Understanding the importance of balancing work, family and fitness is the first step towards a more fulfilled life. Each aspect plays a crucial role in your overall happiness and wellbeing. Work provides you with a sense of purpose and financial stability, family gives emotional support and joy, and fitness promotes your physical health and mental clarity. Therefore, striking a balance ensures that you excel in all areas without feeling overwhelmed or guilty for neglecting one for the other.
In today’s fast-paced world juggling multiple responsibilities can often leave little time for self-care and exercise. However, by implementing some practical strategies and making a few adjustments, it is possible to find the time for a healthy lifestyle without compromising work and family life. In this article we will cover how to set realistic goals, manage your time effectively, and integrate fitness into your daily life for a healthier, happier you.
Discover our essential tips for balancing work, family and fitness!
1 Set Realistic Goals
Short term and long-term goals
It is well researched that setting specific goals for yourself can help you achieve the best results. These need to be both short- and long-term results to get to the outcome you are looking for overall. Setting achievable short-term goals for your career, family life, and fitness routine can provide you with immediate targets to work towards, create immediate new habits and ensure you are focusing your attention in each area, helping you to review where these may be out of balance. These might include completing a project at work, spending quality time with family each week, training for a race or achieving a new fitness milestone. Whatever your goal, notice when you see some improvements and use that as motivation to keep going! Small steps can lead to long term habits.
It is also important to identify your long-term aspirations in each area to guide your daily actions and decisions, to ensure your short-term goals will lead you to achieve this bigger vision. Whether it's longer-term career advancement, nurturing strong family relationships, or maintaining a healthy lifestyle and functional fitness for your future health as you age, having clear long-term goals keeps you motivated. Visualising what that looks like, how you will feel, what you want to achieve will help you keep on track with those short-term targets. Keep that bigger picture in your mind when you lose motivation or consistency, will strengthen your commitment and resolve.
2 Prioritise Your Time
Take a flexible approach
Balancing doesn't mean allocating an equal amount of time to work, family, and fitness. It's about prioritising your time based on your goals, responsibilities, and personal values. Understand that these priorities might shift over time, change month to month, and be flexible in adjusting your focus as needed to achieve your short- and long-term goals. For example, training for an event or a big work project, may take more focus one month, which you can plan to balance out in the following month, such as arranging family plans to look forward to together.
Dedicate uninterrupted time for your family, creating meaningful experiences and building stronger bonds. Having this focused time, whether a day out at the weekend, a date night with a partner, half an hour before bed to read with the children or arranging time to play a game together, will help ensure you schedule in family time and reduce the guilt when you are working or focusing on your health and fitness. Then you can incorporate regular physical activity into your routine, whether it's a morning workout, a lunchtime walk, or an evening class can help ensure your fitness plans do not interfere with your work and family time.
Recognise that you can't do everything. Learning to say no to less important tasks or events can free up time for your priorities. Once you have identified what those priorities are, use that as a framework to kindly turn down things that don’t help you achieve your goals, or compromise your time for fitness, work and family if you are struggling to fit everything in.
3 Integrate Fitness into Daily Life
Create Healthy Habits
Set yourself up for success! Create rituals and routines to make it easy to get started and continue, as suggested by James Clear’s atomic habits. If you plan to work out in the morning, leave your clothes and kit out ready to go. If you want to eat more healthily, plan and prep you lunch and meals ahead of time to avoid the unhealthy treats you crave when you are hungry (healthy food doesn’t have to be boring, find better recipes!). If you are struggling to drink enough water, use a water bottle to help you track your hydration throughout the day.
At-Home Workouts
Efficient workout routines that can be done at home, save time on commuting to a gym, changing rooms and waiting in line for equipment. A quick 20-minute workout can be all you need for a full body session, taking minimum time and maximum results for your health and fitness. We have some great workouts to get started on our Workout Centre or find our favourite trainers on our You Tube channel and discover different types of workouts and programmes to suit you, such as Sarah from Find UR Fit! If you are a beginner looking to get going, Amp’s starter bundle can help you start to increase the intensity and resistance in your workouts.
