Thank you for the tough question Anna, ...whew, I'm beginning to feel quite inadequate for these questions since I'm still trying to practice what I share here.

The easiest to manage is our attitudes and the toughest to manage is our relationships. Some may say relationships with others are easy to manage but I think that's true if we are happy with just shallow & unsatisfying relationships. If we are serious to develop deeper and more meaningful relationships, it is going to hurt but it is also going to be worth it.

First, our attitudes. Our attitudes are influenced by 2 things - the knowledge we digest & the people we spend the most time with. Nothing else has been more influential on our attitudes.

Viktor Frankl (I recommend googling him and downloading his book "Man's Search for Meaning") was a World War 2 prisoner who concluded after years of watching many prisoners die and some survived that "our greatest freedom is to choose or absorb our attitudes." We do have the freedom to choose our attitudes every day at home, at work and in life. And this is the foundation for our search for balance in life.

A very close friend once told me after I've failed in a business, having very poor relationships with my family & future wife and overall feeling totally dejected about my life that ," you can't have perfect situations but you can BE perfect in all situations." It was tough advice to stomach at that time but it helped me stay focused on choosing my attitudes rather than absorbing it from the situations around me.

Here are suggestions on how to build what I call that champion attitude:
1. Be honest about our current attitudes with ourselves and others & list out what we want to change (eg. critical attitude about others, always worrying about things that don't matter, thinking of self better than others, etc)
2. Take a deeper look at our information diet & ask if the books/websites/content we are consuming is helping or stopping us from developing the attitude we want. Decide on what to change
3. Take a deeper look at who we spend the most time with and allow to influence our life. Are there some relationships that have a negative influence & we should minimize that influence? We can be friendly with everyone but we need not be friends with everyone. Choosing our friends carefully is very wise.
4. Look out for good peers and mentors we can meet on a regular basis. Make it regular, not just leave it to luck or chance. Meet & discuss about life, family, work, etc and learn from them. This alone has transformed my life when a mentor showed me the power of being mentored and mentoring others.

Lastly, our relationships. There will always be tension in life. It is guaranteed because we live in an imperfect world with imperfect people. Our expectations are regularly not met and we are disappointed in our relationships.

This tension can be healthy but it can also be deadly. I was educated as a Mechanical Engineer and spent quite some time testing materials in the lab. When we stretch materials & understood the limits, the material can actually "heal" and become stronger. But if we over stretched it to the breaking point, it would break and be very difficult to repair.

Our relationships are like that and the healthy tension can help us become stronger as individuals, as better husbands, wives & leaders in the workplace. This is the hardest to manage because we can't control other's attitudes and choices.

There is too much to discuss on this topic but I would say the most important for finding balance in our relationships is to learn to keep the unity with them. It does not mean being the same on everything but it does mean communicating that we are always on their side, rather than against them.

We have to honestly take a look at our relationships and realize that we do get thrown out of balance most of the time because of our relationships and we need to give it more focus and attention.

For couples, I highly recommend "Love & Respect" by Dr. Emerson Eggerich. A profoundly simple book on building that kind of marriage & home that will bring balance. For those not married, this can still be useful for understand how to meet the needs of your parents and other love ones.