Nalisha Patel HealthMastery Head Personal Trainer

Achieving healthy work/life balance I hear the comment all the time by clients “There is barely enough hours in the day to work, eat and sleep, let alone find time to exercise and relax!” Continual stress and work can cause a myriad of physiological damage such as anxiety, headaches, insomnia and fatigue. This then ends up robbing us of the time we could have spent on our health and wellbeing through exercise, eating well and relaxing. It becomes a catch 22 situation. Advances in technology like e-mail, cell-phones and laptops make it possible to work from just about anywhere, which contributes to increased stress. The fact remains that we are in control of how we choose to spend our time. We only get a limited number of hours each day so we need to choose wisely. The question you need to ask is, “What are you choosing as important and are you featured on this list? So, what is the best way to plan our lives so we can allocate enough time for ourselves to increase our energy, get fitter and look better? A recent client of ours, Rachel, really struggled with fitting exercise into her already jam-packed day. She became a low priority each day as she headed into her home office early each morning, rounding off the day looking after her young children. She promised herself she would start fresh “tomorrow”, but like most of us this never happened. We first got her to start writing down what she did each half hour of the day, for 2-3 days. When she looked over her time, she realised she wasted over 2 hours each day on various non essential tasks! The problem is never “time-management”; it is always “self- management”. After realising where she was wasting time, Rachel created a workable schedule that included time to exercise, prepare healthy food, read and spend quality time with her family. As she had her HealthMastery Personal Trainer come to her several times each week to exercise, she learnt that life didn’t fall apart if she put work on hold for just one hour to exercise and relax. This made it easier for her to cross this realisation over into other areas of her life. The excuse “I don’t have time!” couldn’t be less true for most people. You just need to look at your priorities and how you manage your day. Ask yourself these 3 questions: How many hours do you really spend working? How many hours do you fritter away (i.e. needlessly checking emails to avoid “real” work)? How many hours do you have for yourself? Action steps Identify your “time robbers” and look at ways to realistically change them. Check your e-mail less often. Do your most important work first and check emails once or twice a day at specific times. Write out your priorities for the upcoming week. Include time to do the things you enjoy like reading and exercising. Workout on your way to work. If you can easily walk to work, then do it. If not, aim to go during your lunch break and walk for 25 minutes at least before you eat. Your habits determine your future, so if something has not worked for you in the past, stop doing it! At first you may experience resistance to this change, but persevere as it does get easier. Action tasks: Define what bad habits are hindering your success. Identify success habits that will propel you to your desired results Create an action plan to create these habits and changes. Example: Bad habit: Always putting off exercise due to perceived lack of time. Success Habit: Block out 30 minutes in the morning to exercise at least 3 times a week before work. Action plan: Set the alarm for 6am and exercise with either weights or cardio. Set mini goals each week. I.e. I aim to walk 35 minutes, 4 times this week. Create a list of the biggest reasons you need to exercise, eat better and manage your stress. I.e. By exercising in the morning, I will have more energy throughout the day. Each week list down you top 5-10 priority tasks that are non-negotiable. This should include the core areas you need to work on for your business and also exercise and relaxation time. Ask yourself what activities you can delegate out or just let go off to create more time. By having this list, you have something to focus on each week. When you take care of the important things first, it frees your energy to dedicate some time to yourself. Another client of ours, Kim, complained she couldn’t possibly find the time to workout as she was too busy. Looking at how she spent her time, we saw that one major “time robber” was that every afternoon she would spend at least 45 minutes clearing up a pile of papers and organising her office. By planning and executing a system that eliminated this pile up, she created an extra 45 minutes at 2.30pm each day to go for a walk or have a small break. Time is always there, you just need to identify it! Creating better self management habits The key with self management really comes down to experimenting. You need to find the right formula for you. All things worthwhile take time and effort, so preserve with it. If you dislike getting up too early to exercise, then create a time later in the day. The key is doing what feels right for you and ensuring your lifestyle has balance so you can be the best possible you and live the life you desire. Nalisha Patel Head Personal Trainer, HealthMastery FREE Report "49 Tips to shape up and slim down". Click here to download it now!