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Life is all about balance. Too much of anything is dangerous and too little is never enough.

It can be hard to maintain a perfect balance in your life. What often happens is that you oscillate between the two extremes of too much and too little while hardly ever resting at a perfect equilibrium.

Today I want to tell you about a blog I follow that provides practical tips for life balance called Balance in Me.

It’s authored by Anastasiya Goers who is a happily married mother of two and fitness enthusiast. Her articles often remind me to keep a healthy balance with everything in my life and I thought you’d like to hear about her.

I asked Anastasiya a few questions about life and balance, and here’s what she had to say:

1- Your blog is about finding balance and living a happy life, why is this so important to you?




Who does not want to be happy? For each one of us happiness might mean different things but in the end we are all looking for it. I discovered that the road that takes to happiness is through balanced living (at least this is the road that works for me.)

Life balance lets you focus on the most important parts of your life without losing control of other areas. I find that there are a lot of important factors that make up happy life: family, financial stability, hobbies and passions, friends and social life, health, satisfying job, emotional balance, spirituality. Balance does not mean that each of these areas has to be in complete equilibrium, it does not mean that you have to divide your time and attention equally between these areas. Balance rather means choosing the most important areas at this particular period of your life without throwing away everything else. When time comes to change your priorities and interests you will be easily able to switch your focus.

To me balance is the state that gives me the most happiness because I do not have to pick between spending time with my family, following my passions or taking care of my health. Living a balanced life allows me to experience life fully without getting overwhelmed or stressed out.

2- What advice would you give to someone who is not happy with their life, how should they go about finding happiness?

There is no one-fit-all piece of advice but I would definitely start by examining current priorities and current life of this person. Before you can fix something you need to figure out what exactly is wrong and whether you can change everything by changing your attitude towards the situation.

Here is a very simple exercise: Break down your life into 7 areas (you can add more if something is missing from this list): family, health, financial stability and work, hobbies and passions, social life and friends, emotional balance and spiritual needs. Using a scale from 1 to 10 rate your satisfaction with each of these areas (10 being completely satisfied and happy.) Do you see that some areas are dragging around 2-4 while others are at 9-10? You do not want to have all your areas at the same level but you should definitely focus more on the areas that are far behind. Find extra time in your schedule to work on those areas, write down reasons why you are not satisfied with this particular area of your life. Is there something that you can do? Maybe spend more time with your loved ones or learn a new skill to start your own business?

Don’t forget to be grateful for everything that you already have in life. Happiness is not something that you achieve; it is a state in which you live your life. If you do not know what you are grateful for right now then you will never be able to find happiness no matter how much you try.

3- How has your perspective of life changed over the years since you were 18? What was important then and what is important now?

I definitely became more family-focused (after all, who thinks about family at 18?) and more spiritual but other than that I stayed about the same. I’ve always had a very realistic vision of life and it has helped me to find and maintain my life balance.

4- You’re very pro fitness and healthy diet, can you say how this made a difference to your life personally?

I grew up in a country where healthy food and lifestyle in general is definitely not the first priority. Ever since I was a little girl I didn’t like unhealthy foods (fatty meats, fast food, soda, fried food) and I developed a passion for healthy eating. At times it was difficult to maintain (how can you explain to a grandma that deep-fried pastry that she made just for me was not a healthy choice?) but over the years I learned to get around these little obstacles.

I also realized how great I feel after eating healthy food (produce, lean meat, whole grains) and how horrible my body feels after bad foods. Exercise has also proved to be super helpful. Great shape and healthy weight is just a small benefit of a healthy lifestyle.

Most guys won’t understand this but healthy lifestyle has helped me to go through pregnancy with twins without any complications and to stay active before and after my girls were born.

Today I can’t imagine where I would get enough energy to keep up with them if I didn’t adhere to a healthy lifestyle.

5- What are your thoughts about work, should you work a job you hate to make a lot of money, or should you take a risk of starting your own business?

My husband and I have started our own business and it was the best decision that we could make. However, we started our business while we still had our regular jobs and we made sure that we had enough savings to support our family for a few months in case something went wrong with the business.

I think that every person should make this decision for themselves. If you have a great idea and resources to start something on your own – go for it! If you are married and especially if you have kids make sure to talk to your spouse before making any decisions. Also make sure that your business model is not based only on your passion and wishful thinking: plan for better and for worse, consider all details, talk to people you trust and make sure to put 80% of your effort into your business idea. As a Christian I would also add another advice: pray about this decision. There is only so much that we can control in life.

Anastasiya has a wonderful book called The Book of Wisdom: 50 ideas for the all-around balanced life. You can download it for free at her blog. You’ll need to sign up for her newsletter to get it and it’s totally worth it, because you’ll also receive updates from her latest articles which are often gems of wisdom.

You can also visit Anastasiya’s blog at Balanceinme.com or consider joining the Balance in Me Club – a community of supportive and friendly people who are seeking life balance.