You’ll never achieve success in life if you fail to balance the key areas of your life. A lack of balance causes distractions that pull you away from your goals. Those distractions are the result of subconscious awareness that something is missing.

When your subconscious knows that you have an out-of-balance condition in one of these key areas, it steers you toward finding that balance. Looking for that balance consumes all your energy. You lose sight of the path that leads to your goals.

Before you start designing your life's success path, define what balance you need in the following areas so you’ll live a happy, successful life:

Your career. Does your personality desire that you reach the highest level of accomplishment in the work that you choose for your life?

Your family life. Is growing a happy family more important to you than any other life interest?

Your personal pursuits. What personal pastimes occupy your idle time thoughts? What studies will help you achieve your personal growth away from the job?

Your playtime. What hobbies, sports, or other spare time activities give you the most pleasure?

Your spiritual well being. Do you seek enlightenment of a higher knowledge, or power? Do you value meditation? Do you turn to prayer for answers to your most difficult questions?

Understanding the right balance for you in each of these areas requires concentrated thought. It’s not an easy effort, and it’s an effort that takes time.

You need to search deep inside yourself. Go way down to your essence. Nail this and you’ll find your goal setting activities much easier. And that makes your chances at success in life more certain.

First you must figure out the order of importance to you for each of these areas. List the areas in that order. In which area, if you spend the most time there, will you feel the most comfortable with yourself?

Next find the percentage of your time you’ll devote to each area. This is where you find your balance. You’ll want to spend the largest portion of your time in the area that’s most important to you. But you don’t want to spend too much of your time there.

Your target here is to get the amount of time you spend in each of the five areas as close as possible to all of the other areas. At the same time you don’t want to spend too little time in any one area.

Too much time, or too little time, either way puts you in an out-of-balance situation. And you’ll miss your chance at the success that you seek.

Later, as you determine your goals use this list as a guide. Balance in these five areas of life is a major key to walking the path to your goals smoothly.

Keep in mind that sometimes our values change as we progress through life. The area that’s most important to you today may become less important tomorrow. One or more of the five areas may grow in importance, and move closer to the top of your list.

When that happens you’ll find you need to re-order your future to renew the balance. Change comes to all of us. Plan for that possibility, and you’ll make that adjustment with less difficulty.

Just make sure you maintain balance in the areas of your life. You’ll find that path to your success in life blocked with fewer obstacles.