By Laura Stack, MBA, CSP, The Productivity Pro®

Once you've created a personal mission statement — that is, a statement that defines what's important to you and that helps you make difficult decisions when faced with the myriad choices that life presents — you need to assess if you're spending your time in ways consistent with that statement.

For example, if other people observe the way you spend your time, will it be obvious what you value? If you say your health is important, one would expect to see you being physically active. If you say your family is important, one would expect to see you spending quality time together. Are you using your time in ways that reflect your priorities? The more congruent that what you believe and what you do are, the more authenticity you have.

Bridge the gap: What you want vs. what you do

Perhaps you're struggling with how much time you should devote to your personal and professional lives. Psychologists use the term "cognitive dissonance" to describe a state of conflict within us when what we believe differs from what we do. The more out of alignment that what you value is with how you spend your time, the more stress you will have.

A real-life example

Let me illustrate with a personal example. When my daughter, Meagan, was born in 1995, I was traveling extensively with CareerTrack, a public seminar company. My speaking business was going nicely, and I was gaining recognition in the marketplace. Not wanting to slow my momentum, I started traveling again when Meagan was three months old. I arranged for one of my girlfriends, Angie, to care for her during the day while I was gone.

As was my custom, I would call Angie from the hotel prior to departing to the next city (I was usually gone four days in a row). When Meagan was 14 months old, I vividly remember calling home from a pay phone in the lobby of a motel in Mansfield, Ohio.

"Angie, hi! How are you? How's Meagan?" "Oh Laura," she replied, "we had a wonderful day today. Meagan walked today!"

Thud. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. I dropped the phone and crumpled to a heap on the floor. Tears streamed down my face as the words echoed in my ears, "Meagan walked today!" I had missed it. I could never get that experience back.

"What am I doing?" I shouted at myself. How could this be happening to me? It was my own fault. I had put my career, my fame, and my success ahead of my child. I had invested my time in things that, fundamentally, weren't even part of my value system. I wasn't following my personal mission statement, and my own choices put me in that predicament.

That's when I realized I was out of alignment, and I needed to make some changes.

Have you ever had something bad happen to you before you realized that you needed to make a change? I've heard of people having heart attacks and saying afterward, "I guess I should take care of my health." What I hope for you is that you can make needed changes now, before anything happens that you'll regret later. If you continue to live your life in the way you are right now, what regrets are you going to have? At the end of your life, will you say, "If I had it to do all over again, I would have done this differently," or I wish I had …"? Make the commitment now to turn those sayings into "I'm glad I did this …" Different choices today will produce different results tomorrow.

Identify imbalance in your life

You may know you're out of alignment, but you can't pinpoint exactly where you should make changes. Here's a good exercise:

1. Inside the following figure, divide up the pie marked "Reality" into wedges according to how you are NOW spending time on the categories (use the legend shown).
2. Divide up the pie marked "Ideal" into wedges according to how it would look if you could design the ideal life for yourself. How would you divide up your time if your life was aligned with your values? (Be realistic — you're not going to win the lottery and quit working, so don't leave out "Career/Wealth" if it's not a financial reality for you to do so.)

Compare your two pies. Are they the same? Usually not, because that would mean you are currently living your ideal aligned life. Most people have differences between their two pie charts. What are they? What changes would you need to make in order to get your "Reality" to mirror your "Ideal"?

Turn your ideal into your reality

Very simply, the changes you would need to initiate in order to bring your "Reality" in line with your "Ideal" are your life-alignment goals. Select your highest priority, and quantify the adjustment that would have to be made. Determine where to take back your time. Work on meeting one adjustment and making it part of your life before you embark on your next goal.

Step by step, day by day, your time will start to look like your "Ideal" life, and you'll realize that you've finally struck your perfect life balance.

About the author   Laura Stack is the president of The Productivity Pro®, Inc., an international consulting firm in Denver, Colorado, that specializes in productivity improvement in high-stress organizations. Laura holds an MBA in Organizational Management (University of Colorado, 1991) and is an expert on integrating advances in business productivity with the retention of key employees. Laura is the author of the best-selling book Leave the Office Earlier (Broadway Books, 2004).