Photo by Bud Helisson on Unsplash
Life is complicated. Life areas help to reduce the complexity allowing us to build a well-rounded life design.
Going through each of the life areas, gives you a way of looking at your life in a more focused way when designing your life. By looking at each life area separately we can go much deeper into our life design. Each life area has the same aspects as your overall life design.
Life areas provide us a way of looking at our life design from different perspectives. A holistic life design will take all the life areas into account and ensure they all are positively impacting our vision.
We can gain clarity in our purpose, vision, and mission by examining how they fit into each of the life areas. Do you have a compelling vision in each life area that fulfills your purpose? Is your mission getting you closer to your vision in each life area?
By understanding our purpose, vision, and mission in relation to each of the life areas, we can go deep into what our purpose and vision are. We will get new insights and new ways of looking at how we want to live our lives.
It is important to live a balanced life. If we ignore one of the life areas it will pull down our life in other life areas. Without enough attention on our health, we won’t have the energy to achieve our goals. We run the risk of burning out when we ignore fun and recreation. Pursuing our vision in each of the life areas provides energy and momentum for all life areas.
The perspective of the life areas also gives us more clarity on what goals and objectives we potentially need to accomplish to create our vision.
The whole of your life design is a cumulation of the quality of your life design in each of the life areas.
Life areas break your life into ten major groupings. JournaledLife defines the life areas as:
The health life area covers your physical health, fitness and exercise, and well-being.
The personal growth life area covers your inner world and how you fit in with a larger whole. If you are a religious person, it includes your faith. Personal growth covers everything in your life that leads to you becoming a better person.
Personal growth fulfills the deep need that we all have to be a part of something greater than ourselves, to make a difference in the world, or to make an impact.
The family life area covers both family relationships and parenting.
The fun and recreation life area covers everything you do to get fun and enjoyment out of life.
The lifestyle life area covers where you live, your home, and your possessions.
Your romantic relationship with your significant other is the most important relationship in your life.
This is one area where it makes sense to put personal goals together with your partner
The social life area covers all your relationships outside of your family. The friends, people, and communities you spend time with, not including spouse and family members.
The career life area covers your professional life, the part of your life where you work to make money.
The financial life area covers the financial aspects of your life. It includes your life budget, your saving plan, your investment plan, and your retirement plan.
The lifelong learning life area covers what you learn, the exercising of your mind. This includes improving existing skills, learning new skills, attaining knowledge.
Each life area has a vision that is a subset of your overall life vision.
Understanding your vision as it relates to each life area helps to create a strong overall vision. A strong overall vision is a life blueprint that creates a fulfilling life in all areas of life.
Each time you evaluate your vision in each life area, it gives you a bigger view of your overall life vision. It allows you to refine your life vision such that it plays a bigger part in each individual life area.
Compelling visions that you are actively working towards in each life area will lead to a balanced life with each supporting the other life areas.
Every life area has an effect on every other life area.
You require a strong financial life in order to afford the lifestyle life area. A strong financial life gives you the opportunity to pursue goals in other life areas.
You require a strong healthy life in order to enjoy and pursue your goals in your life areas. If you have goals in life areas but you don’t have the energy to pursue them you will not create the life you desire.
You require strong social, family, and love connections to motivate you and to support you in the tough times.
You require fun in order not to get burnt out.
Understanding the unique ways your life areas interact is key in creating a vision that creates a meaningful, fulfilling, happy life for you.
The vision for each of your life areas combines to create your overall life vision. When envisioning each life area visions you will naturally come up with goals to create the visions. Those goals may become part of your ongoing mission.
Reflecting on the vision for each life area uncovers goals and objectives that can be pursued. Understanding these goals and objectives as they relate to each life area gives you the opportunity to move all your life areas forward.
Part of living a balanced life is actively pursuing goals and objectives in all life areas. Understanding your goals and objectives in terms of the life areas they support allows you to create a balanced life plan where all life areas are being addressed.
When evaluating priorities, take into account all life areas. Each life area contributes to your life in different ways. Every priority will be valued differently in each life area. Understanding the value the priority produces in each life area results in understanding the value of the priority in your whole life.
A priority that has high importance in the career life area may have a low priority in the family life area. While the priority may add value in the career life area, it is taking away from the family life area. There may be another priority that has less value in the career life area and more value in the family life area. When taken together, the priority leads to a more fulfilling meaningful life.
Balancing the priorities among all the life areas is key to leading a balanced life.
When creating your life vision, commit to putting energy into all life areas.
If time and effort are not being put into a life area, then that life area will lessen. As all life areas are interconnected, a life area that shrinks will bring down all the life areas. This is why it is so important to always be looking at all life areas when designing your life.
Taking all life areas into account does not mean that all life areas need to have the same time and energy. When you are younger the career life area will take more time and effort than other life areas. When you are older, especially after retirement this life area will take less time and energy. Even in retirement, there should be some aspect of work where you are creating value for others. In retirement, this is typically volunteering, pro-bono, and other activities that are not directly related to earning income.
The outcome of looking at your life areas is a more complete version of your purpose, vision, and mission. Whether you are refining your overall purpose, vision, and mission or creating versions of your purpose, vision, and mission for each life area, you will gain clarity in your overall life design.
Each time you evaluate your vision in each life area, it gives you a bigger view of your overall life vision. It allows you to refine your life purpose such that it plays a bigger part in each individual life area.
The vision for each of your life areas combines to create your overall life vision. When envisioning your life area visions you will naturally come up with goals to create the visions. Those goals may become part of your ongoing mission.
Compelling visions that you are actively working towards in each life area will lead to a balanced life with each supporting the other life areas.
It is important to live a balanced life. If we ignore one of the life areas it will pull down our life in other life areas. Without enough attention on our health, we won’t have the energy to achieve our goals. We run the risk of burning out when we ignore fun and recreation. Pursuing our vision in each of the life areas provides energy and momentum for all life areas.
Reflect, analyze, plan, and do. Reflect on your life areas, analyze how they contribute to your life, plan how to move each life area forward, and then commit and do the work.
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