Creating External Balance in Your Life

We have laid a foundation of how important balance is in life and success. We all have various roles and responsibilities to carry out at the same phase of life. We could be parents, spouses, employees, employers, teachers and students, at the same time. With each of these roles there are accompanying responsibilities. Balance is when you know your specific roles and follow through with corresponding responsibilities. Imbalance is when you do not know your corresponding responsibilities to roles or have knowledge of them but mix them up.

          When you have internal balance settled – the “two peace-steps”; peace with God and peace with self – then you will have laid a proper foundation for external balance, which shows itself as peace with the world.

          External balance is the outer you. It is what the world sees. It is your ability to be organized, to stay focused, and to prioritize every action in your life. Without external balance you have no physical prove for success. People respond to tangibility and external balance creates tangible things. Some years back while sharing my “great” visions of the future to my wife (then fiancé), Gift, she interjected and said, “I have heard a thousand of your dreams. Can you do one for me to see?” I realized at that moment that I may have internal balance but lacked sufficient external balance to bring to bear my dreams and aspirations.

          External balance begins with a vision. What do you see with your mind’s eye? What has your heart captured, or like the ancient prophet put it, is your “heart inditing a good matter”? Vision forms the framework for all success. It turned corn to cornflakes, potato and rice to Pringles, and lemon to lemonade. It is vision that initiates the process of taking nature’s gift to finished products that add value to human life. It is vision that gives you a blueprint for your success journey.

          Then we go to goals – long term and short term. Do you have them? It was Earl Nightingale who likened the mind to a huge caterpillar, which can be used to do a hundred-man days’ work is an hour, but is controlled by a small steering wheel. The mind is to a human what the steering wheel is to a caterpillar. Without goals there may be movement but no direction. If you lack direction you will not arrive at your destination.

          Finally, what is your plan for accomplishing your goals? A plan breaks down your goals into smaller and easier to accomplish bits. Anything can work if you have a plan that clearly outlines strategies for accomplishing it.