Curious about Balance: How Balanced Are You and Your Life? What Do You Do to Become Balanced?

“Balance is so important in our lives. In our busy world, we can give ourselves balance between thinking and feeling.” - Yakov Smirnoff, Russian comedian

“I learned again that the mind-body-spirit connection has to be in balance.” - Wynonna Judd, American musician

Balance and having balance in our lives and our physical selves is important. In all of the fitness classes I teach and lead, I stress the importance of working on balance. And, just as Wynonna Judd says, our “mind-body-spirit connection has to be in balance.”

Do you notice that the days when we don’t establish that balance, we have a challenge to stay on task and centered? I know that I do. I have been teaching and experiencing modified Yoga classes for my senior students. I am amazed by how much it is helping – not only the participants – but me to calmly deal with the stress of these challenging times. The breathing and postures follow me to my home and home office.

As you can imagine, I found a plethora of balance quotations from the experts:

• “Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.” - Brian Tracy, American author
• “Man maintains his balance, poise, and sense of security only as he is moving forward.” - Maxwell Maltz, American scientist
• “My private measure of success is daily. If this were to be the last day of my life would I be content with it? To live in a harmonious balance of commitments and pleasures is what I strive for.” - Jane Rule, Canadian author
• “Balance, peace, and joy are the fruit of a successful life. It starts with recognizing your talents and finding ways to serve others by using them.” - Thomas Kinkade, American artist
• “There's always more demands than there's time to meet them, so it's constantly a matter of trying to balance them.” - Marc Andreessen, American businessman
• “It's all about quality of life and finding a happy balance between work and friends and family.” - Philip Green, British businessman

Some quotations with a bit of a twist:

• “I believe that being successful means having a balance of success stories across the many areas of your life. You can't truly be considered successful in your business life if your home life is in shambles.” - Zig Ziglar, American author
• “I always try to balance the light with the heavy - a few tears of human spirit in with the sequins and the fringes.” - Bette Midler, American actress
• “Faith gives you an inner strength and a sense of balance and perspective in life.” - Gregory Peck, American actor
• “Everyone spends their lives trying to balance their world between good and evil.” - Laurell K. Hamilton, American writer
• “I don't know if it's a sign of all the chaos that is happening out there or not, but I've lately craved the structure and order of classical music, the balance and symmetry.” - Helen Reddy, Australian actress
• “I love what I do for a living, it's the greatest job in the world, but you have to survive an awful lot of attention that you don't truly deserve and you have to live up to your professional responsibilities and I'm always trying to balance that with what is really important.” – Tom Hanks, American actor

What are you doing to achieve balance? My suggestions are to get and keep fit physically; repeat what you are grateful for every day; re-evaluate your use of time – is it effective; set goals and intentions to keep yourself on track; and pay attention to the balance between the conscious and subconscious.

Two quotations to take with you:

“You need a balance in life between dealing with what's going on inside and not being so absorbed in yourself that it takes over.” - Nigella Lawson, British journalist

“Everything in life... has to have balance.” - Donna Karan, American designer