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Getting the Balance and the 9-box model

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Do you ever wish that you dealt better with the challenges of life?

One way of becoming more resilient to the challenges of life is to make sure that you have a wide variety of things in your life that balance each other.

To use an example - if almost all of your energy is spent working then work is proportionately a huge part of your life (see diagram).

If, however, you have other interests, work becomes of smaller significance e.g:

Where you have a variety of interests, a hiccup in one has less of an effect on your wellbeing over all. Therefore, a bad day in the office recedes in significance as you turn to your hobbies that are going well.

Getting variety

The greater the selection of activities we take part in the easier it is to maintain a balance.

9 activities are an ideal number to aim for. Ideally 3 of the activities should be around physical fitness, 3 should be things which restore your mental energy (which will depend on whether you are extrovert or introvert) and the remaining 3 should be things that help your lifestyle.

An extroverts 9 boxes could look like this:

An introverts 9 boxes could look like this:

The 9 things need to be activities that you are properly engaged in – that you spend energy (physical, mental or both) on. They need to be things you do – not things you hope to get around to!

If you can fill all (or at least the majority) of the boxes, then you have other things to distract you when something in one box goes wrong. This is a really good way to protect your mental health.

Action

Grab a piece of paper, draw your 9 boxes and see how many you can fill. If you can’t fill them all, what are you going to do to fix that?

Sunday June 9th, 2024
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Sam Hughes
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Staffordshire Moorlands, UK