Many people say they want a balanced life. They’ve heard that a balanced life is the goal.
Balance feels nice. The dream of balance feels even better.
Balance is a transitory state. It’s not a permanent condition. Pay attention to what your muscles are doing when you walk a tightrope — maintaining balance is not a passive process!
Something I’ve noticed studying the biographies of accomplished men and women is that they didn’t lead very balanced lives. But they had rhythms and practices which helped them. Balance was never their goal.
You can’t work directly on balance. It’s an emergent property of paying attention to rhythms. The way to achieve some occasional balance in your life is to work harder at productive rhythms. Here are examples:
- Work, changing the type of work, rest periods.
- Seasons of engagement and withdrawal.
- Information input and creative output.
- Times together and times alone.
- Intentional self-restraint and feasting celebrations.
As mammals we’re biologically very poor at measuring balance and exquisitely able to sense when there is imbalance. Use that ability to recognize when you need to shift the rhythm.
You can also apply this to organizational work. Balance is not the goal, but times of productive balance can emerge when there are resilient rhythms.
