“You need more balance in your life.”

This is one of my biggest pet peeves, it legitimately gets my heart rate up.

It bugs me for one of two reasons:

1) The person who’s telling me this has zero balance, by any definition,  has nothing they want and could be described as a “hot mess” SMH.

2) The person who’s telling me this has “made it” by some metric of success and will then spin the story to talk about “the grind” and “how rough it was when they started”

Part of my issue with those is the first person doesn’t actually know, and the second person is telling me their current version of life while leaving out how they got there.

                     But here is the REAL PROBLEM:  

                     We can’t have a meaningful discussion about balance when we all interpret it differently.

Balance is different to everyone and it shouldn’t be confused with equal.

First Define what happiness is to you.

Is it more money, more time off, 3 day weekends, 5 weeks vacation and 80 hour work weeks, living minimally, being the boss?

Then based on what you have defined as happiness define what balance is in order to make you happy.

Spoiler alert………..it won’t be equal.

I know tons of people who I consider very successful and happy.  My definition of balance doesn’t fit any of them.

I don’t know anyone that has achieved any type of happiness by splitting up their time and attention equally.

In high school and college my goal was to play basketball.  Basketball was 80% of my life and everything else fit into the remaining 20%.  And that was balance for me because basketball made me happy.

In the gym I would prefer to spend 90% of my time with all of you.  For me that is happiness.  But 10% isn’t enough time to build a good business and team that will be here in ten years providing a better service than we do today.

That 90/10 would be my balance but that is what I’m shooting for.  That isn’t what will get me there.

So for now I’m unbalanced, and that’s ok.

If we want to get the things we want in life like money, weight loss, a 3 minute Fran, or a promotion we need to understand what balance does and doesn’t mean.

You will not spend your time equally in all aspects of your life, because that would not yield the result of your happiness.

Balance and happiness change with the seasons of our lives.  They are different than they were 10 years ago and will be different 10 years from now.

Equal mightbe your end state, but it is certainly notthe path.  

Fern