Balance can be hard to achieve with a long commute, a challenging career, families at home, recreational activities, education goals, and health concerns. Some areas will need more attention at times than others, but overall, what we are trying to achieve is a healthy balance so we can live a successful life.

The Circle of Life is a tool that allows you to see where your successes are and where more effort might be put to make the rhythm easy and smooth. Go through sections of your life and score them based on your satisfaction in that area. This gives you a visual representation of how your life is balanced. Try picturing the circle as a wheel - would it move smoothly or is it bumping along the road? You may need to take some action steps to smooth out the lines of the circle. If you can look at this as the picture of your life, and commit to making changes, some small, some large, life will become rhythmic and satisfying to you. But it takes an assessment such as this and a commitment to the needed change.

Once you have this clearer view on life that allows you to see where you need to balance, create a plan and a commitment to making those necessary changes. Getting overwhelmed and discouraged happens to us all. Take on small changes at first and, once you see results, it will be easier to tackle the bigger changes.

Try using the Circle of Life weekly so you can see the steps that you are making to achieve balance in your life. You may even notice that sometimes your life will be unbalanced in areas that you weren't aware of before, and this will allow you to make changes in those areas as well. The reinforcement of seeing the numbers inch up can be very motivating. Later, you might redo the Circle quarterly or yearly as a check-up. Have fun with this as you gain control of your time, your goals and your life.

The Circle of Life worksheet is available through Commuter-Assist.com. To request it, please send an email to info@commuter-assist.com with ‘Circle of Life' in the subject line.