​Balance doesn't mean we equally give attention to every aspect of our life. It is about knowing what matters to us, and what our needs, values, and priorities are. The below suggestions are based on my personal 'rules' so feel free to take what resonates and adapt them in a way that makes sense to you. Redefining balance is not about forcing yourself to mimic someone else's way of living, but creating your own so it is sustainable with your lifestyle.

1. Start with daily non-negotiables.

These are daily habits that create the foundation for your mental and physical health. I try to prioritize these regardless of how busy or unpredictable other areas of my life are. I look at this as the foundation around which everything is arranged. 

2. Spend more time on fulfilling experiences, people, and activities, and spend less time on soul sucking ones.

Knowing what energizes you and what drains you AND intentionally making decisions from this awareness is crucial. Notice your energy levels at different times of the day, around various people, activities, experiences, topics, places, etc. 

3. Ask yourself what matters to you in this season. 

For example, if I notice a lack of enthusiasm for something I enjoyed doing, or if it feels like I'm forcing myself to pursue a goal I set a while back, I reevaluate whether it still has the same importance to me and if it doesn't, I give myself the option to take a break from it or spend less time on it. Our priorities will shift as we change and evolve.

4. Minimize reliance on coping strategies for immediate relief and satisfaction.

​We all have our habitual ways of responding to distress, but coping strategies that are geared towards escaping our experience and quickly feeling better, often leave us feeling worse in the long term or they tend to create an additional problem. Instead, learn how to be with and tolerate distress and seek to find more grounding and creative ways of coping with it. 
 

When it comes to tips on confidence, you've probably heard of the good old advice to "fake till you make it." 

This requires you to will yourself into it and pretend that you feel something you don't really feel. I'm not saying this is a bad advice as it may work for some people.

But what if all this focusing on wanting to be more confident keeps you in the constant search of it? That search perpetuates the belief that you don't have it, because we only search for what we lack.

I believe there is something more powerful and important than confidence, and that is desire. 

The key to being more confident is to stop focusing so hard on confidence (or lack thereof) and focus on something within you that already exists, and that is, desire. The strength of your desire will always trump the lack of confidence. 
 
Think about the times in your life you did something bold, scary, or uncertain. Did you always feel confident? Probably not! But you still did it. Why? Because your desire was so much stronger than your fear or insecurity  that it didn’t matter if you did it scared.
 
If you are in a place where you’re waiting around to feel more confident or you feel like you're holding yourself back because you think you need to be more confident fist, I invite to stop focusing on confidence and instead start focusing on your desire. 
 
Really think about what is it that you want and why you want it?
 
Let that lead you. Really let yourself connect to the feeling of bringing that desire into reality. 

Want to read more posts about desire? Check out this post!

True answers come to us from peace and clarity, not anxiety.
 
Most of us spend way more time feeding our anxieties and negative predictions than we spend nurturing our possibilities.
 
Anxious mind is trying to analyze, overthink, predict, and solve all sorts of imagined problems and by doing so, it creates more of them. It creates inflexibility and limits our choices.
 
When we’re in the state of anxiety, we’re not able to resolve or make sense of anything, because we’re not able to see the situation clearly. We’re s feeding the negative predictions and we’re trying to protect ourselves from them.
 
True answers don’t come from anxiety, but from inner peace and clarity. Clarity, unlike anxiety, show us choices, flexibility, and possibilities. It leads us to the most loving answer even if that answer is uncomfortable.