The key to living your life to the fullest is balance. How can you live your life to the fullest if one or more areas of your life suffer? For example, maybe you are successful in your career. But will it matter if your family life is not happy? Or maybe you are a very knowledgeable person. But will it matter if your body is sick?
To live your life to the fullest, I believe there are five areas of life you need to develop in balance. Those five areas are spirituality, mind, body, relationship, and work. Here are the details:
- Spirituality
This area deals with your conscience, values, and principles. It also deals with your relationship with the infinite. Your spirituality is where your life purpose and meaning comes from. In my opinion, the fact that it gives meaning to your life makes it the most important of all five. But it doesn’t mean that you should focus on only developing your spirituality. Even if your spirituality is strong, you won’t live your life to the fullest if you do not develop the other four areas in balance. - Mind
This area deals with your desire to learn. In this fast-changing world, your ability to absorb new skill and knowledge become increasingly important (in fact, I think this is the most important skill you should master). To have a strong desire to learn, be sure to develop your intellectual hunger. - Body
This area deals with your physical health. Since your body is the mean through which you conduct your actions, it is important to keep your body in tip-top shape. Not only you should prevent yourself from being sick, you should also thrive to have the high-level of energy you need to accomplish your tasks with speed and enthusiasm. - Relationship
This area deals with your relationships with your family, friends, and colleagues. As I wrote in 5 Reasons Why Relationships Should be Your Top Priority, relationships are what make your life beautiful. The greatest feeling of fulfillment doesn’t come from your achievements; it comes from your relationships. - Work
This area deals with your career and achievements. This is the output of your life; your productivity is measured here. If you want to be a productive person, you should increase your output in this area.
These five areas serve as a framework for me to build my life on. What I want is strong and balanced growth in all these areas. To grow my life in all of them, I allocate my daily time around them. I have my blocks of time for spirituality, mind, body, relationship, and work. Whenever I feel that I under develop one area, I will put more effort to it.
I have used this framework for months and I do feel the benefit. Again, the key is balance.
Awesome!
Who says a rich person with no friends or family around is successful?
All of us can achieve the above things in life
If we are serious about it, then make this decision to improve one’s life and work toward one’s goal
Relationship can be improved if we learn to take 100% responsibility in our life and love ourselves first.
I share my true life at my blog:-
http://secretofunlimitedprosperity.com/45/i-hate-my-relationship/
These dont help my understanding
Thanks for sharing, Karen. Being serious and taking responsibility for our growth are indeed very important. Without concentrated effort it’s difficult to gain anything significant in life.
That is so true. Every aspect of our life needs to be fulfilled in a normal level or even higher before we can say to ourself that we succeeded completely.
Yes, Dave. Unfortunately many people just emphasize some of them while neglecting the others. “Work” – I think – is the area most people focus on. As a result, very few people achieve what you called “complete success”.
Great post. This should be a good realization for everyone especially for everyone who wants to become successful.
Most of us consider success as a path with a choice for us to make. Choosing one would mean sacrificing the other. But why choose if we can be normal at both sides?
I couldn’t agree more. Every part of the list is as important as the other and wouldn’t be great without the necessary support from the group.
@Fran:
I agree, we do not need to choose one at the expense of the others. In fact, I believe there is synergy between them. When we develop all of them in balance, each of them will develop faster than if we focus on only one (or some) of them.
@Helen:
I do think that these five areas are like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Eliminating any of them will cause the puzzle to be incomplete. As you said, every part is as important as the other.
I would suggest that a good balance also has to include service…each of us has the potential to be a force for good in this world. We should give something of ourselves back.
@Laura:
In my current time allocation, service is included in “Relationship” since it deals with helping others. But I understand that it is not apparent in the 5-area model. Thanks for pointing it out.
Life is all all balance. There’s no point having a great career and making all the money in the world if you can’t spend quality time with family and friends.
Agree, Dave. Balance is the key to fulfilling life. Maintaining it is an art that takes a lot of time to master though.
Wealth – mooney
Health – Physical health, exercise & eat right
Education – Learn, ask questions and answer them.
Entertainment – explore, challenge yourself, takerisks,socialization
Love – help, serve, and give to others without selfish motivations
Self Expression – express yourself, be who you are ( values, beliefs, morals, etc.. )
I like to think of these as work and reward taking care of the wealth, health, and education will afford you the capacity to maximize entertainment, love and self expression
I don’t agree with the order of the last statement. I believe that to live in balance and maximize your true self firstly you must develop self discipline in love, health and self expression. This in turn supports education, wealth and entertainment.
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I agree wholeheartedly with these five areas as being the pillars of balance in one’s life. Each can be segmented further as with “work” for instance. So many people think that “work” is working for someone else. Work is pleasure and pleasure is work when you know your purpose and live it.
There are also 8 things that people seek, which I call “the Major 8”. I coach people on how to achieve results and get all 8.
Thanks for this article; very good!
Make it a great day!
Ter Scott!
It is good lesson for man.
Thank you for this post.
I think what we need to do is to refocus on what we are lacking in and balance it as possible.
Great and inspiring!
Could have emphasized on the importance of Emotional Intelligence too.
Awesome article anyway.
Thanks!