountable for producing results
•Keep changing your personal and family schedule because you are behind on your business schedule
•Not saving money to do your fun activities and your hobbies
•Not listening to people who care about you
•Not following your coach’s or consultant’s leads
•And so much more…

And when you look closely and dig deeply you will see, again, what you are gaining is “Not being able to!”

You might ask, “so, what can I do about it?” Or, “What is the way out of this cycle?”

Now it is the time to get your notebooks out! Start writing after each statement:

•First and main step is to recognize and acknowledge the inner dialogue and the texture of it. This means how it is showing up in your life and how it is manifesting itself in your life.

•Second step is to recognize and understand the payoff of that way of thinking and what are you gaining out of it.

•After that, you need to totally own it and become responsible for the outcome of your former way of thinking and all the upsets and resentments that you have created by entertaining all this nonsense.

•Now it is the time to forget you. Totally forget yourself and make a new promise. Not from the past experiences, that you know how to make a change by promising something that you were not sure if you were keeping it or not! But from a new place, called Possibility!

•What is possible out of you having balance in life and business?
  What is possible from you having a fulfilled life and relationships?
  What is the possibility you are creating for your life and your business now, from   nothing but a clean slate and an open space, without letting anything else get into it   but pure and unused possibility?

•Now, look at your life and your business and see what practices you are doing that do not empower your possibility and are not correlated to that possibility or do not fit in with it.

•Start eliminating those practices and create a new set of practices to replace them.

•Open your schedule book, either on your day timer calendar or your electronic calendar and redesign your daily activities and schedule. Yes! Throw away all of your old schedule and come up with a new one. New possibility, new mind set and new schedule.

•You have to go through your entire year and do what I am coaching you to do in your calendar for a year in advance.

•Schedule your vacations and days off first. Log them in your calendar and do not change them. Announce them to your family and even buy the tickets and it is on!

•Then schedule your fun activities that you care about the most. You need to nurture your mind as much as you are nurturing your body. I know that for some of you, this is a foreign concept. So, log in your book all the events you like to participate in, or go to, or do! Concerts, golf, tennis, picnics and so forth.

•Log in your closing time. The time that you are going home. Log it in and do not change it.

•Now you have all of your free time on your calendar so that you can design your working hours. Let’s do it.

•Stop complaining about “you don’t have time”! Stop nagging, bitching and complaining and you will have enough time.

•As I always say:
   Do you want to be happy?
      Stop complaining!
   Do you want to be effective?
      Stop complaining!
   Do you want to be successful?
      Stop complaining!
   Do you want to be fulfilled?
      Stop complaining!
   Do you want to enjoy your life to the end?
      STOP COMPLAINING!

•Add 15% to 20% extra time to every activity you are scheduling in your book. Call it emergency and interruption time. You can responsibly schedule your interruption and emergency times. By the end of the day, you will either find that you have used that time (which makes you a really productive person because you kept to your schedule) or that you have not used it and you now have some free time on your hands to do whatever needs to get done. That is, again, productivity. So, either way you will be more productive.

•Review your daily and weekly calendar everyday. Make sure that if you need to make any adjustments you do it immediately, before it gets too late.

•Now you need to make sure all of your family members and team members are aware of your schedule and most importantly, they are aware of your commitment to keep yourself on that schedule.

Now remember this: If it is not in your schedule it will not get done. And you are the person who can keep it on your schedule, nobody else.

The key to your success in this process is “Doing It” not thinking about it and not trying it. Doing it is what makes the biggest difference. I know what you are thinking. It is easier to say vs. to do! You are absolutely right! However, you have to make a clear choice here! Do you want to be right about “it is not going to work” or do you want to have more balance in your life?

I am going to leave you with a great quote from one of the most successful business people in the world, Mr. Henry Ford:
 “Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right”.
From this point on, it is your choice.

You can learn more about Behnam Bakhshandeh, his work and his client’s experiences of him by checking his website at www.primecoeducation.com or contact his office at 760-436-6076.

Some background for Behnam Bakhshandeh, Founder and President of Primeco Education.

•An accomplished business manager and business development professional known for producing extraordinary results in record time.
•Exceeds expectations through integrity, unprecedented teamwork, open communication, and a contagious commitment to excellence.
•Has more than 12 years of hands-on experience helping teams and individuals fulfill their goals and projects.
•Has worked personally with more than 23,000 participants over the course of his career.