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One of the challenges in creating work/life balance lies in the fact that it doesn’t just happen. It must be created. And, once created, it must be protected. Zealously.

One of the fastest routes to balance is to block out some time for yourself every single week. Aim for at least an hour two or three times a week, but everyone has a personal minimum that needs to be maintained. What’s this personal time for? Anything other than work. Remember that gym membership? This is when you can actually use it. Or get a massage, visit a museum, browse the bookstore, or have lunch with a friend. This is [a part of] the time that will make you a well-rounded, interesting human being rather than a worker-bee “human doing.”

The tricky part lies in protecting this time. So often, we make commitments to ourselves and break them when something else comes up. The key to getting the benefit of these self-appointments is to regard them as being as important as an appointment you make with someone else. Yes, sometimes you will have to cancel them. But if you find yourself canceling on more than a rare occasion, you aren’t really making an appointment; rather, you’re making a plan that will fold if anything better comes up, or if someone else asks you to do something work-related. Getting the benefit requires making the commitment.

Pull out your calendar, your PDA, whatever you use to keep track of your time and schedule some time for yourself. RIGHT NOW. Waiting until you know what demands may be coming your way won’t make it easier to do, it’ll make it less likely. Although spending time away from your work-related commitments may feel strange in the beginning, commit to trying it for six weeks and see what happens. There’s every likelihood that you’ll feel more relaxed and find renewed energy for your work.

Julie Fleming Brown provides professional and personal coaching by telephone for lawyers and others. Julie works with professionals on work/life balance issues, job transitions, and career transitions, and blogs extensively on work/life balance issues on her Life at the Bar Blog, at http://www.LifeAtTheBar.wordpress.com/ To contact Julie for a complimentary coaching exploration session, visit http://www.LifeAtTheBar.com/ and http://www.MerryHeartCoaching.com/

Tags: calendar, personal time, recreation, self care.appointment, stress, time managementcalendar, personal time, recreation, self care.appointment, stress, time management

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A workaholic is someone who has no identity beyond their work. Life is about so much more than what you do. It is about the relationships you develop and nurture. It is about social impact in your community. It is about the growth and learning you experience. It is about living passionately.

We are creative by our very nature, it’s in our genes. Applied intelligence equals creativity. Intelligence takes on many forms. So this creates a new question:

Where is your definition of a workaholic more likely? One living in passion or one living in isolation and fear?

The True Entrepreneur is one that I witness their values, passion, and whole way of being aligned with what they do. In this way, the entrepreneur is just being. The business, the vocation, the passion, the purpose, the values, interests, etc. are all a part of who the individual is.

Externally, I don’t think anyone could casually observe a difference between a workaholic and this entrepreneur. However, the individual knows. Deep down inside, the answer is known and typically the individual will turn away from acknowledging that truth and rationalize sticking to their tried and true behavior. The tried and true is comfortable. To admit the truth requires change and change is uncomfortable.

Many people welcome change in their external environment and consider themselves capable and open to change. Unfortunately, for most the relationship to the inner self is one of fear; there’s a whole can of worms that gets opened when we start doing the inner work. Knowing this, on a gut level, our subconscious quickly reverts to the tried and true. It’s hard work to change.

The good news though, is that many entrepreneurs have the ability to see what is happening around them. This ability is what makes entrepreneurs visionary go-getters. However, this does not exempt entrepreneurs from getting caught-up in their business to the detriment of a well-balanced life.

A well-balanced life is more powerful than the hard work that you put into a business. A well-balanced life feeds the brain, the spirit, the emotions, and the body. In creating the space for relationship, recreation, and rest, the benefits experienced will offer stronger focus, greater creativity (beneficial for problem-solving and decision-making), greater self-esteem, and mental/emotional/physical health. Knowing this, choices are made.

If incorporating a well-balanced life would allow you to achieve the same amount of output in 60 hours versus the 80 hours of perseverance, which would you choose?

The other thing entrepreneurs have difficulty with is learning when to say, “No.” and when to say, “That’s enough.” Always after a new conquest, a new experience, a new peak, and new challenges, an entrepreneur can get all that energy too caught up in the business arena. This will lead to the very thing you fear. Instead, split this energy to have a well-balanced life. Achievement will be far richer in the relationship arena and the personal growth arena.

The experience of Life can be incredibly rich, just don’t get so caught up in riches that you neglect your Whole Life.

Lee Down is a Professional Coach, Trainer/Facilitator, Speaker, & Writer of One Man Can Human Capital Development that focuses on relationships, the key foundation to success in business and life. With more than 15 years professional experience and a thirst for truth and understanding, he focuses on the human spirit and human capacity.

Working with clients, he facilitates the breaking down of beliefs, barriers or obstacles that bring clients forward on their journey of discovery with spirit, energy, abundance, passion and purpose, integrating the mind and body experience. Working with business, he brings visionary leadership and relationship skills to the forefront that witnesses an empowered culture evolve and develop directly impacting the improvement to the bottom-line.

Tags: balance, balanced life, creativity, Entrepreneur, happiness, recreation, relaxation, spirit, workaholicbalance, balanced life, creativity, Entrepreneur, happiness, recreation, relaxation, spirit, workaholic

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It’s hard to go out with a girl who is better at a sport than you are. Unlike most girls who grew up playing with dolls or dressing up in their mother’s clothes and shoes, my girlfriend Cindy’s favorite recreation is ping pong. She had been playing the game since she was five years old and is now a member of her school’s ping pong team. Yes, she’s that good.

I also know a thing or two about ping pong and actually considered myself quite handy at the game. That is, until I started playing against Cindy. She humiliates me at ping pong quite regularly, as a matter of fact. And because of this, I have become an ardent student of the game. I even know the history of ping pong.

Ping pong, which is also known as table tennis, actually has its origins in merry old England where it was a popular after-dinner recreation for the upper class Victorians during the 1880s. The game started as a table imitation of tennis, particularly in an indoor environment and, in the beginning, normal household objects were used as equipment in the game. For instance, a row of books would serve as the net, the rounded top of a champagne cork or some string would serve as the ball and the paddle would simply be the lid of a cigar box.

However, the game became popular and a number of enterprising manufacturers began to sell ping pong equipment commercially. For paddles. they used pieces of parchment paper that were secured around a frame which produced a sound like “ping pong” which is how the game came to be known by that name.

In 1901, an English enthusiast of the game named James Gibb produced the next major innovation when he discovered novelty celluloid balls while vacationing in the United States. He quickly adopted these balls to the game.

By 1903, E.C. Goode had invented the modern version of the racket by combining a sheet of pimpled rubber to a wooden blade. By 1901, ping pong tournaments were sprouting up everywhere and by 1902, the first unofficial world championship of ping pong was staged.

Jonathon Hardcastle writes articles on many topics including Recreation, Cooking, and Travel

Tags: Games, Ping Pong, recreation, sportGames, Ping Pong, recreation, sport

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