One of the things I’ve been enjoying in my early mornings has been the quiet. Not that I don’t like people, that’s not it at all. The thing is, I’ve found that extra hour or more each morning, spent by myself, to be extremely refreshing and relaxing.

The Ririan Project posted an article the other day, entitled “The Benefits of Spending Time Along, and How to Do It”. This got me thinking about this topic, and I took it a bit further and applied some of it to the LWB focus, of balance.

One of the keys this brought up was the importance of being yourself. It also ties in well with Gretchin Rubin’s first Happiness Commandment, to “Be Gretchin,” or a little more generalized, be yourself. I know that for myself, I’ve always walked the line between extrovert and introvert, as I enjoy being around people, but I also need some time to myself to recharge and relax.

This extra hour by myself each morning has given me an added bonus in that I get that time to myself, but don’t have to trade away time with others. Even if I’m up making breakfast and lunch, and maybe doing a few dishes, it’s nice to just be able to be alone.

Recognizing this has done a few things. As I’ve mentioned before, one of the things I like about having the extra time in the morning is the fact that I start my day in a much more relaxed manner than I used to. However, because I’m able to gain a little more time by myself without having to give up time with my fiancé, family, and friend,s means that I’m also more relaxed in general, and thus more balanced.

I think Ms. Rubin’s first commandment is a key to not just happiness, but a lot of other things as well, including a healthy work-life balance. If you take time to be true to yourself, you are better able to meet the demands of the rest of your life. However, if you are constantly working against yourself, you never have the downtime to balance against the uptime, whatever those may be.

So I urge you to take a moment and figure out what it means to be yourself. You don’t necessarily need to make huge changes from day one, but just keep these things in mind when making decisions and plans. I think that if you can do that, you’ll find that achieving a balance might be easier than you thought, even without a whole lot of changes.

If there’s one thing you’ve started doing that’s helped you, share it in the comments!