Category Archives: Lifestyle

4 Tips for Balancing Your Family and Career

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Being a parent is one of the most difficult roles that anyone could have. It’s a role that essentially begins right when you find out there is a pregnancy. Even after your child turns 18, parenting doesn’t end then. This is a role that you take on until death. There is no doubt about it that being a parent is hard. You have to do this 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and you’re not going to get very many breaks (if any at all).  Nevertheless, this round-the-clock job is completely worth it for the little ones that you love.

With that said, many parents face a fork in the road of whether to dedicate more time to their family or advance their careers. It’s something that many will face, and it’s a struggle to make such a decision. There’s this belief that in order to advance in your career, whether you work for an employer or for your own business, there need to be sacrifices. It doesn’t entirely need to be the case, however.

You can still have a fulfilling career and have a happy family to tend to at the same time. Sure, maybe some sleep here and there or some “me-time” needs to be sacrificed, but it’s completely worth it to get some balance in , isn’t it? There are some tips to help you out in balancing out having a career and keeping to your family life at the same time.

Work from home

Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, now more than ever parents are getting the opportunity to work from home. Because of this, parents are getting to have more time to themselves since there’s no need to commute, more time to stay up, sleep in, clean up the home, and even take care of the family. Getting to work remotely does have its perks, and some people are looking into working remotely permanently. It’s easy to see why as well. 

There are so many benefits to getting to work from home that it would be hard to pass up. Having the chance to work virtually from home allows the chance to multitask such as cooking and cleaning throughout the day, getting to eat with your family, and there’s no need to worry about coming home late from work.

A great example that many are doing would be quickly throwing in some dishes into the dishwasher while chatting on the phone with a coworker. Even if you’re waiting for a meeting to begin or a call from a client, you can then do something such as fold laundry. Doing all of these tasks throughout the day can make a world of a difference. It frees up so much time in your day, so you’d be able to do other things.

Set some boundaries

As a parent, you should never be afraid to set boundaries. Your family should come first, and you need to protect them. Not only is it important to establish boundaries but it’s important for establishing paternity as well.  Having boundaries will allow your coworkers and clients to see that there are limits. Some examples can include leaving a signature in your email that states that you do not respond to messages past 5:00 pm, refusing to take calls after work or during dinner, or even telling everyone that you’re not going to respond or take calls during weekends or vacations.

It’s important to set clear boundaries and to protect them at every chance that you get. Unfortunately, boundaries tend to get crossed quite easily and it can then be more difficult to set them again. Stand up for yourself and don’t allow yourself to be taken advantage of.

Keep work and personal life separate

You wouldn’t miss a meeting at work, right? Then why would you miss dinner with your family or an important event? It’s important to keep your work and your home life separate. You should treat home-life obligations as just as important as your job obligations.  Make sure that you put important events in your schedule, stay informed too. Another thing that could help is immediately getting out of the work mindset the moment you get home.  You should keep all of your work-related responsibilities at work. So this means no answering the phone or checking emails once you’re home.  You want to promote family bonding and this is a nice way to do that.

Skip out on work social events

While a lot of these aren’t as common due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, there are some offices that will do Friday Night Drinks or Happy Hour, or even company-related events such as weekend trips. These are usually not mandatory, and it’s usually fit for those who don’t have families or who are still young in their career. You don’t have to force yourself to go to these events, instead, just allow yourself to go home and be with your family.

9 Tips For Looking After Your Physical Health

A new year seems as good a time as any to take a look at your physical health and see how you can push things in the right direction. You’ll notice a lot of benefits if you do! For example, you’ll likely find that you have more energy, that you’re happier, and that you look better. That’s a whole lot of goodness that can come just from prioritizing your health. And the best part? It’s pretty straightforward to look after this aspect of your life.

In this blog, we’ll run through nine tips that everyone should follow. Incorporate them into your life, and it won’t be long before you’re beginning to notice the effects.

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Where Are You? 

You can’t figure out how to make improvements until you know where you are. So to begin, do a little review of your health. Would you consider yourself a healthy person? An unhealthy person? Or somewhere in between? One of the reasons why people fall into an unhealthy physical existence is because they don’t review where they are. Once you’ve got this understanding, you’ll be able to incorporate changes that’ll push you in the right direction.

Eating Well

You are what you eat. While we might wish that wasn’t the case, it is! If you’re not eating healthy meals, then you’ll be facing an uphill battle if you want to be at your healthiest best. To get this started, you’ll again need to conduct a little review. What does your current diet look like? Remember to dig a little deeper than simply what you think is healthy — there are plenty of meals that sound healthy but which actually aren’t. Also, don’t be fooled into thinking that eating healthy meals has to be expensive. It doesn’t! 

Find an Activity

You’ll need to get moving if you want to be physically healthy! There’s just no way to be healthy without getting up off the couch and moving. This can sound like a chore, but it doesn’t have to be. The trick is to find an activity that you like. That way, you’ll be getting healthy without even realizing it. You’ll be having fun. There’s no shortage of things that you can do. For example, you could take up a team sport, cycling, hiking, or cross-country skiing. Of course, you don’t need to do something like that — there’s always the gym, which is pretty much the perfect place to get yourself fit. 