Active Family Outings
Incorporate fitness into family time with activities like hiking, biking, or playing sports together. It's a fun way to stay active and spend quality time with loved ones. Home workouts can also be enjoyed with the family, for example Joe Wick’s You Tube family workouts are a great option to enjoy movement together.
Yoga has been shown in research to enhance physical health, mental clarity, and emotional balance, as well as family bonding, promoting health, happiness and well-being for everyone. Family fitness is a positive step in setting a foundation for a lifetime of wellbeing.
4 The Role of Technology
Take advantage of digital resources and leverage technology like fitness apps, online workout videos, or virtual classes, allowing you to exercise at your convenience and eliminate the time spent commuting to the gym. You can also plan your meals and manage your schedule more effectively. Daily reminders for steps with the Apple Health app and time out for meditation such as Head Space, can ensure you end the day feeling in control, and not frazzled. Often just 5 minutes can make a huge difference to how you feel.
5 Maintaining Motivation and Discipline
Staying motivated and disciplined is key to achieving a balance. Set up rewards for achieving your goals and find an accountability partner to keep you on track (research has shown this will help keep your commitment and motivate you to get out of the door). Keeping track of your progress is one of the best ways to stay motivated as it can help you see how far you've come. Create a fitness tracker tailored to your goals and tick off your workouts, healthy meals, walks and recovery. Setting intentions for the day and the week can be a strong motivator to keep on track, one way of doing this is by daily journaling or just writing down your goals again to reinforce them.
6 Eat healthily
Balancing work, family, and fitness can often lead to unhealthy food choices due to time constraints. Good nutrition is essential for energy and health, especially when balancing multiple responsibilities. Combat this by practicing efficient meal planning and preparation, having healthy snacks on hand can help you maintain a balanced diet amidst a busy schedule (see our guide for a healthy smoothie recipe here). Ensuring you put good fuel in (whole foods, complete proteins, complex carbs, healthy fats) will give you the energy you need for your day and workouts. Eating fast food, refined sugar, processed snacks, won’t provide the energy or willpower needed to stay on track. This also includes hydration and drinking plenty of water throughout the day.
7 Prioritise Self-Care
Make yourself a priority by setting aside time for self-care activities that promote your mental and physical health. This can be as simple as scheduling regular workouts or blocking out time just for meditation, relaxation and good sleep patterns. Establish boundaries to protect this time and communicate your needs to your family and colleagues, so they understand the importance of your self-care routine.
As well as exercise, rest and recovery are crucial aspects of any workout and wellbeing routine. Make sure to give your muscles enough time to recover, and don't forget to stretch before and after your workout. You can also use our foam rollers and stretching bands to help relax your muscles. When used regularly after exercise, it can help increase your range of motion, flexibility and mobility while boosting circulation and lymphatic flow to relieve inflammation and soothe your muscles.
In summary
Set realistic goals: Set short-term and long-term goals in each area to provide direction and motivation.
- Prioritise your time: Flexibly allocate time based on your priorities and adjust as needed. Dedicate uninterrupted time for family and incorporate regular physical activity into your routine.
- Integrate fitness into daily life: Create habits and routines that make it easy to incorporate exercise into your day. Utilize at-home workouts, mix up your routine, and involve your family in fitness activities.
- Use technology: Take advantage of fitness apps, online workouts, and virtual classes to save time and exercise at your convenience.
- Maintain motivation and discipline: Set up rewards for achieving your goals, track your progress, and find an accountability partner to stay on track.
- Eat healthily: Practice efficient meal planning and preparation to maintain a balanced diet amidst a busy schedule.
- Prioritise self-care: Set aside time for self-care activities that promote mental and physical health. Establish boundaries and communicate your needs to your family and colleagues.
Conclusion
The key to achieving the best results from your home workout plan is commitment and consistency. It's important to stick to your schedule and make exercise a regular part of your routine. Balancing work, family, and fitness is an ongoing journey that requires commitment, flexibility, and a positive mindset. Setbacks are a natural part of life, things happen and sometimes our perfect timetable doesn’t go to plan. Be flexible and adaptable, and don't get discouraged if you miss a workout or two. Just get back on track and keep going!