Think about it...

Most of us are too busy rushing around to stop and ask ourselves why.

We rarely make time to step back and question the quality of the life we're leading. Yet if you're restless or unhappy, it's often because the whole balance of your life is wrong. You alone have the power to change this.

This section will show you it can be much easier than you think.

And the first step is to understand yourself.

It's all about quality

We usually box off our lives into different compartments

There's our work of course – and our leisure. Then there's the education and training we do. There's also the efforts we make to put something back into society. In fact these four areas – our working, learning, playing and giving – shape our whole existence.

Strangely enough we usually treat them as totally separate. Yet the whole quality of our life depends on just how successfully we keep them balanced. Luckily today there are some really effective ways to start doing this.

Open your mind

In the modern world work patterns are changing rapidly and traditional roles starting to blur.

In the past people tended to see their lifespan as a spell of learning at school followed by a lifetime of work rounded off with a retirement period split between playing and giving.

This encouraged people to think of their working, learning, playing and giving as quite separate areas – rather than trying to combine them in any way.

Today though dramatic social and technological change has transformed the world of work and given many people the opportunity to lead more interesting and rewarding lives.

Working, Learning, Playing and Giving

WORKING patterns now include everything from self-employment, consultancy and portfolio careers to home working, jobsharing and flexi-working.

LEARNING can be not just for work but for life in general.

Don't think of PLAYING in terms of evenings and weekends. It's just about doing interesting things or lightening up your life. If you love your work, even that can seem like play.

GIVING too means much more than just donating money – it may include supporting family or friends, sharing your skills or just being a good friend. All this creates endless new possibilities for improving your quality of your life. The best idea is to find ways of combining two or more of these areas.

For example, you may never paid to play your favourite sport, but you could well get a good income – and a lot of satisfaction - in work that gets you involved with it in some way. Or if your present job bores you, you might take on a learning programme that equips you to move into a more interesting field.

You might even consider taking lower-paid work that gives you time to pursue your favourite interests. Today working may take second place to giving for some families – and men who stay at home to bring up children also create opportunities for their partners.

Once you open your mind, you'll find it's easy to think of all kinds of exciting possibilities. You can even use the highly successful WLPG process to help you.

But first try the exercise below to understand more about your current life balance.