When You Start Saying These 3 Things to Yourself, It’s Time for a Change

by Steve Rizzo

When work and life is out of balance, you might have a conversation in your head that sounds something like this:

I love my job, but it hurts that I am missing out on valuable time with my kids, time that I know I will never get back. I am going to have to occasionally leave early so that I can have more time for them. When I get home too late, I know that I missed out on something very special. And I don’t like going to bed feeling guilty.

I’m tired of taking my job home with me. I need a weekend off from work, without interruption. I want to be able to do what I want—read a book, listen to music, work in my garden, sleep. I miss this part of myself—and I’m taking it back.

My spiritual reservoir is on “empty.” Taking time to commune with nature is important to me, and I barely have time to meditate or to appreciate a sunrise or sunset the way I used to. I guess I just got caught up. Yes I’m successful, but I don’t feel fulfilled. I have to bring that sacred part of me back to myself. I deserve to be happy on all levels.

Sound familiar?

There’s no doubt we are living in a world so fast-paced that it’s easy to get lost and misplace our feelings and values.

A value can be something tangible or intangible that we esteem highly—like family, freedom, spirituality, health, goodness, playfulness, self-sufficiency, time to spend as we like, and so on.

Your personal and professional lives are individual parts of you that make up the whole of you. And if you put most of your time and energy on just one, you run the risk of leaving the other unfulfilled.

So when our jobs consume us, our souls pay the price. Of course, it is important to love what we are doing for a living. It is essential that we devote quality time toward our job and do our work with excellence. The problem arises when what we do for a living interferes with our other precious core values.

These cherished values are sacred parts of us that need to be experienced and expressed. They give us self-worth. If we ignore them for too long, it leads to unhappiness, regardless of how prestigious your profession is, how much money you make or how successful you think you are.

When you have conversations like these in your head, it’s a sign that things must change—and it is up to you to change them.

When you finally become aware that your job is interfering with other important parts of yourself, you can begin searching for ways to create more balance in your life.

The result of living aligned with all your values is pure and simple happiness—increased peace of mind, self-respect and a sense of fulfillment. Now that’s what I call nourishing your soul!

*This post originally appeared on Success.com

Steve Rizzo is more than a Funny Motivational Speaker. Don’t let the laughter fool you! What Steve brings to the table is his captivating ability to engage the attendees with laughter as he challenges them to SHIFT their focus and way of thinking to discover greater enthusiasm, increased productivity and new levels of success. Recognizing difficult situations don’t cause us to fail or be unhappy, but rather our negative thoughts and beliefs about the situations, Steve has been Adjusting Attitudes in organizations throughout the world such as AT&T, Prudential, State Farm, LaQuinta, and even the CIA (yes, he even had them laughing!) since 1994.
Find him on Twitter @RealSteveRizzo, Facebook at Riz’s Biz Steve Rizzo, LinkedIn and Google+.