Is Work-Life Balance A Myth?
- Sep 17, 2021
- 5 min read
Written by: Patrick Wiliams, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Do you think of work-life balance as a mathematical equation to solve?
Does it feel impossible to solve it?
There’s a good reason for that: it’s not about always achieving a perfectly balanced life in important roles.
In my 4 decades as a coach, author, and mentor, the topic of work-life balance for colleagues and clients alike is often discussed. Personally, I encourage people to use a Life Balance Wheel to examine their own state of “balance” – clients break down the two categories of their life, personal and business, and rate their satisfaction with each.
And then my clients often make a misstep…
Work-life balance isn’t a tidy pie chart.
When my clients rate their satisfaction with either their work or personal lives, they have a tendency to seek an equal balance on either side of the equation. 5+5=10 and 10 is the magic number for a happy, fulfilling life. Right?
Wrong.
I learned that a perfectly balanced equation is a fleeting concept…and one we shouldn’t be seeking. And this realization was made crystal clear when I met an acrobat.
Here’s how it happened…
A friend and I attended a performance of Cirque du Soleil – Cavalia Odysseo – in Denver, Colorado. A tribute to the relationship between humans and horses, the show involves gravity-defying stunts on horseback. It was absolutely dazzling. I spent the first half of the show asking myself, “How do they do that?!”
During the intermission, we joined the throngs in the lobby to peruse the souvenirs for sale and encountered one of the performers perched on impossibly tall stilts. I couldn’t resist…
I told him that I was so impressed by the abilities of all the performers. I was a life coach who was dedicated to helping clients achieve balance in their lives. And then I shared how awestruck and inspired I was by the uncanny balance of the performers in the show.
He replied, in his thick French-Canadian accent,
“Obviously, monsieur, you were not paying attention… we only achieve balance momentarily…we are in a constant state of motion. But we come back to a center just for a brief time.” Wow! The insight that came to me at that moment was palatable. I think I paused in my head and was so excited with what I had just learned. I left there thinking that is really what I have believed all these years but was not able to articulate it so well. Our clients (and we) can strive for balance in our activities, the things we are choosing, and unchosen change, but we do it by having a place of balance, or a center, to come back to …. a moment in time amidst the competing energies that draw us off-center.
I believe it is key to have a daily centering activity such as meditation, walks in nature, yoga, Tai chi, or even reading. And it is also important to have an instant center to go to in our body when we are thrown off balance in our lives. Additionally, that is why people take vacations away from the routine and the usual. So, balance comes from a constant state of motion as the Cirque character taught me. And our goal for our clients and us is to be purposeful in finding our center, our place of momentary balance that we can take with us and return to.
What are the key things you do in your life to achieve balance and to center yourself during competing energies??? How can you use this in your life and work?
Steps To Create A Place Of Balance And Personal Power
1. Think of the most beautiful place you have ever been, go there in your imagination and pay attention to all details of sound, visual, and feelings in that place. Then go there in your mind whenever you need to be energized or calmed. This is your place of power and security and centering.
2. Create a centering routine that you can do effortlessly. A daily walk in nature, bicycling, Tai Chi, yoga, inspirational reading, and journaling, meditating…what else can you choose to have available to you to do routinely, but with variety.
People who aren’t seeking a “high number” when self-assessing their sense of balance between the two worlds they occupy have found even satisfaction in the imbalance. You can live with things that may need your attention…. when you’re ready.
Satisfaction is relative. And more than anything else, it’s a measure of the energy and focus you dedicate to whatever you’re engaged in at the moment…enjoying the brief moments of balance in between the times of instability.
If you’re constantly seeking a level equation, how will you risk starting a new business, proposing to your partner, starting a family, moving to a new city or country?
A life of fulfillment and stimulation will come with some days, weeks, potentially months of uncertainty and imbalance. You’re not looking for an equation that always adds up to 10. You’re looking for moments when your motion results in a state that brings you satisfaction…knowing that it is ultimately fleeting. Something is going to pull you off-center. And then you can choose where you want your focus and attention to be.
This approach will make you more resilient in the face of change, and also help you adapt to changes in your life over which you have no control. When you accept that there will be challenges thrown your way and you accept that you’ll have a time of uncertainty before things settle again, you’ll be less impatient for the settling.
Nurture methods for managing when your work-life balance is too off-kilter.
Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.
These times of imbalance are also times for learning, so take the time to pause, reflect, and breathe. And figure out some action, some phrase, some focus point that can act as an instant center for those times you are suddenly thrown off balance. Your coach or therapist can guide you with that project.
Once you see your quest for work-life balance as a fluid state of adjusting to competing energies you’ll be more settled and satisfied. Think about the ways you seek balance now…and new methods you can use to achieve a balance that always surfaces, despite the inevitable imbalance life will throw your way.
The key to living a purposeful life is to take time to check-in, breath, center, and then choose your response rather than react.
Patrick Williams, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine As a coach for 4 decades, Pat is a founding member of the ICF and is an inaugural member of its Circle of Distinction, a Master Certified Coach, a Board-Certified Coach, and member of Forbes Coaching Council. As an educator, he was a founding member of Harvard University’s Institute of Coaching, has taught graduate students at several notable institutions, and served as a curriculum consultant for the Coaching Certificate program at Fielding International University. And he was named Educator of the Year by the New England Educational Institute (2008). Dr. Williams is also Past President of ACTO (Association of Coach Training Organizations), ICF board member, and Honorary VP of the International Society for Coaching Psychology.
