Juggling Work & Play, Life Balancing

As a Real Estate Agent you are an entrepreneur, a small business owner and as such it is not uncommon to find you working 18 hour days then falling into a fitful sleep, only to wake a begin the cycle again.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, after all that is exactly what you are supposed to do to get a business off the ground.  To be successful you have to put in the hours, and pay your pound of flesh to make it happen.

This attitude will get you far in your chosen career, you just need to make sure that the pound of flesh that you are paying doesn’t turn out to be too high a price - such as the loss of family, friends or your health. This is where life balancing comes into play.  Life balancing, juggling your work, family, personal, and spiritual aspects of life, without neglecting any area.

Especially in a career like real estate, it is easy to put all your effort into your professional life, getting so busy, so completely wrapped up in being available to your clients, that working 18 or even 20 hour days become second nature.  In this career where there aren’t regular pay checks, where your success or failure is based solely on the amount of clients you are working with at any given moment.  It is easy to see how we fall into the “I am available to my clients 24 hours a day, 365 days a year” mentality.  I actually cringe when I hear colleagues make this statement.

So how do you go about creating this balancing act, without letting your professional life suffer?  The easiest way is to simply pull out your appointment calendar and look at the last week.  Are there holes where you wasted time?  Do you have times set aside to spend with family and friends? (A note about family - it doesn’t matter if you’re single, married, in a long term relationship, or not.  Most of us have some sort of family, even if it is the family that we’ve drawn to ourselves and not the one we were born into, and we have to make time for the people that we cherish above all others.) Do you have any time marked out in your calendar for YOU?  You know to exercise, get a massage, read a book, watch the leaves fall or what ever you like to do that doesn’t involve work and allows you a moment to catch your breath (or to increase your heart rate) to recharge your internal batteries, or to unwind so that the stress you thrive on wont eat you alive.  What about the spiritual you?

Now that you’ve got your calendar out, let’s see how we can arrange it to better balance your life.

Work - It seems fairly obvious, but it is a catch 22, you need to work, after all unless you were born with the proverbial Silver Spoon, you need to pay bills, have a roof over your head and to eat.  So the largest amount of your time is definitely going to be work time.

Family - If you’re married or in a relationship and want to stay that way, you will need to devote a sizable chunk of your time to this area.  Your family time isn’t the same as that of your single colleagues, you have already committed your time and your attention to another person (if there are children, several people).  And your schedule should reflect that.  This is the point where you have to sit down with your better half and come to an agreement on how you are going to spend your time together, and in what ways.  This doesn’t mean just being at home together with the T.V. blaring and the only conversation is talking back to commercials.  Schedule date nights, outings, game time, play time, a weekend away, a vacation, a walk in the park, time to pick up a pet at the local shelter.  This may or may not overlap into some of the other areas, such as spiritual - church, personal - exercising together, etc.

If you’re single, that is going to depend solely upon the demands of your family - it could mean lunch with Mom once a month, Sunday dinner every week, or 15 minutes every other day on the phone. Only you can judge that.  And on your personal goals, i.e. dating.

Personal - Whether you are 18 or 60 you need to take personal time.  The only way your business can grow is if you are there to make it.  But the only way you can be there to be the success you’ve envision is to be healthy enough to work. Kind of a double edged sword.  You absolutely need to eat right, exercise, sleep, and play in order to maintain a healthy mind, body and spirit.  A healthy you is a much more productive you.  It will also go a long way toward elevating stress, and keeping that heart attack at bay.  How much time do you need to schedule depends on you?  Are you taking care of your self now, or are you burning the candle at both ends.  Are you eating healthy meals or is the drive through your only source of sustenance?  Do you exercise, or has your weight been slowly going up since you started this career path?  Your schedule depends on how you answered these questions.  If you already make time to exercise, but don’t have it on your calendar, just put it in.  If you don’t well start with 20 minutes 3 days a week, take a walk, join the gym, do sit-ups or squats, ride your bike - what ever just do it.  If you haven’t eaten a decent meal in a while, it’s time to start scheduling your meal time too. You can set aside time to make meals for the week, or simply pack a salad to take with you, include a healthy snack (like a protein bar or piece of fruit and some nuts) and you’ve at least made a step in the right direction.  Here is the big one, scheduling you time that is time just for you, to relax, get a massage once a month, give yourself 15 minutes a day to read, or 20 minutes to stop and just unwind at the park, you know how you unwind and de-stress the best - make it happen.  Sleep-yes you really do need it and no you can’t catch up on it when you’re dead.  If you just keep working into the night, set an alarm that tells you to go to bed.  You can not function at your best if you haven’t slept and your clients will notice!

Spiritual - We are all spiritual beings.  It doesn’t matter if you are religious or not, you are still a spiritual being and the spiritual side of you needs to be as healthy as the rest.  Go to church, meditate, listen to CD’s by Wayne Dyer or any of the other other spiritual guru’s out there (or read one of their books) pick up a “Chicken Soup” book, or reconnect with nature.  It doesn’t matter what you do, but doing it will make you a well rounded, healthy, serene individual who also just happens to be a Great Real Estate Agent!

Beside the scheduling of these times, you need to do one more drastic thing.  When you are with Family, Friends, when you are exploring your spirituality, or when you are reconnecting with yourself - you need to turn off your phone. It won’t be easy, it is one of the toughest thing a real estate agent can do, being disconnected from your business lifeline.  But it is essential to help you relax, to actually be with the people you are with and not on the phone talking about business on your friends or families time.  It will not cause permanent damage, as long as you return the calls in a timely manner, but it just might save your sanity, your relationships and even your life.  Living a balanced life is worth the effort!

P.S. Don’t forget to play!

Tags for this article: balancing work family personal and spiritual, Juggling Work and Play, Life balancing, living a balanced life, real estate agent, stress avoidance