[Methods for achieving balance within your family, work, and social engagement.]

Being an accounting major has taught me a thing or two about balance. I learned that being out of balance will prevent you from successfully moving to the next step. In accounting, the best way to achieve balance is to go back and review each component. In doing so, you usually discover that one thing out of balance will throw everything off.

Maintaining balance reduces stress and creates harmony and satisfaction. So, guess what? When our lives are out of balance, the opposite is true. Achieving the proper balance in life is of utmost importance. Since I wear many different hats (husband, father, minister, and business owner), achieving balance in these areas is crucial to their success. I must satisfy my wife and family, be productive in my work, and be socially engaging in my ministry relations. So, how do you achieve balance in all of these areas?

The best way to achieve balance between the areas of family, work, and social engagement is to put them in proper order. A healthy balance starts with putting family first. Putting family first creates balance that flows over into your work and social engagements. Now that we have established proper order, we must put things in their proper place. To maintain this balance that we have achieved, we must leave work at work and never allow challenges at home to be brought into our work environment.

Lastly, I want to touch on social engagement or social media. Social media is all around us with the help of our computers, iPads, and smart phones. Therefore, we must set some boundaries and not allow it to consume us. To achieve balance in this area, we must engage socially at the proper time. We do this by putting a time limit on our social engagement as well selecting days of the week that we will not engage in social media. And, remember this: “Real people should trump over virtual people.” When you are at dinner with family or with a business client, ignore that tweet, text, or facebook message. We must disconnect socially (at times) in order to stay balanced.
I pray that this information will help you to live a balanced life.

In His service,

Keith M. Lofton
Guest Blogger
ReelUrbanNews.com