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The Hindi word for Balance is Santulan, something that is very challenging right now for many of us. Nobody can say I’m exaggerating when I say the world went upside down thanks to COVID-19.

If the first wave wasn’t bad, the second one wreaked havoc and especially in India in recent weeks.

Life became even more bizarre for many of us in Delhi but one soldiered on. My connections turned friends on LinkedIn shared equally upsetting stories about their countries.

We’re all sailing in the same ship, hoping the wind will change and take us in a better direction.

My 2 cents?

Stay positive and strive to find balance – even if it a new balance.

Normal societal and cultural traditions were swept aside during this second wave.

Many of us found ourselves in bereavement without the social support of friends and relatives who would normally be there during the funeral or cremation, condolence visits and the fortnight of rituals that are done to help the departed soul while bringing solace and comfort to the grief-stricken family.

Around that time, I had a chat with a professional who was looking to explore a greater meaning to his life and career.

The great ‘life happens’ had hit him, and all his plans have gone haywire. His Dad had a pain in the side and when they reached hospital, apart from discovering an inoperable problem in the torso area, he’d been diagnosed as having COVID-19 which means no biopsy was possible.

His priorities changed.

While the long-term vision and goal was still there, the focus was on the immediate now and how to find balance between work commitments and family responsibilities.

His story is not unique. Many of us were holding down jobs while looking after family members especially the vulnerable like children and elderly parents. We wondered what would happen next and if we had the resilience to deal with it.

The vaccine arrived but that wasn’t the shield to prevent catching COVID-19. It simply helped to lessen the impact from being a disease to an infection. Even then one couldn’t guarantee one wouldn’t die due to complications.

Like I said, many of us in that situation utilized the Payoff Method to prioritize our tasks and maximize the return on our efforts (read more about it here).

Balance – is it a myth?

If you think about life being balanced, you might envision a seesaw in the position of being directly balanced in the middle with no ups, no downs, and simply managing to stay in the middle ground.

Of course, life doesn’t work like that.

There are ups and there are most certainly downs. Sometimes you might feel as though you just want to jump off the seesaw and lay on the ground for a little while just to gain your equilibrium back.

What does it mean to be in balance, if life has its difficulties?

When you are in balance, you maintain your equilibrium while life’s ups and downs come to visit.

Of course, you go through the various emotions as circumstances both good and not so good work their way through your life.

However, being in balance means you get to choose how long you stay in the down position.

Of course, realistically, you can’t always stay up on the seesaw of life, but you can choose how you feel and what your action steps are going to be while you’re down.

Being in balance means intentionally, no matter how hard it is, choosing how you will show up under any given circumstance.

How do you really achieve balance?

You can achieve balance in several ways:

• Feel your emotions and move quickly through them – it’s perfectly fine to become emotional when the roller coaster of life gets too fast and too furious. Feel what you need to feel but move quickly on to the next step. The next step after feeling is action.

• Choose an action step to recreate the scene. If you’ve lost a job, fire up your resume. If your home needs a repair, start asking family and friends for referrals on contractors. Don’t just sit and stew about what happened but take the appropriate time to recreate what happens next.

• Don’t regurgitate facts and stories repeatedly – the more you talk about what happened, how unfair it was, and what a nuisance it was, the more energy you expend. This energy could be used for better purposes.

• If you find yourself faced with a problem, take the energy needed to create some sort of answer rather than dwell only on the issue at hand. Click the image below to download this worksheet – it will help.

Make a choice and make some change. If you really want to achieve your goals and enjoy life to the fullest, you must choose where your energy will go.

Make a choice that seems best in the moment and follow through with it.

Make a choice with the information you have in front of you and take action steps toward that choice.

And if you feel overwhelmed, use the Payoff method here to reduce the stress and get results.

5 Tips to give you enough energy to get through your day

Finding balance at any time, whether normal, during a pandemic or a world turned upside down requires not only energy but also making sure you have the required energy and don’t end up in burnout.

In other words, store the energy for the time when you need it most.

This energy needs to include all forms in order to help us stay balanced – physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.

What about you?

Is your typical workday more like a marathon than a short sprint? Has Work from Home and Remote working blurred the lines between work and personal life?

If you have a job with long work shifts—longer than the usual 9 to 5 workday—you’re not alone.

A wide range of jobs, from banking to auditing to IT services and many more, require workers to put in longer than average workdays. That’s a long time to have to be alert and at the top of your game and more so during lockdown.

That was my challenge not only during my Article days in London but throughout my corporate career when an 80+ work week was part of the requirement to climb up the corporate ladder.

I got into Transcendental Meditation which led to my interest in Chakra Balancing other metaphysical techniques. This was way back in 1988 – long before the internet exploded with gurus teaching all types of techniques.

I’ve detailed my techniques which I still use in my book Stress Management with Chakra Balancing Exercises.

But my game plan wasn’t all ‘woo woo’.

I had 5 more areas covered and I recommend you follow these tips.

Tip 1 – Make your sleep non-negotiable.

I’d say get a minimum of 8 hours of sleep but not everyone needs that much sleep. Determine your optimal sleeping time and stick to it. You’ll know what that is if you wake up refreshed in the morning.

Tip 2 – Get some exercise on a daily basis.

Many people have the wrong idea about exercise—they think it’s an energy drainer, and that working out will only make you tired when you’re through. However, the opposite is true!

A fit and active lifestyle that includes plenty of exercise on a regular basis will help kick your metabolism into overdrive and boost your energy levels—perfect for getting through those long work shifts.

Start small—try taking regular long walks and building upon your exercise routine a little at a time. Make sure you have your mask on!

Tip 3 – Eat properly!

Maintaining a regular balanced diet is also a powerful way to keep your energy levels high and consistent—this includes what you eat when you’re off duty as well as on the job.

Make sure that your diet includes plenty of high-quality protein and vegetables, and try to keep processed foods, refined carbs, and sugar to a minimum.

The former helps your body maintain a consistent and reliable level of energy throughout the day while a diet high in sugar and refined carbs (like candy and cola) causes your blood sugar and energy levels to peak and plummet as the day drags on—like a roller coaster.

Tip 4 – Learn to take breaks when you start to feel tired.

Strategic work breaks, even if it’s just for a few minutes to take a deep breath, stretch, and clear your head, can make a world of difference when you’re facing a long work shift.

I make sure that I get up for 5 minutes every hour and walk to the kitchen to get water or do something that gets me away from the computer.

Tip 5 – Store the extra energy you’ve created using meditation for use when you’re hitting a slump using the simple technique called Tan T’ien.

It works for spiritual energy created by prayers too. This post explains the technique.

It can be a real struggle to get through a long work shift and stay alert and at the top of your game—add in all the other things going on in your life that eat away at your time and energy and you may be facing an uphill battle.

It’s even more of a challenge during pandemic times when the world feels it’s turned upside down like the cruise ship in the movie The Poseidon Adventure.

But you can do it! Start with the tip which is easiest for you and build on it.

The bottom line is, you can find balance in a world gone topsy turvy. It means finding your unique equilibrium.

That requires commitment to yourself. Are you ready?

Additional Resource to help with time management and making your life a priority