Balancing Life ~ Managing Expectations

One of the most difficult thing in pursuing your career is to be able to balance your life and manage expectations. Each and everyone of us are guided by a different set of values unique only to us. This makes the composition of a "balanced life" different from one another. 

The wheel above shows different aspects to consider in our life. I can seperate them in 3 categories: physical, emotional and spiritual. 

Physical aspect of our life mainly deals with the fulfilling the basic necessities such as food, clothing and shelter. 

Emotional aspect on the other hand, envelopes all that we strive to achieve, for example: Working hard to buy an expensive sports car is not a physical need. It is an act based on the emotional aspect, which is to fulfill the sense of pride. Trying to spend more time for the family is a way of fulfilling our need in giving affection to others. 

Spiritual aspect is something that in neglected by many people. Spiritual aspect provides stronger constitution for the mental state of each and everyone.

The second part of the problem is Managing Expectations. Most people have no difficulties in balancing their life, but hit the bottle neck on trying to meet everyone's expectations. 

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A salaryman is struggling to balance his life and trying to please everyone. The wife always complains that he never spend enough time with his family. His boss always pushes him to work harder and take longer hours. His parents are not happy with what he is earning and ask him to change his career. He himself wants to be successful in order to achieve a sense of fulfillment. But the problem is, it is impossible for him to do every single thing that he is asked to.

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A sample case from the passage above happens to many people. The problem arises because the man is trying to make everyone happy. 

I attended a seminar by T Harv Eker few months ago. Although it was not so great and full of hard selling, but he did come out with a few interesting points. One of the things he mentioned is this. "Do not try to make everyone happy, because it is impossible to do so." 

We are all adults with our own judgement. The thing that we should do is to choose the direction in life as what we see fit and strive to pursue it. 

One thing that my boss taught me is that people only sees the end result. We can work our ass off or even beg on the streets, but once we become successful, people wont say anything about it. But if we ended up as a failure, that's where the badmouthing starts. 

I'm still young, lots of chance to try, fail, and try again. I believe I can make it in life. 

How about you?