From the author: Two psychotherapists are talking: - I always ask each of my patients if he plays chess... - Why? - If he doesn’t play, I advise you to start playing, and if he plays, I advise you to stop. - But why? - I don’t know, but as a rule it helps! Two psychotherapists are talking: - I always ask each of my patients whether he plays chess... - Why? - If he doesn’t plays, I advise you to start playing, and if it plays, I advise you to stop. - But why? - I don’t know, but as a rule it helps! What is the first thing you do when you start your day? Turning on the computer or jotting down a to-do list? Do you read news sites or your Facebook feed? Reading your email or making your most important calls? What we always do isn't necessarily the best thing we can do. Timothy Ferriss has plenty of recipes for turning the daily grind into fun. For example, check your email only twice a day. Or tell everyone “No!” Or lie down on the floor in a crowded place. Or take phones from strangers. What kind of attraction would you come up with for yourself? Would you be interested in turning your day inside out? Check your email five minutes before leaving? Stay on Facebook for five minutes, and in the smoking room for two hours. Start not with the most urgent, but with the most important. To find balance, it can be very helpful to turn your life upside down. Start the week on Sunday. Write not plans, but congratulations. Buy gifts, not books. Eat and sleep whenever you want. But there are bigger things. Who do you feel like? A man, a woman, a child, an old man? A specialist, performer, professional, director, cog in the universal mechanism? What if you turn your ideas about yourself upside down and live with their opposite? Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in his theory of creative thinking, says that creative people combine opposites: they make decisions both logically and emotionally, act both spontaneously and according to plan, are capable of adulthood, and to childishness, to a masculine and feminine approach to life. What opposites of yourself would you like to integrate? What would be a challenge for you? Think like a woman? Work like a child? Rest like a peasant? Falling in love again every day? Plan every minute from dawn to dusk? By challenging yourself, you grow. By uniting opposites, you find a new balance in life. Like a lever, where a small leverage has a colossal impact, even a small fraction of what you have not done before can radically change your life. And, of course, with a personal life balance coach, these changes will happen easier and faster) Sincerely, Alexandra, coach life balance