7 ways to balance life in Fall

Fall is a beautiful season and extremely rich in every sense. While it leads you to a slower life pace, it is also full of activities and happenings. Hence the reason I call it "the season of balancing". You ought to create an equal spread of your energy, establishing slower rituals and adding uplifting ones step by step. While most people enjoy a slower morning this time of the year, there is so much to be added to the daily routine and often guilt and stress won't let us enjoy the real benefits of the season. Days get shorter and we feel the urge to stay in more often, but the social catch ups and responsibilities never fall short on our lists.

So how do you keep the right balance during this incredible season, in order to enjoy everything without letting your to do list pile on?

1. Enrich your wake up routine

Megan just shared an amazing post on making your mornings better. I swear it made me look forward to waking up, even being a night owl my whole life. Prioritizing the most important things for you and make time for them in the morning routine sets the bar high for the whole day, meaning you put yourself first. Feeling confident to tackle your day is a result of knowing yourself and your habits, making it easier to find inspiration even during hard times. Also, don't forget the small things in between, they make such a big difference in living your days beautifully.

2. Dig a little deeper in the problem areas of your life

Fall can be considered a deep season in many layers, so find the appropriate time for you to search a little bit deeper into things that seem not quite right. For example, search out for the real cause of things getting out of control at home, study those anxiety attacks coming more often lately or start tracking your expenses one by one until you are 100% clear where all your money goes. It is a pretty good time to go into this deeper route, between the easy going fun of the summer and the moody winter days coming soon.

3. Evaluate all the things you do every day

We can do so many things each day and we can accomplish much more than we thought we could, if we stretch ourselves a little further. But do we really have to do all those things? 

Try this short but effective tip with yourself. Before doing each of your daily tasks, even the smaller ones, ask yourself why you are doing it. Most quick answers will be "Because I have to", but after some time you will get in the habit of doing a longer analysis and finding the true reasons behind all actions. 

Hopefully, you will get more in tune with your inner self, your mind will get clearer, you'll get rid of extra anxiety and get back a lot of your time after realizing how many tasks can be avoided / postponed / delegated / spread out / automated.

4. Treat your shopping urge

With so many offers and holiday collections coming out, Fall is such a spending urge accelerator. It is so hard to avoid temptations and the more you do, the worse you feel because you can't afford new things or because you assume you don't work hard enough to allow yourself indulgences. 

This cycle is going to become a roller coaster by December, so be sure to pay attention to this area of life now if you feel any pressure. Truth is you can afford everything in this world. It is not a metaphor, really. You can cut money on groceries to buy a new pair of boots this month. You can use credit card loans to buy a designer bag. You can take a bank loan to buy a car or you can even use all your life savings to buy a bigger home. If you want to buy something badly enough, you can make it happen. But do you really want to? 

Next time you feel the urge to buy something or you can't sleep after browsing a 50% sale online, tell yourself you can have all you want, but you choose not to. Think about the reason you choose not to and pick up the most honest one, otherwise that little bad voice inside your head will trick you into "you deserve this" and the next day you will feel miserable upon looking at the cost of your indulgence. On the other hand, if you want or need new things and you feel good about buying them, go on and enjoy, as long as you find real value is added to your life with your purchases.

5. Plan your meals and your treats

If you take control over your everyday eating habits and make sure to always have a good option of food for every meal, especially when out of the house, you will feel more energized and less stressed. When you know what you will be eating you avoid unnecessary spending, food that makes you feel bad / sleepy after consuming and cut down mindless eating.

Think of planning meals as an overall check, not an elaborate and super fancy organizing system, or it will never happen. Start with taking mental note of what's in the fridge or panty, so you don't forget about what you already have. Think about what your mood is these days and what you'd like to eat most. Consider your trusted recipes and if you need inspiration, pick up a couple of easy to put together dishes from Pinterest or food blogs, with the ingredients you have at home. Don't forget your your snacks and possibly pack them to take with you every day.

The same way you choose your balanced meals, choose a couple of treats. It's the only way to enjoy things you really fancy and not just stuff yourself with anything just because it's a sweet.

6. Bring back the joy in getting dressed

Dressing up in Fall is such a pleasure in theory. Colorful tights, riding boots, cozy socks, thick cardigans, relaxed dresses and chunky scarves. But sometimes in real life, dressing up in Fall becomes such a frustrating experience. Too many days have crazy low and high temperatures that require taking half your closet with you for each outing. Some places experience a lot of wind and rain this season, so leggings and wellies is your daily uniform for three months. Also, activities vary extremely for everyone, so pay close attention to yours and notice how you feel during each of them in your current outfit. It takes so much practice, trial and error, but once you have it figured out you will be ready to go any time.

Consider creating a capsule wardrobe, a concept that varies vastly in meaning, as Ariana has a 10 piece capsule wardrobe, while Caroline always chooses 37 pieces. Look a little around for inspiration (but not too much) and start planning your own capsule wardrobe.

Consider your everyday activities, the current climate you live in, the outfit layout that flatters you the most, colors that compliment your hair/skin and all the things you feel good in. After that, go pick up everything you love from your seasonal clothes and try to put together different outfits with all the pieces you chose. Experiment with the outfit proportions, colors and texture until you are pleased with the result. Accessorize and don't forget shoes, a maker or breaker for every outfit. Try to include different options, in order to maximize your capsule potential.

Now that you have some fall outfits figured out, start wearing only things form your capsule wardrobe. Give it a month and if you like it continue until the end of the season. For deeper understanding of the process head to Anuschka's blog, which is the empire of capsule wardrobes.

7. Declutter and consider all you already have

Forget about Spring cleaning and start decluttering right now, before the holidays bring in more fuss. Sort and toss, organize and store. Everything you don't use, box it out of sight. The less you have to clean, the more time you have for your life. 

Cleaning up is such a scary time waster, with results that last a few days at most, until everything has to be done again. Think about it - even if you clean up every day, if you have a lot of stuff hanging around, the house will look messy. But if you have fewer stuff, even dirt won't show up that much. For your mental tranquility, it's better to look at a dirty organized space than a clean mess or worse - a dirty mess. 

The good thing about decluttering now and being determined about it, is that you can make an inventory of what you already have, which will probably include a lot of stuff for future gifting (if you are like me and gift shop all year long).

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I hope you are feeling the urge to go get the balance you are lacking in your life right now. If you don't take care of your body and mind at this moment, you won't be prepared for the craziness of the holidays and chances are you'll get burn out before you know it.

Tell me which is the first thing you will do and what other tips do you have for this gorgeous time of the year?

| Love, Lisa |