From the author: Let's look at a specific effective way to become a happy person, with the help of which we can take a look at our life and understand what we can do to improve the quality of our life . I suggest you use the BALANCE MODEL from positive psychotherapy. Good day, dear readers, my name is Spiridon, I am a psychologist, a positive psychotherapist. Today I will tell you about a simple but very practical way to become more prosperous, satisfied and happy in everyday life. I touched on this topic in my last article about happiness, if you haven’t seen it, be sure to read it. There’s more in general about the phenomenon of happiness, what it consists of, how our feeling of happiness changes depending, for example, on our environment, and much more, go ahead and look , I’ll also leave the link under the video in the description. And in this article we will analyze a specific tool to improve the quality of your life. In positive psychotherapy, there is a model with the help of which you can perfectly visualize for yourself what is happening in my life, sort it out, and determine what needs to be done to improve the quality of your life, and thereby increase your feelings of happiness. The Balance model, which was invented by the German psychotherapist and founder of positive psychotherapy Nossrat Pezeshkian, will help us with this. Judging by psychological research, we can identify several areas of our lives that affect our well-being. Everything that happens in your life can be depicted in the form of a rhombus, the vertices of which will correspond to one of the spheres of our life. 4 spheres, the first sphere is the body, well, nothing can be done about it, we are people, we have a material shell in the form of our beautiful a body that needs to be monitored, cared for, and given time in every possible way. This area includes sleep, food, sex, sports, illnesses in the form of various symptoms, massage, treatment and much more. There are two common extremes: some people put a lot of effort into this area, live more with their bodies, for example, they get sick often, or are constantly looking for various diseases, or, for example, when a person closely monitors his figure, trains, sits on diets, and this goes from moderate adherence to a healthy lifestyle to some obsession. There is another extreme, a person who, on the contrary, ignores what is happening to his body, well, somehow it happened, well, okay, I feel something, we’ll miss it, it hurts, it will pass. The needs associated with the body are for the most part not taken into account and the signals that our body sends to us, and it does this all the time, do not fall into the zone of attention. The next area - activity - here we are talking about our inexorable desire to achieve something, for example, first in school, and then at work. This includes actions aimed at getting an A, pleasing your mother, earning a gold medal, getting into a good institute and then into graduate school, and getting a prestigious and well-paid job. This area includes our work reports, plans, papers, a second job, moving up the career ladder, getting a lot of authority, money, responsibility, this is when you came as a nurse and became the head of the hospital, this is all in this area. The extremes, I think, are clear - workaholism, when all energy is spent on work, when working 24 hours a day non-stop without interruption for vacation, the other extreme is generally avoiding work and achievements, I live with my mother, I’m 40, I don’t work. Further , contacts/relationships are the sphere of relationships with other people, outside of achievements/activities, work colleagues with whom only working relationships are not included here, this is how we organize relationships with people close to us, with our wife, husband, relatives, friends, boyfriend , girlfriend, family friends, and here we are talking about the pleasure of having people nearby who love you, support you, whom you love and support, people who are very important and not indifferent to you. Extremes are when all the energy is spent on this area,More often in our culture, women have this picture, they are completely absorbed in relationships, children, husband, family, have no strength for anything else, the other extreme is avoiding close relationships with everyone, a kind of hermit. The sphere of meaning/fantasies is the sphere about our inner fantasies about what does not exist in our real life. What if I had my own island? Or would I win a million dollars? And then boom, you fly away into your fantasies, live there for a while, living something that really doesn’t exist. We enjoy being there, it becomes easier for us, and over time we move away from these fantasies. Everyone has favorite fantasies, not only pleasant ones, but also fears, fears, what if I get fired, or I die, I get into an accident, what if she cheats on me, what if I lose, what if I get cancer. So we try to prepare for when it suddenly happens, as if we are ready, although it may not happen. This includes books, films, stories that are made up, immersing ourselves in which we experience different feelings, think about it, stay there, in fantasies and worlds invented by others. This also includes questions of meaning, this is the religious meaning, what faith am I, who is my god, how to observe the principles of my faith, what will happen after death, where will I go, if not the religious aspect, then we are talking about internal philosophy, principles, the search for answers to such complex questions as what is the meaning of life, the meaning of death, loneliness, injustice, who am I? What am I? And many many others. Extremes: this often happens to me, I think more, make plans, reason, tell myself some stories, rejoice, get pleasure from it, but I don’t implement my plans in life, but rather even use my fantasies as a refuge from the real peace. The other extreme, a rare immersion in this sphere, a person does not ask himself questions about meanings, about his desires, avoids such topics and is reluctant to talk about it. So, 4 spheres are the body, achievements, relationships, meanings. You and I have energy that is equal to 100%, and we somehow distribute it between the spheres of our lives, it is important that we are not talking about time, but about the forces that we apply to our spheres. And in order to increase your level of well-being, to be happy, satisfied with your life, energy needs to be distributed approximately equally to all areas, that is, 25% for each. That's why it's called the balance model. Life is in balance in all its spheres. We look after the body, play sports, track the sensations and emotions that happen to us, have sex as much as we need, we know how to work in our activities, develop our professionalism, move up the career ladder, master new directions in activities, in contacts - we invest in relationships, we know how to love, fall in love, we know how to resolve inevitable conflicts, we support loved ones, we know how to be with them, we build relationships with those with whom we want to build and refuse those with whom we seem to have little in general, we know how to make friends, make new acquaintances. 25 percent of fantasies is asking and trying to answer the questions, who am I? What am I? Where am I going? Where am I from? What kind of world surrounds me? Is there a god? Is there no god? What is the meaning of my life? What do I fill it with? What is death? Soul? Read and be able to appreciate good literature, cinema, music, enjoy paintings, architectural works, etc. Most often, people don’t do this, there is no balance, we have a dominant sphere, and the rest are picked up according to the residual principle. Why is this happening? Upbringing, parents, by their example, show us what is important in this life, sometimes they say it in words, but more often they just show it. And then we focus on one area and invest mainly only in it, while the rest sag. I suggest you do this work yourself, on a piece of paper calculate what your life is filled with, how much and where you invest your energy, which areas dominate, which ones are lagging behind, why they are lagging behind, what can be done to strengthen the lagging areas. And then you have.