We Want What Balance Does

Something that a lot of busy, purpose-driven leaders struggle with is achieving balance in their life. It’s easy to let our passion and ambition make us too one-dimensional, and as a result the equilibrium of our lives calibrates to an unsustainable level.

While a true, healthy balance is an incredible catalyst in your life, what we actually want goes a step further. It’s not just wanting balance for what it is, we want it for what it does.

Achieving full-life balance maximizes the quality we put into everything we do.

Working long hours means that we're more likely to get behind on our exercise and cut corners in our nutrition, or trade hours of sleep for your health routines. It also means we might be short with loved ones, or rude in situations that don’t call for it, because energetically we don’t have our best to offer.

So if we don’t invest in doing the things that help us to be at our energetic best, then the quality that we put into our work and relationships suffer.

At the same time, ambitious, impact-oriented professionals don’t want to do meaningless work and just check the box to get a paycheck. We draw inspiration from being able to contribute to society, and our best lives include applying ourselves fully to solving real problems and serving others.

For that reason, it’s often preferred to describe balance as a ‘harmony’. Your work, personal life, and self-care don’t compete with each other, they synergize to positively impact each other. Your best work performance comes when you’re in exceptional health. You deepen relationships when you’re ridiculously productive during the day and you can put it away guilt free after hours.

In my life, I’ve found that arriving at my ideal balance requires two things. First is intentionality. When you’re intentional, you’re as aware as possible to make well-informed choices. You’re clear on the desired end result and the implications that come with it, believing it’s the best option for you and all of the factors that go into it.

Second is experimentation. Your intentionality optimizes with feedback. So experiment after experiment, you slowly fine-tune your overall balance based on the objective and subjective results you get from each iteration. Your first pass at balancing life will not be perfect. Experimentation will expand your awareness so that you can keep getting closer. 

This process is something I do every single day as part of my night routine in my Self Improvement Scorecard. I made a video walking you through it if you'd like to check it out!