How to Balance Your Life With a Journal

If you’re wondering how to balance your life and choose your priorities intentionally– keep reading! You likely know more about your best self than you realize. All you need to do is wake up those forgotten goals. Of course, there is no better tool for this than your trusty journal!

Last week, we talked about using better boundaries to be more productive. That is all fine and good, but it can be hard to pinpoint how you define productivity –especially if you’ve been living for others your whole life.  

In order to remember your own definition of productivity, you need to honor all of the things that take up your attention. Yes, all of them. So much of our daily effort goes unnoticed and it is up to us to celebrate it. This is what it actually means to romanticize your life.

In this post, you’ll find 6 different areas of life that often go underappreciated. Each area is paired with a journal prompt to self-reflect.  

But First…

As you power through these prompts in your own time, make sure to grab your FREE copy of the Balanced Life Blueprint Worksheet by signing up for the Write Your Wellness Newsletter!  It’ll help you build concrete goals in any life area you feel needs more attention.

Why Work-Life Balance Doesnt Work

“Work-Life Balance” is the sneakiest little trick that keeps you overworked and stressed out. It implies that there are only two things that you need to balance: work and life. When you start thinking that your time is just work and “everything else”, it makes sense that you’d give work 50%.

But “everything else” is a really big category. It is your friends, family, hobbies, hygiene, rest, and more. Why does work get the same degree of effort as all of that combined? That’s not healthy. When you think about a fulfilling life, do you think about your family or your boss? Exactly.

You’ll notice that this post drops the “work” from “work life balance” from here on out. Instead, as you learn how to balance your life –consider that your career is just a small fraction of everything else you have going on. You are made of so many aspects.

Disclaimer: this post assumes that you are in a safe enough space to gently change the way you spend your time and energy. This might not be possible for those in survival mode. That said, I still encourage you to work through these prompts to give yourself the hope and creativity you need to find more solid ground.

Home Maintenance

If there is any part of your life that isn’t getting the credit it deserves – it’s housework. In a post Barbie Movie world, we are no longer pretending that this isn’t valuable work. I am only listing this area first because too many of us consider housework last.

Let’s be clear, the easiest way to live a fulfilling life is to reduce chaos at home. You can’t do that if you are silently doing 100% of the housework or ignoring what needs to be done. Balance begins here.

Home maintenance can be broken down into 3 things: planning, chores, and errands. Planning is anything that requires you to make a list. Chores are anything that cleans or organizes your space. Errands are anything besides work or your social life that makes you leave the house.

**Note: by this definition, every single adult should be doing some home maintenance. **

It is extremely unfair, but most home maintenance work goes to women. The U.S. Bureau of Labor says that, in 2022, 47% of women did housework on any given day. Only 22% of men could say the same. That means that when you look at how to balance your life, you need to take a hard look at the gender roles you play into. 

Journal Prompt:

·         Does my relationship to Home Maintenance remind me of either of my parents? If so, how did that parent talk about housework?

Health

Being “healthy” is something that looks different for everyone. Your personal definition needs to consider the strengths, obstacles, and goals you have. This is why it is so important to journal about what health means to you when balancing your life.

The first step is to remember that mental health is physical health and vice versa. It can be so overwhelming to think about them separately. So, why stress about balancing two things when you could just think about one?

Here are some more examples of activities that take care of mental health and physical health at the same time:

·         Eating a balanced diet of delicious food

·         Dancing to your favorite songs

·         Flossing regularly so you don’t have to lie to your dentist anymore

Journal Prompt:

·         How have I neglected my health recently? What would my life look like if I addressed this issue head on?

Friendships

Adult friendships are hard to keep and even harder to make. Why? Because friendships are the first responsibility we drop when life gets hard.

Sure, friendships should never feel like an obligation. There is something beautiful about that bestie you can talk to no matter how much time has passed. But that doesn’t mean that you can go months and months without *any* time with friends.

We need friends. No really, we physically need friends. One study found that lonely adults were much more likely to become physically frail in adulthood. Talk about mental health being physical health.

Long story short, stop neglecting your friendships. You cannot have a fulfilling life without them.

Journal Prompt

·         In a perfect world, what would my social life look like? How can I start to create that friend circle today?

Family

Like friendships, family should never feel like an obligation. Unlike friendships, you cannot choose who you are related to. This makes it harder to know how to blend family into your balanced life.

I will not join the internet chorus of “just cut off your family”. That is a totally nuclear option. You have so many choices besides fully accepting your family dynamic and completely abandoning it. By all means, do what feels best for you. Maybe you could even explore people pleasing in your journal.

Have you ever actually asked yourself what you are willing to give and give up for your family? If we’re talking life balance, this is something you absolutely need to know. Otherwise, it’s going to be so tempting to just go with the family flow—even if that goes against your needs.

Journal Prompt:

·         Answer the following: “I wish my family would stop expecting _______ from me.”

Romantic Relationships

If you immediately jumped to this section, take a step back. You need to understand your family before you can tackle your love life. Don’t believe me? Google “attachment styles”.

The best thing about being in a romantic relationship is that it can be so uniquely personal. Your partner(s) can see you as you are. They can applaud your better qualities while also helping you heal.

The trick is to never force what they “should” do.

Asking about what your partner/ future partner “should” do is only going to make you mad. Start asking yourself where this dream partner idea came from and how you have asked for this treatment out loud. Yes, out loud as in, to your romantic interest.

 Journal Prompt

·         What do I think is “common sense” in a romantic relationship? What would it mean if my partner didn’t treat me that way?

Hobbies

Hobbies are a window to your personality.  If you want to know how to balance your life around passion, hobbies are a great place to start.

It can be so hard to think about hobbies when you already feel overwhelmed by life. Adult life is demanding enough, so why add on something optional?

Consider this: hobbies are important because they aren’t essential. It is the difference between survival and truly living. Sometimes you may truly be in survival mode – that is okay. The trick is knowing the difference between genuine survival mode and sticking to your comfort zone.

Hint: Survival mode doesn’t feel comfortable.  

And yes, making time for hobbies takes a bit of sacrificing. You may need to stop tracking all those extra habits in your bullet journal and just focus on 2-3. Maybe you need to learn how to have better boundaries. Just remember that these sacrifices are worth it because YOU are worth it.  You deserve a fulfilling, balanced life.

Journal Prompt:

·         What did I enjoy doing as a child? How can I do that activity now?

Bringing it All Together

Once you work out each individual area of your life, you’ll need to start actually balancing things. This is where most advice blogs leave off. I’m not going to do that to you. Here’s what to do next:

First, you’ll want to get your free copy of the Balanced Life Blueprint Worksheet. Not to sound like a broken record, but it truly is a life saver! This worksheet is intentionally designed to identify the areas of your life that need the most focus and build solid goals to support your needs.

Second, follow this blog! A little birdie told me that next week’s post explains how to plan a balanced, flexible to-do list step by step. 

And don’t forget, this work is confusing. Gift yourself whatever time and self-compassion you need during this part of your journaling journey.