In order to maintain a good degree of well-being in life, there are certain things that we all need, to one degree or another.
Certainly, we all need to have good interpersonal relationships with people we love and cherish, and it doesn’t hurt at all to have a job that you find genuinely rewarding and meaningful.
In addition to all the other things that contribute significantly to a sense of well-being, however, it’s difficult to overstate the importance of maintaining a sense of balance and positivity in your life, and the feeling that you are in control of your destiny to a significant degree.
All too often, the trials and tribulations of everyday life can throw us off track, and can put us in a state of fatalism and “learned helplessness.”
Some of the most powerful and effective things that you can do in order to safeguard your sense of well-being, as a whole, involve finding ways to regain and reinforce a sense of balance and harmony in your life, in addition to the feeling that you are in control of your destiny in fundamental ways.
Here are a few tips for regaining a sense of balance and control.
Start by tidying up and organizing your home
Although it may seem like an extremely minor – and maybe even irrelevant – thing, tidying up and organizing your home can actually be remarkably beneficial on a deep psychological level, and can be an excellent practical way of helping you to regain a sense of balance, harmony, and control of your destiny.
The famous Japanese cleaning guru Marie Kondo titled her bestselling book “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up,” and there can indeed seem to be remarkable benefits that occur as a result of simply getting your living space tidied up and organized.
When you feel as though you don’t have much control of your own destiny, and that things are out of balance in a fundamental way, anything in your immediate environment that helps to reinforce that sense of things is bound to be very detrimental.
In this context, a messy and cluttered home environment can cause you to not only feel uncomfortable and disorganized, but can also send you a subtle and ongoing psychological signal that you don’t have a good grasp on things, and won’t be able to make effective change in your life.
By turning up, decluttering, and beautifying your home, you are directly tackling those latent psychological assumptions, and are sending yourself a new message instead: that you genuinely have the ability to improve your environment, and your life, on a fundamental level.
Reduce the complexity and frustration you have to deal with via your everyday tools
We all rely on certain tools, gadgets, and items to help us organize and manage our lives on an everyday basis – and in today’s world, an increasing number of those tools tend to be digital, in one form or another.
The idea is that these tools will help to simplify our lives and make things easier, but the unfortunate fact of the matter is that they can often end up becoming just another source of complexity and frustration, and can ultimately cause us to feel overwhelmed and out of sorts.
Looking for ways to reduce the complexity and frustration that you have to deal with, with regards to your everyday tools, can actually go a long way towards helping to free you from a sense of overwhelm. You might want to look into software that could help you to declutter and organize your computer, for example, or you might want to look for ways of upgrading to better labor saving devices.
Find regular opportunities for a bit of silence – especially in natural settings
The Norwegian explorer Erling Kagge has achieved all kinds of remarkable feats over the course of his life so far, including being the first man to walk solo to the South Pole.
In recent years, he has written a few books, including one entitled “Silence: in the Age of Noise.” In this book, he outlined his belief that regular moments of silence and stillness are essential in order for us to get in touch with the deepest parts of ourselves, to truly thrive, and to truly experience a sense of peace and harmony.
By “silence” Kagge isn’t just referring to the absence of literal sound. Instead, he means something more like a break from the constant distractions that we are all perpetually surrounded by in the modern world – ranging from our social media feeds, to whatever is happening on TV.
By finding regular opportunities for a bit of silence in your everyday life – especially if you can enjoy that silence in natural settings – you can help to regain a sense of tranquillity, and get back in touch with what’s truly most important to you.
Set yourself some goals that you genuinely value, and start working towards them
If you feel as though you have little control over the course of your life, and your fate as a whole, one of the best things you can do is to set yourself some goals that you genuinely value, and to start working earnestly and consistently towards them.
These should be goals that connect with what you find most meaningful in life, as opposed to ones which just sounds nice or exciting, or that reflect a particular marker of success that you don’t feel personally invested in on a deeper level – like owning a yacht.
Whether you set your goals six months from now or three years from now, the art of goal setting can give you milestones to work towards and can help you to break out of a state of complacency.
Establish a regular daily routine, and stick to it
A sense of helplessness and a lack of harmony often go along with a feeling of inertia, and an inability to take action.
To break out of this trap, establish a regular daily routine that gets you busy – perhaps using a habit tracker.
Even just working out three times a week at regular intervals, and having set times when you go to bed each night and wake up each morning can be very powerful.