Are you feeling overwhelmed from working too much? Are you feeling atrophied and apathetic from not doing much at all? Well, then it sounds like your life is in need of some balance.

You’re probably thinking that if you had a dime for every time you heard somebody say “Life is all about balance” you’d have paid off your student loans and bought a house by now. But the thing is that sometimes clichés are clichés for a reason, and that reason is that they’re usually true.

Finding joy in your life really is about finding a balance. 

Maintaining your health through a wise diet, but never forgetting to indulge here and there. Adhering to your responsibilities, but never forgetting to let loose and make the occasional valuable mistake. Exercising caution and avoiding danger, while never forgetting to throw caution to the wind and look danger right in the eye every once in a while.

As famed poet and playwright Oscar Wilde once said, “Everything in moderation, including moderation.” If you’re struggling to strike the balance that all happy lives require, then you should consider yourself very normal. Whether it’s between work and play, school and summer, or exercise and donuts, the battle for balance is one pretty much everyone is constantly fighting. 

Fortunately, there are a few things you can start doing today to give yourself an upper hand in that fight.

Don’t Shy Away from Difficult Things

Sometimes finding balance means experiencing the negative in order to appreciate the positive. It takes a freezing cold winter to help you truly enjoy a warm spring day, and it takes a scorching hot summer to help you truly enjoy the coolness of autumn. 

Perhaps avoiding difficult experiences might feel relieving at the time, but without them you’ll never grow, and you’ll never fully appreciate it when you do have it easy.

Give Yourself a Break

It’s easy to get so caught up in planning for the future, achieving goals, and adhering to responsibilities that you might forget to take a breather every once in a while.  If you’re cramming for tests, working overtime, or otherwise burning the candle at both ends for any reason at all, and you feel like you’re about to crumble, it’s absolutely okay to drop everything and give yourself a break.

Contrary to how it may feel at the moment, dropping your responsibilities in favor of some fresh air or a night out is not the end of the world. It may even prove useful to your future productivity. You only have so much mental energy in your tank and when it’s empty, nothing is going to refill it except rest and relaxation.

Clean Your Room

You may not be able to control all that much else in your life at the moment, but one thing you can control is the cleanliness of your bedroom. Take the reins every once in a while and clean up the clutter, and you’re much more likely to feel a little less cluttered in your own mind. 

Consider it balancing the external in order to balance the internal. Plus there’s just something rewarding about putting in the time and effort to make your living space more comfortable and inviting. You can’t discount comfort on your journey to finding balance.

Do Things for Others (and for Yourself)

Create a balance between the give and the take in your life by intentionally setting out to do something kind for another person without any expectation of recompense. 

The irony of this is that you can in fact benefit from your charity without being paid or having the favor returned. There are a few studies that have found that giving makes people happier than spending money on themselves.

Perhaps you’re always the giver, though, and that’s the place where you feel the most imbalance in your life. If that’s the case, then make sure to go out and do something for yourself once in a while without worrying too much about the needs of anyone else. You’re just as deserving of your own time, energy, and attention as anyone else in the world. Don’t forget it!