Regular Checkups 

You may have a sense of how healthy you are. But the truth is, you’re not an expert. By the time you realized that something was wrong with you, the condition would already have developed. So it’s important to take the time to visit a health professional from time to time, just to get a checkup. It’s always best to catch a potential problem as early as possible, and that’s just what a checkup will allow you to do. Pay particular attention to the hereditary conditions that you may be susceptible to. You may be unable to avoid a condition, but you can begin managing it as early as possible. 

Managing Vices

You can’t have everything in life. There are some things that we may enjoy, but which have a negative impact on our health. At that point, you’ll need to make a decision: do you want to keep them as part of your life, or would it be better to say goodbye to them? In all likelihood, you’ll find that the latter option is the way to go. Vices such as smoking, drinking too much alcohol, or overeating unhealthy foods can have a really negative impact on our overall health. It can seem difficult to cut these things out, especially if they’ve been a part of our lives for a long time. However, if there’s one thing to know, it’s that it’s rarely as difficult as people think. Plus, there’s a lot of help and support available, especially when it comes to things like reducing alcohol and tobacco use.

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Handle Injuries

You might be in pretty good physical shape right now. But all it could take is one injury for you to fall into a bad state. That’s why it’s always important to take a safety-first approach, no matter what you’re doing. Of course, sometimes, an injury is beyond your control. There are plenty of people who need to hire a personal injury lawyer because an accident was someone else’s fault, after all. In that scenario, it’s important that you take action as soon as possible. The costs related to an accident can be significant, so it’ll be best if you receive as much compensation as possible. That’ll allow you to afford the treatment that’ll help to get your physical health back to its highest level. 

Pre-Emptive Care 

There are a whole host of things you can do that’ll have long-term positive impacts on your physical health. Going to the gym (or doing some sort of physical activity) will be a good starting point. But then there are things like yoga, which people overlook. They say that you stay the same age as you were when you first started doing yoga regularly. Get started now, and you’ll be thankful that you took the time to do it! Meditation can also have a positive impact on your physical health (as well, of course, as your mental well-being). 

Supplements and Vitamins

If you have a healthy diet, then you’ll be going a long way towards ensuring that your body has what it needs to be at its brilliant best. But it’s possible that you can’t get everything from your meals. This is where supplements can come in. Things like maca and multivitamins can help to give your body a real boost. 

Checking In 

Finally, remember that looking after your physical health is an ongoing process. It’s not something that you just do once and forget about. Make a habit of periodically reviewing your physical well-being and seeing where you may need to make improvements.

How To Deal With Things When They Don’t Quite Go To Plan

Having a strategy and sticking to it provides a sense of security. That is the point of making plans, is not it? Things do not always go according to plan, however. In such circumstances, we are prone to feeling tense, apprehensive or even panicked. To a certain extent, being ready for whatever life has in store is preferable to living in fear of the worst-case scenario, especially when you cannot control the outcome. Things may not go as planned, and we need to be prepared, but we also need to accept that things will happen as they do. It could be that you are involved in an accident, have surgery that goes wrong and ends up causing one of many types of brain injuries or something equally as catastrophic.

Of course, there are times when an emergency arises, as well as those phone calls you would rather not receive. Many of these occurrences are, regrettably, beyond your control. Things like creating an “in case of emergency” plan with your family will help put your mind at ease if you feel like doing so. What to do if you can not get in touch with a member of your family, or where to take your children if something goes wrong. Think of anything else that can help you feel less anxious in extreme circumstances. Make a strategy that works for you.

But what do you do when things don’t quite go to plan?

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Learn to let go of the things you can not control

One of the hardest things to accomplish in life is to let go. In the long run, clinging to the past is more mentally taxing than embracing the present. It takes time, patience, and effort to learn to let go. Deep breathing, meditation, and yoga are all excellent methods for developing a practice of acceptance. As difficult as it may be, letting go is freeing and will improve your mental health.

Use negative emotions to motivate

When things did not go according to plan, did you have sentiments of bitterness, rage, or jealousy? It is totally r  However, wallowing in self-pity serves no purpose. Fortunately, there is a way to turn your negative feelings into something positive. If you are enraged and envious because someone else got the job you applied for, consider updating your resume. Instead of dwelling on the mistakes of the past, attempt to move ahead. Because of this, you may get the job you have been looking for even more. And you will have a better chance of getting this job now that your resume is in order.

Learn to forgive yourself
When things do not go according to plan, we tend to blame ourselves. What might we have done to make it better? What went wrong here? Self-doubt sets in even when the situation is absolutely beyond our control.  Be kind to yourself and trust that everything will work out.  Taking responsibility and letting yourself go is the only way to go forward. Make peace with yourself or with a loved one by writing a letter – you don’t need to send it, but just write it. Another excellent method for expressing yourself is through the use of a journal. It feels good to get everything out on paper when you are feeling overwhelmed and have no idea where to turn.