Perfect balance. Someone once told me that he had tripped over that, as he was heading from one extreme to the other.

When you lack balance, you can fall too far in one direction for too long, and at the same time lose what you have, and fail to get what you want. In this state of imbalance, you flounder, waste time, experience stress and feel drained of energy.

When you have many responsibilities, things to do and goals to achieve, it’s more likely for things to be out of balance. Why? Because it’s easy to focus on one thing like work, while foregoing things like having fun or getting enough exercise.

Perfect balance occurs when you act on the most important priorities that you have set for yourself in life. In doing so, you experience a sense of harmony and satisfaction with the results, and how you’re rewarded.

To achieve perfect balance requires discipline and structure. This means motivation and consistent action, and a plan.

Here are some tips to help you create your perfect balance:

1. Write down your most important priorities in life. To help, general categories can include family, community, work and personal.
2. Define for yourself what “perfect balance” would look like in your life. What would you act on, and what would be your reward?
3. Take an inventory of what you’re doing now to be in perfect balance, and what you know you need to do more of to get there.
4. Set some goals for those activities that you will do more often, and those that you will do less.
5. Create a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly perfect balance “to do” list. Include the actions you will take in the “do more” category as well as the “do less”.
6. Make a commitment each day to do the things on the list that support your priorities. Examples may include exercise, spend more time with family and leave work earlier.
7. Now do those things you need to do to experience perfect balance.

Participate in activities that support your most important priorities, and you too will experience a sense of harmony and satisfaction as you create your perfect balance. You’ll be rewarded with less stress, and more peace of mind, time and energy.