A Practical Guide For Finding Balance In The Craziness Of Life

I couldn’t believe what I was typing.

“I finally feel like I have this ‘adulting’ thing down.”

Then I tapped the send button, and away it went for 1,000 or some people on Instagram to eventually see.

Let me explain my situation..

I just bought an Xbox One and a Smart television. Sounds uninteresting, but trust me it’s not.

Yesterday I took them back to my 2 bedroom apartment in Metro Manila and set them up in disbelief. Speaking of that, nobody lives in the other bedroom except for my vlogger friends when they need a place to crash.

I live by myself. And I like it.

I clean this apartment every other weekend. And on Saturday mornings I go to this little restaurant downstairs and eat pancakes for 2 dollars.

On weekdays I go out at 1 PM and buy small bananas on the street. Then I walk down the road to my gym and bike for 40 minutes will playing Sudoku puzzles.

I work from 7 AM to about 4 PM most days. Then I cook, eat dinner for $2 somewhere, and go hang out with the people I care about.

Then around 10:30 I get home, edit a vlog until midnight, and wake up to do it all over again.

What’s crazy about this is I used to be extremely stressed out. I’m sure many of you can relate.

I’d work 10–12 hour days, kick myself for not working out, kick myself for not writing a blog post, then go to bed pissed off as if I spent the whole day doing nothing.

And I kept repeating it. I’d make thousands of dollars every month, get messages from people saying my courses helped them, and I still wasn’t at peace.

Maybe I was half-happy, but I wasn’t at peace. I wasn’t enjoying my days. I was sprinting through them — sure that more relaxing days were ahead and that my sprints were going to pay off eventually.

But they didn’t, really. At least not in a “I feel fulfilled” type of way. They got me more subscribers and followers and views but not balance.

Balance was what I wanted.

In 2017 and 2018 I went overboard with work.

But I realized a few weeks ago that none of it matters if I’m punting balance/happiness in the name of faster gains.

It just isn’t worth it.

I realized I essentially just wasted two years of my life not being happy. I thought I’d waste years of my life later.. not at age 24 and 25.

This realization hit me like a ton of bricks.

So, what is my advice for you — those trying to find balance (what you should’ve been searching for all along)..

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1. Make Every 16 Hours An Enjoyable 16 Hours

I’m not talking about weeks. I’m not talking about months. I’m not talking about years. I am talking about 16 hours.

Make every 16 hours you’re awake enjoyable.

That’s it.

Don’t worry about bills. Don’t worry about work. Just focus on being relatively happy for 16 hours.

Eat an apple or something. Wrestle with your kids. Watch a few Youtube videos.

When you boil down what humans actually want, it’s just happiness. End of story. Don’t get it twisted by thinking it’s more followers or more money.

And guess what? Happiness isn’t a few years away. It’s right in front of you. All you have to do is take it.

You take it by being laser-focused on the 16 hours in front of you every morning.

Happiness = Balance

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2. Do Sudoku Puzzles (While Biking)

Oh, it’s fun. And it kills two birds with one stone.. Actually, three..

You get exercise, the fun of playing a game, and time just melts away.

The gym is not enjoyable. I get it. It’s hard. BUT..

You’ll get out of the gym more energized than when you went in if you do this. I promise you. And you lose track of your orientation to the day. I believe some people these days call this “unplugging.”

Which is a great way to feel more balanced.

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3. Work Again At 10:00 PM

I used to have zero time to edit Youtube vlogs. I’d work during the day and by 5 that was all she wrote.

I had girlfriends to hang out with. Dinners to cook. Game of Thrones episodes to watch.

Then I started editing vlogs at 10 PM right before bed. For whatever reason I was incredibly energized at this time (even though the day was over), and I got the vlogs done around 11:30 PM most days!

So that’s one and a half hours of pure joy and WORK that I inserted back into my day.

I love editing.

Give this a try. If you don’t want to do 10, then do 9. If you don’t want to do 9, then do 8. My thing is, most of the world is asleep by 10. I feel bad working at night because I have friends to see.

But after 10, we’ve all stopped hanging out.

I got more work done, felt better about my to-do list, and became more balanced because of it.

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4. Cut Half The Things Off Your To-Do List

Want to annihilate stress like a Thanos snap?

Cross out half your to-do list for the day.

That’s it.

I find the emotional effect to be immediate.

That’s it.

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5. Create a “Tug vs. Needs Tugging” List

One thing I recently did was create a “Tug” vs. Needs Tugging” list.

And I didn’t get this from ANY book, okay?! This is MY idea (TM).

The idea is this..

Write down 7–10 things that are your biggest projects/priorities.

Mine include..

Health, online courses, Medium blogs, Youtube vlogs, Facebook vlogs, Travel, Relationships, and my Wordpress blog.

Cool.

Now write down “Tug” on a piece of paper, and list all of the projects/priorities that you feel have gotten a “tug” recently. Meaning you’ve worked on them. Given them their due.

Great.

Now write down “Needs Tugging” and list all of the things you need to give attention to because you haven’t for a while.

Great, now you know what is getting your attention and what isn’t.

A perfect tug of war game is when both sides are balanced, no? The rope stays in the middle, both teams bursting blood vessels from the yanking, but movement is oddly calm because both sides are balanced.

If you do this, it’ll help you not only work on things you’re neglecting, but it’ll help you feel emotionally balanced because at least you’ll KNOW what needs attention.

This has been very powerful for me and I hope it can be for you, too.

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Balance, I Think, Is Relative

What balance is to me might be something else entirely to somebody else. Play around with these suggestions until you find a lifestyle/routine that feels like a breath of fresh air every day.

Are you going to enjoy every part of your day?

Heck no.

But you’ll enjoy just as much of the day as the parts you didn’t necessarily enjoy.

That’s balance.

Balance is what you SHOULD be searching for. Screw everything else. Violent hustle won’t get it for you. Beating yourself up because you didn’t get your to-do list done won’t do it for you.

Only being mindful of every second WILL.

Now go out there and do that. ??