[quote_center]“He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.” Marcus Aurelius[/quote_center]
This idea may seem contradictory to common belief, but don’t let anyone convince you to seek balance between your business, personal and family time. Why?
If your life is balanced, you’re spreading yourself thin to maintain that precious delusion of equilibrium – and not excelling at anything. Consequently, you’re not investing sufficient time and effort into any particular leg of life to make a difference. Other than preserving a possibly mediocre status quo, you’re staying afloat by treading water, but not progressing downstream toward any significant goal. You’re not succeeding big at home, at work or even with your “me time”. What you really want is harmony.
To give everyone an equal opportunity to play their instrument, an average high school band can sound like the onslaught of a horrible headache. It has balance. Conversely, a professional symphonic orchestra flawlessly blends moments when the string section sings, the brass shines smartly, the melodic sound of the wood-winds flutter, the horns honk at centre stage or the percussion section thunders its presence. With the expert guidance of a skilled conductor following a musical score, orchestrated together, they collectively co-operate to create beautiful harmonious music. Well, your life should be the same, with you as conductor and a written life and business plan as score.
There are days when your business schedule is packed and you arrive home for a quick dinner (maybe) before heading out again for an evening appointment. When you’re called out unexpectedly, your family may be disappointedly deprived of your loving company. Or you may miss a scheduled golf game or theatre date with friends. Welcome to the real estate business.
Hopefully, everyone will understand. With time, they likely will, provided you’re consistent in your efforts to seek overall harmony by periodically arranging not only to enjoy private time, but also to have your family and friends regularly dominate centre stage.
When you’re not business-busy, your family will be the beneficiary of your time largesse. On family days and vacations, direct your attention toward them – and do so guilt-free. Don’t be thinking business when you want and need to be in family mode. If you’re unable to keep your mind off business, you might as well be working. If you fail to focus, you’ll have lost your harmony, your spouse will divorce you and your kids will grow up while you weren’t looking. By thinking business all the time, you may end up having lots of money and a great real estate practice. But by paying attention solely to building financial wealth, you’ll have sacrificed something far more valuable – your loving family, not to mention your own physical health and soul.
Every life is supported by five essential pillars – mental, physical, financial, relational and spiritual. If any of these pillars are unstable or inflexible or if you’re devoting an excessive amount of time and energy to one or two, your life’s structure could collapse. For example, due to excessively long work hours, if your physical health is suffering, how much energy will you have for yourself or your family? If you burn out mentally, how will you continue to operate a successful business? If there’s torment on the home front, how could your business escape damage? If you’re not behaving authentically – according to your true spiritual self – or your bank account is over-drawn, how do you think such emotional or financial stress could affect other pillars of your life?
In addition to having solid finances and strong relationships, you need personal time for your own mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing. All pillars are inextricably linked.
By ensuring all five are functioning harmoniously like a finely tuned orchestra, flexing when needed, when you’re devoting necessary time and effort to any particular pillar, you’ll not feel guilty. And guilt – a manifestation of fear and the opposite of love – attracts more negative energy into your life. In other words, fear spawns disharmony, whereas love emanates from harmony.
To achieve a healthy, blissful loving life of undulating harmony, of beautiful life music, focus periodic attention on each of these pillars in turn. By careful and conscious planning – with serious intent – and by avoiding rigid balance, you can be successful in all areas of your life. Sometimes it may not seem that way. But from a broad perspective, you’ll achieve overall equilibrium.
But I don’t have time for a personal life, you say? Well, if your overall wellness is important enough, you’ll become aware of where you spend your precious irreplaceable time and consciously re-order priorities.
Ross Wilson is a retired real estate broker with extensive experience as a brokerage owner, manager, trainer and mentor over a highly successful 44-year career. His book, The Happy Agent – Finding Harmony with a Thriving Realty Career and an Enriched Personal Life is available where print and e-books are sold, including the TREB, MREB, RAHB and OMDREB stores. Visit Realty-Voice.com.
