Imagine this scenario: You are dedicated to your writing career. You always give 110 percent. You work long hours, make countless sacrifices for the job and you are either earning or looking forward to earning good money.

What about the rest of your life? Are you working so much that you do not have a life anymore?

Giving the same energy to both your work and personal life is a tough balancing act. You can achieve balance if you know which questions to ask and where to go for answers - but you need a plan.

To be able to cruise smoothly in your career and personal life, you have to adjust your perspective. Achieving success in your career enables you to live your life to the fullest, not the other way around.

Doing a good job at work while creating a valuable life outside work is worth the effort.

Here are some tips for balancing the career and life scales:

1. Set Priorities

Ask yourself some tough questions: What is most important to me; family, friends, work, or myself? What am I good at? Am I "career cruising" in the right direction? Is my job (paid or unpaid) helping me reach my goals in life?

If you discover that your priorities are out of focus, then it is time to bring them back into alignment. Take an inventory of your life.

2. Test yourself

Does your personality match your job? If you thrive on stress, then a high-pressure job is just right for you.

What if the demands of your job are at odds with your personality? If you are in the middle of a job search or career change right now, remember to look beyond the job title. Staying at home to write might SOUND like Nirvana - but it's really a lot of hard work for most writers.

Find out how the job is really done; the work environment, the hours, the stress level, before making any move. If the job involves travel, ask yourself how that would fit into your lifestyle.

3. Think creatively

After many years of writing, many authors realize that it is taking over their entire life. They are constantly fretting not only about plotting, characters, and chapters but the number of words written, the number of rejections received and the amount of money in return.

But what if you look 'outside' for work? Might you find only lower pay, fewer benefits, and an even more demanding schedule?

Ask yourself whether you can use your writing skills to earn money in different ways. You could, for example, spend the mornings writing fiction and the afternoons working as a ghostwriter.

4. Survey your career personality

What if you know what kind of writing job you want but cannot find anyone to pay you for it? Maybe you should think about consulting. If you consult part-time, that will allow you time to do other kinds of writing or keep searching for the job you want. If you think hard about it, you may be able to slowly build the kind of writing consultancy service that suits you perfectly.

5. Hire a coach.

If you are more than willing to pay for it, a career coach offers personalized help. The coach will guide and lead you in the right career direction.

Some of the tips discussed above will probably appear to be too daunting for you. That is expected. Try to get the help of another person to discuss all of the above steps and to map out the best strategy to get your ideal job.

This person should be a trusted and strong supporter of your writing goals, as well as someone who will offer you another perspective to assist in the execution of your career plan. There's nothing like someone who will always be there as you cruise through your writing career!