How to Live a Balanced Lifestyle

People always ask me “Arielle, how do you manage to find time to do all that?” and honestly, the answer is simple: balance.

Hi there! My name is Arielle, and I’m so happy to have you here. This blog post will be about sharing my insight on finding balance in your life and making time to accomplish your goals without feeling overwhelmed.

So how do you find balance?

The first thing you want to learn is to set realistic goals for yourself. That doesn’t mean stop dreaming big, but you need to take baby steps towards achieving your bigger goal.

What’s realistic for me is that my day may not always go as planned, and that’s okay. There were days where I do absolutely nothing, and other times where I am hyper-focused on completing my tasks for the day.

Yet through these cycles of ups and downs, I somehow manage to find time to spend on my priorities. A huge part of my life is making time for my family, my friends, and myself.

One of my goals is to prioritize self-care consistently into my routine. It has become an important part of my day and has become a part of my routine that I look forward to. Self-care used to sound like a selfish thing to do, however it’s an essential part towards building a relationship with yourself.

In the past few years, I learned that spending time alone was a part of growing up. I used to think that being alone meant that I was bored, or had no friends or social life, or that I wasn’t doing enough with my time, but it’s a necessity towards living a happy, balanced life.

This type of mindset that led to me believing that I wasn’t doing enough with my life. However, that is not true.

You are exactly where you need to be right now. Don’t rush the process.

It took me a long time to realize that comparison is the thief of happiness. By constantly comparing myself to other people, I kept thinking that I had to overcompensate for that by always doing as much as I can. I had this false narrative in my mind that if I was sitting at home relaxing, I wasn’t doing enough. I started looking for more part-time jobs, I started joining clubs on campus, and started hanging out more with new friends that I made along the way.

Don’t get me wrong, all of this is great, but where in this busy lifestyle is there time for myself?

It came to a point where I told myself it’s time for a change, time to put an end to this never-ending cycle of exhaustion.

When did I realize I needed to find balance?

I really started to see the value of self-care when I started feeling burnt out with trying to find time between work, school, and just life in general.

My life wasn’t always about finding balance. In 2015 when I graduated high school. I felt completely lost and had no idea what I wanted to do. I decided to enrol at Ryerson University studying Business Management.

After the first semester, I realized that this program wasn’t right for me, and I decided to take a year off and figure out what I really wanted to do.

This one year that I took off from school was brutal. I felt displaced but started working in a large company where I was probably the youngest employee there. I felt lost because I didn’t know what I wanted to study. I felt behind because all my friends were entering their third year of university when I was just about to be starting my first all over again.

In the next year, I found myself at York University studying Health Management. I was two years older than almost everyone in my program and felt like I needed to prove myself. Throughout these years, I was working three part time jobs simultaneously while taking on a full course load in university.

How did I manage to find time to do all that? I sacrificed my mental health.

Was it worth it? In the moment yes, in the long run, absolutely not.

This constant state of exhaustion was not fun, and I was tired of it. I started doing some self-care activities and started to figure out what I needed to cut out in my life to make time for myself.

Ideas for self-care activities:

• Go on a walk outside

• Go for a quiet drive

• Go shopping

• Grab a coffee by yourself or with a friend

• Buy yourself a meal

• Listen to any music that feels calming to you

• Watch your favourite childhood movie

• Read a book

• Dance in the mirror (sounds silly, but it works!)

When I started incorporating these activities into my daily routine, I started feeling less stressed, less anxious, less irritable. I started feeling happier, felt at peace, felt content with where I was in life and positive about where I was going.

I noticed that when I got my dog Jax (shameless plug for his Instagram @jaxinthe6), it helped me get out of this slump in my life. When I started to feel sluggish and didn’t feel motivated to get any work done, I took it as a sign towards looking inward and nurturing myself.

Typically, when I feel sluggish and unmotivated, it means that I need to find time to take a step back and relax. My favourite activity to reset and ground myself is to go on a walk with Jax. Even if you don’t have a dog, going outside and connecting with nature is a great way to take a moment to calm your mind.

So is there a specific recipe to finding balance? No.

Why? Because everyone has different goals and different ideas on what balance means to them.

Don’t let society and the power of social media fool you into thinking that you need to be on a restrictive diet or force yourself to wake up at 5am everyday to be productive. However, it’s not as complicated as it may seem.

The idea is to make realistic goals that fit the lifestyle that you want. The truth is that taking time towards getting to know yourself is the best thing you can do for yourself. You are your best asset, invest in yourself. Take the time to learn about your likes and dislikes. What you want and what you don’t want. Now, it's time to figure out what your priorities are, and make time for it.

It is okay to take breaks and take baby steps.

Major changes do not happen overnight but being consistent will lead to positive results.

Thanks for reading my first blog post! I hope you enjoyed it and learned something helpful.

Try out some of these self-care tips, and let me know how it goes for you!

Follow me for more on Instagram and TikTok @416arielle