Is It Possible To Be Busy and Balanced?

By Helen Joy Butler

Helen Joy Butler arrived on my desk unannounced in a form of a beautiful paper back book with a lovely hand written note. Helen had discovered Balance on the Virgin inflight entertainment system and instantly became a fan. Her passion is “balancing” life and her mainfesto echos many of the tenants we follow here at Balance… that being the best version of you, starts with being true to yourself and finding time to love  and live life.  So we are very honoured to be able to share with you a series of 7 articles from Helen this week on how she finds balance in our busy world.  I hope you enjoy these as much as I did xxx Deb.

Article 1/7 – by Helen Joy Butler

At the core of it I don’t mind being busy. And I’m going to take a guess that you feel the same way.

We all daydream about our next holiday, lying on the beach, skiing down the slope, climbing the mountain, drinking good wine, eating good food, having a little bit of kid-free time, catching up with family and friends, sleeping in, and going to bed late. But how would you feel if your life was like this daydream full time?

Now I’m sure I could give six months of my daydream life a red hot go – but I actually don’t think I’d cope that well. What would I do with all those spare hours? Would my brain turn to mush? Would I actually have anything interesting to talk about other than what’s on TV and the lives of those around me? Would I get bored? Would I still be busy but just in a different way?

Being busy is a given for any woman, and particularly any woman who has a family they’re caring for, whether that’s children, a partner or elderly parents. If you have children and you’re the main caregiver, your children’s schedule is your schedule – and somehow you have to fit all the stuff you have to do in your day, in and around their schedule. Somehow your schedule falls oh-so-sadly into the background and before you know it you’re running around like a chook with its head cut off, putting out everyone else’s fires and doing a very poor job of looking after yourself.

Seeing this busy pattern – also known as overwhelm, chaos and complete exhaustion – got me thinking. We’re all busy – but what does that mean? Do we have a way out of the busy, or are we stuck there forever? Will my level of busy ever improve and, if so, how am I going to recognise it if I am still busy?

This was when I decided it was time to remove the badge of honour that busy had become and help women in a practical way.

I decided to turn busy around, flip it on its head, create something positive, proactive, and with a glass half full attitude. Busy women needed something to learn from. They needed to be able to connect with what it was they wanted in their lives with a happy, healthy mindset.

I realised that what we needed was a new definition of BUSY.

Now I know you’re wondering – “What’s this got to do with anything? I’m in overwhelm, my paperwork is driving me nuts, my schedule’s bulging and I don’t have time to think about busy in a new way. I’m too busy!”

I know! So am I. And that’s the thing – absolutely everything relates to busy!

Let me show you how, with a new definition of BUSY.

There are two components to BUSY. Firstly, each letter in the word BUSY gives you an outline for what that broad concept is.

 

B  U  S  Y

____________

Balanced

Uncluttered

Sustainable

You

 

Secondly, underneath each part of BUSY are two traits which breaks this broad concept down, helping you focus on what’s important and work toward making real change in your life in a practical way.

So, all up, the process of moving from BUSY to Balanced looks like this:

 

In my next article I’d like to briefly share with you each part of the BUSY to Balanced approach and this week in a series of articles I’ll be breaking this down even more for you.

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

PART 5

PART 6

PART 7