Is your life out of alignment? Try this pizza pie

You’re working long hours and something’s just not right.

You have that sense of overwhelm, of frustration. You don’t see your wife, your husband, or your kids enough. You don’t have time to read that good book or even head to the gym.

The first thing you have to do is to stop chasing that mythical work-life balance. There’s not work AND life — there’s just life.

So how can you tell which areas of your life might be out of alignment? The answer lies in a pizza pie.

Here’s a quick activity to help you determine what areas of your life might be out of alignment:

There’s no right or wrong answer in terms of how big each slice should be. What constitutes alignment for me doesn’t necessarily mean alignment to you. Everybody is unique, with unique strengths, family situations and circumstances.

That being said, people with whom I do this activity usually feel that the “work slice” is too big — and the “self slice” is too small.

When many people realize they need to invest more in that slice of self, they get a sense of guilt. Guilt that they might have to steal time and effort from family or work.

A number of moms with whom I’ve worked have taken this and really want to take some more time for themselves (at the gym, reading a book, going for a walk or for coffee with friends), but they feel guilty about doing it.

I’ve worked with some agency founders who cringe at the thought of taking more time for themselves, for fear that taking their mind off their business for just a few hours a week will lead to the ruin of their enterprise.

Here’s the deal: Never, ever, EVER feel guilty about investing in yourself, as long as it’s in alignment with the other two facets of your life.

Investing in yourself means more rest. More relaxation. More time for learning — for intellection. When you invest in your mental health and your physical health, your work and your family will be better off.

Your relationships will improve. You’ll have more energy to focus on the things that are essential (and not just busywork) to scaling your business.

I built and scaled a success PR and ad agency — but only after I hit some bumps in the road that made me want to give it all up. I was trapped in that prison. Out of alignment.

Revenue was great. Money was rolling in. But…

My relationships suffered. My health was the pits. I, too, though I could chase “work-life” balance. And I did it by working myself into anxiety for weeks at a time, and then crashing.

I considered “crashing” to be the life part, and thought I was in full balance. That’s total B.S.

It wasn’t until I truly aligned the three facets of my life that I was able to escape from the prison I had built…And to actually scale my company, so that I could level up not just my business, but my entire life.

If you feel like you’ve built a prison instead of a business… If you feel like you are out of alignment… I urge you to do the “pizza pie” activity.

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