In order to truly be happy, having a well balanced life is important. Sometimes we make the mistake of taking on too much and essentially begin to feel bummed out. Feelings of sadness, stress, anxiety, and despair are certainly no way to truly enjoy your life and live it to the fullest. The trouble for many people is that they’ve spent so much of their life feeling this way and carrying on their daily responsibilities, that they don’t have the slightest idea of what is holding them back from true happiness. The best way to get a grip on life and start working on a better you is to do a life assessment.
Importance of Life Assessments
At some point in your life taking an assessment or evaluating your life is beneficial to achieving your goals and ultimately finding real happiness. As stated previously, sometimes you’re so busy “getting through life” that you don’t realize that you’re not “living”. To find out what may be hindering you from ultimate satisfaction, taking a quick assessment of various elements of your life can make a huge difference. Below are some steps on how to accomplish this.
1. Set Up Categories
First, you’ll need to set up categories of your life. Trying to analyze things all at once can be a bit confusing and also can cause you to miss a few things. While there are plenty of categories you could break it into, let’s try the follow:
· Professional (i.e. your career)
· Spiritual
· Health
· Financial
· Emotional
· Relationship
· Family
2. List Pros and Cons
Once you’ve broken your life into categories such as those recommended above, go through each area of your life and list all the pros and cons in that particular category. For instance, professionally you might be happy in the industry you’re in, but wish that you could be promoted. Spiritually, you might have a deep sense of connection with your religion, but feel as if you’re not getting the teachings you need from your church (or religious meeting facility). Financially, you might be making a decent amount of money but you may be drowning in debt. Keep going until you’ve finished laying out the things you’re satisfied or happy with in your life verses the things that you’re not so enthused about and believe you need work on.
3. Create a List of Your Issues
Now you will need to take all of the cons you’ve just listed in each area of your life and put them all into one group. This will give you a clear picture on the things that you need to work on in order to find true balance and happiness in your life. No matter how big or small the list may be, don’t be discouraged and coming up with solutions doesn’t have to be difficult at all.
4. Find Effective Solutions
Now that you’ve got an idea of what’s keeping you down, it’s time to come up with a feasible plan of action to get these matters solved. For example, if you’ve been stressed financially because your cost of living seems to keep increasing, you might start by finding ways to save on housing costs such as your energy bills. Now that many countries and states in the US and Canada have energy deregulation in place, you can compare energy rates (here is more information on comparing costs in Canada, which is similar to the rates here in the US) and choose a provider who will save you money. Saving on housing costs can improve your financial status, thus helping you to feel more complete in that area of your life.
5. Tackle the Problems One Step at a Time
Once you’ve come up with a list of solutions, you want to try and tackle them bit by bit. Trying to take on too many changes at once will essentially cause more stress and unhappiness in your life. Make sure that the solutions are feasible and within your control as trying to fix things outside of your control are essentially pointless.
It may take time to find true balance in every area of your life, but it is well worth the investment (and the wait). Sometimes taking a step back and reviewing where your life is in comparison to where you want it to be is the best way to go about finding true happiness. Setting up feasible solutions and tackling them bit by bit will certainly pay off in the long run.
Melissa says
It’s always a good idea to assess what’s happening in every moment of your life. Remembering to be present in the here and now is crucial to finding clarity and awareness. Thank you for the reminder!
Melissa
Cheryl Smith says
Making a list has always helped me make better decisions. It it makes it easier to know which direction my life could be going in. Hopefully, it is more encouraging when you write it out on paper to see the bigger picture.