“I am a parent,” “I am a coach.” We each have many roles in life.
What exactly is a role? It’s the position you take in the various communities -families, schools, etc- of your life, hence, how you function, and how you play it out.
How much we decide to take in each community we belong to is what starts to define us both to ourselves and to the other members.
Because we exist we can’t help but impact others. Inevitable. No human being is an island, even if some HSPs are judged as hermits 🙄
So, when we want to experience true FULFILMENT in life, we will need to balance the many roles we play in it!
Here is a series of steps to find balance and fulfilment in those roles you truly want to nurture 💕
STEP 1: Write down all the roles you currently have.
STEP 2: List roles you WANT to develop (Even if it means being a sister to an estranged sibling or being a writer)
STEP 3: Free up your list of roles by crossing roles off ones you no longer want to continue. Maybe you go to the gym but you hate it & are miserable doing it; it’s time to cross it off the list.
STEP 4: Balance Your List of Roles. Are they tending to be weighted in one particular area or community of your life? For example, work/non work.
HOW TO BALANCE THE ROLES?
There are three ways to help balance our roles:
- PRIORITIZE: For example, you could prioritize your self-care (in whichever form you have chosen to take it into action, say, nutrition) to balance out the fact that the rest of your roles are work-related.
- REPLACE: Sometimes we have too many roles that are work related, for example, as a member of a given board. We could replace it with a role in a community where we don’t currently have any roles, such as neighbourhood/school volunteer.
- ADD: Some ideas on types of roles would be to think of roles within family (spouse, mom, sister, daughter), friends, health.
STEP 5: (be realistic) Reread list & ask yourself if each is a role you are willing to put time, thought, and effort into nurturing. If not, what can you do to replace or deprioritize that role? >>> Beware of not overlooking roles that are KEY to your happiness as a human being. Did you add roles that show yourself you care for yourself?
STEP 6: Assign goals to each role. Concrete next steps, that take time and helps you feel you are fulfilling that role in life. >>> Noting hours in a worksheet helps! Especially when we don’t know where time “went”.
STEP 7: Monthly review how those roles are manifesting. If anything is out of balance, go through the steps again, adjust.
Too hard? Depends on how much you wish to bring actual change to your life ❣️ This post was inspired in the work by Amy Green.
