Wouldn’t it be nice to live in peace? In harmony with your family, work, finances, yourself?
There are so many pieces of life that need balance and sanity. In fact, most of life is much better if it can be drama-free.
Some people feed off chaos, crisis, emotional churning. They seem to need the charge of impending disaster, or the rush of constant excitement.
Well, I suppose everyone enjoys a little excitement now and then. But if you find yourself in the turmoil of regular drama, I’d recommend taking inventory to discover what you’re getting out of it. What is the secondary gain?
Secondary gains can be the hook that draws us, even without realizing what we’re allowing to happen in our lives.
Example: You’re always cleaning up situations at work. While you get tired of having to rescue co-workers and fix projects that have gone off track, you enjoy your reputation as a go-to person, someone who can always solve the problem. The secondary gain is your status as a problem solver and rescuer.
What you really need to consider is which is more important to you: keeping your role as problem solver/rescuer in your workplace, or helping co-workers learn to handle their own issues and mature to the point that you don’t have to fix their work?
To confront the drama honestly, you have to confront the way you’re enabling or allowing it to happen.
This scenario plays out in so many areas of life. There are some handy phrases that help me remember my role in propping up drama.
What you reward you repeat.
What you permit you promote.
If you want balance and sanity in your life, you first have to decide you won’t reward or permit drama, excuses, or other behavior that feeds chaos and imbalance.
Look at your relationships, your work life, your finances, your personal choices.
Take a long, hard look.
This is not about blaming others. It is about being honest with yourself, what you want your life to be like, what you will tolerate, what you choose.
This inventory is about standing up, choosing to be adult, mature, and not being a victim.
This is about being responsible. Or as a therapist I once worked with puts it, response-able.
So if you want a balanced and harmonious life, begin with yourself. Determine what you will do to have the life you want.
Does that mean you will give up blaming others? Yelling when you’re upset? Engaging in destructive behavior when you’ve had a bad day?
What are you willing to change, to have the life you want?
I don’t know what you need to address in your life…finances? Life off track due to bad decisions? But I can tell you that taking a hard and honest look at where you are, then deciding where you want to go, and connecting the two with the reality of what you have to change to get there…well, that’s powerful.
That’s bold.
That’s courageous.
You can learn, with time and practice, to live with integrity; to create loving relationships; to balance and improve your finances; to become an inspiration to your family and others around you. You can create a legacy for your work, and your family.
You can learn.
It takes more than pixie dust or a few pithy quotes. Such change requires honest evaluation, setting a course for yourself; creating a vision for the life you want; and determination to make the changes to get there.
Balance and sanity…that’s a good place to begin.
Please, I’d love to know what you’re doing to create balance in your life. What have you overcome, given up, embraced? Are you seeing a ripple effect in your family, in your circle?
There’s nothing more powerful than looking back over a few months or a year and seeing how far you’ve traveled.
Good luck with your journey!