As I write this, I am on cruise ship out of Sydney, Australia. There a ton of little Australian kiddies on board. I don't think that I have ever been on a cruise where there have been so many children. As I watch them, they not only remind me of how much I miss my grandchildren at home in Canada, but It makes me think about how easily they are influenced by their experiences... especially by what they see and hear.
Have you ever thought about how you became the person you are today? Why you believe the things that you believe and how those beliefs influence your attitudes and behavior?
Did you know that your personal perception of reality is determined by your beliefs and that your beliefs dictate your attitudes and feelings, which largely determine how you will behave in any given situation?
As a new-born you were pure, not yet aware that you even had a body or of anything around you. But eventually, the culture that you were born into and the socialization process taught you its language, customs, and beliefs. Over time, your individual consciousness assumed the identity of the person you would become.
As young children, because we did not have the capacity for critical conscious scrutiny, we were influenced, in fact some might even say we were programmed early in life by our parents, family members, teachers, peers, and others in our lives. Did you know that the part of the brain that is responsible for cognitive processes such as reasoning, planning, and judgment is not fully mature until somewhere between ages 25 and 30? During that time of development, our basic core beliefs, emotional conditioning, values and attitudes are set in place, and once these are "hard-wired" within our subconscious mind, these beliefs, and attitudes drive our actions (or inactions) and behaviours.
Many of these beliefs and attitudes may be holding us back from living the life we want. Because of our beliefs we may not be living the life that we were truly meant to live. We may not be living life to our full potential. But even worse, we are willing to settle for the way things are and not make an effort to strive for a better life, simply because we believe that our life is what it is and we can't do anything to change it. But human development is continuous from birth until death, and we CAN make changes to our lives at any time.
Think about each area of your life; your relationships, your career, your wealth, your health, your emotional and spiritual well-being... one or two areas of your life may be in relatively good shape, but if just one area is out of whack, it has a negative impact on ALL areas of your life.
Imagine having a job that you love BUT you are so busy working that you have no time for your family or to take care of yourself. Pretty soon you will appreciate your successful career less and less, simply because you are not getting what you need from other areas of your life. Your body doesn't get the exercise it needs to feel alive and energized, and you are too tired to participate in activities with your family. This is what an UNBALANCED LIFESTYLE looks like.
It's so important to think of your life as one holistic pie and to make the decision to put your energy into making every piece of that pie as yummy as possible!
How do you do that? Great question.
You try to discover the lost pieces of yourself. Are you satisfied with who you are, or do you feel as if something is missing? If you feel that something is missing, start digging. Dig for the pieces of yourself that did not get nurtured because of your early programming... Because of your belief system that said that you couldn't have that... you couldn't achieve that... you couldn't be that person.
There may have been life events that got in the way, preventing you from accomplishing what you wanted to do, or from adequately expressing a specific side of yourself?
The more you learn about yourself, the more capable you are of changing your perspectives and, by doing so, broadening your own horizons. The belief systems that you developed throughout your childhood and into young adulthood CAN be altered.
Creating a more balanced lifestyle would mean taking a really good look at all areas of your life: relationships, career, money, health and well being... and making decisions about what is and isn't working in each area.
Sometimes the reason we stay stuck in unhealthy or unhappy areas of our lives is because it's easier, in a way, to stay stuck in the familiarity than to find the creativity and energy to make the changes needed to improve our quality of life and move into the unknown.
But don't worry, I am here to help you begin to imagine what your LIFE IN BALANCE could look and feel like... you are not alone!
Written by Karen A Robinson
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Karen_A._Robinson/1105190
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