Monday, August 28, 2017

Day 219- Setting Money to Purpose: Creating a Work/Life Balance



This blog is continued from: In Money but not OF Money - Howto Find Your Passion Without Chasing Money




          This blog is focused on living the principle of honouring self, and creating the best life possible, while not allowing the pursuit of money flatten one's passion or ambition. In my last blog, I discussed about how I changed my experience at work and my starting point of working, in order to bring more of ME into my job, and re-ignite my passion and fire despite the fact that I was only originally there for money. The process was very difficult for me, and filled my life with challenge.

          During pushing myself to change the way I work and Who I Am within the work I do, from making it all about money, to making it more about me, my passion and my spark of life, I noticed an unfortunate problem: My life had become all about challenging myself, my habits and my comfort zone, and nothing else. It was ALL difficult and challenging, and there was nothing else. In this blog, I will talk about how I created my life outside of work, to support the balance that is ever so necessary in life. It must not only ever be about challenge and letting go, but also about creation, and building the new way of being and doing.

          What I did to address this problem, was to now look at what I could create and develop outside of work, in my home life. I asked myself: what do I want to create and develop for me that would create more of a balance in my life so that it wasn’t all about money and making money. So I made a list.

          The first thing I looked at was my living space. I was living with my parents in a spare bedroom to save money and pay off debt. This means that my living space had also come from a starting point of money only, I had not really considered myself. The room was small, so I had items and belongings scattered into several rooms. The room was also right next to my parents bedroom, so if I came home late, I risked waking them up. Due to this, I found myself feeling like I had no personal space to call my own.

          I asked if it would be alright if I created a space for myself in the basement so that I would rather create my living space from a starting point of what would best support me, my living, my life.

          I accumulated furniture through friends and acquaintances, estate sales and second-hand stores. I bought some plants and some lights, and created quite a nice space, with a fireplace, a workout zone, office and bedroom area. After several months, I had my space set up to reflect me, my life, and what I wanted to do.


           The next thing I noticed was that I had very little activity outside of work. I had deemed it too expensive to go out into the city while I was trying to save money and pay off debt. I decided here that it was more important to create balance in my life, than to stay at home only in order to save money. I freed up some of my funds and looked into discount classes or courses I might be interested in. What I found was that many yoga classes offer a trial month at a very reduced price, so I signed up!

          Hot yoga was very nice to attend during the cold winter months, and I really felt like I was doing something nice for my mind, being and body. It was an incredibly supportive activity for me to do after a day in the office and before going home for the night. It got me out of the house on weekends, because I had become somewhat of a hermit, and it motivated me to consider my body in terms of treating it well and giving it what it needs.

           What followed from here was relationships. Now that I had several important areas of my life covered and directed, I began to notice myself become interested and motivated to have more people in my life. There were a few ladies I worked with that I really got along well with, and began to test out spending some time together outside of work. We managed to develop a deeper connection than simply ‘colleagues’, and supported each other through tough times at work, as well as had fun times outside of work. Again, here I had to make the decision to free up some funds for this, but often times we were able to keep it cheap by making our own food and watching free documentaries at home, staying up late into the night to discuss what we had learned, or having a cookout in the yard and chatting over a meal.

          All of these things required me to challenge who I was and what my priorities were, among many other things, without compromising my goals. Due to what I had been experiencing at work, i would fall into more depressed states, and have difficulty getting myself up and out, I don’t know if I would have had the ability to contemplate my life and needs, or the tools to use my creativity and actually practically make and implement such decisions for myself if I didn’t have the skills and understandings that I learned through walking a dedicated process of self-change. This is but one example of how I walked my process for ME. I supported myself and my unique life and situation in ways that created balance within and as creating a life that is beneficial for me. Why? Because I matter. And until I make this a living realization in every moment, I will only be waiting forever for myself to change and become a better human being.

Dare to change your own life? The following links are not for the faint of heart:








Thanks for reading my story!

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