The ‘B’ Word—balance.
It’s been the hot word of the last few years—how do I become more balanced? How can I have a more balanced life? I want to achieve balance. Wow you look so balanced. #Balance.
It’s a great concept in theory, sharing each passion w/ equal effort and feeling well rounded in your life. I do have a love/hate relationship with this concept, basically because I don’t feel there’s much of a middle ground! Here are my thoughts on why being balanced is a blessing and a curse:
The pros of #balance:
- You produce a feeling of ease.You feel like you can dabble in many different categories, get a taste for all things exciting, but not overextend yourself one way or another. There is opportunity cost in everything so if you’re not fully restricting yourself from other endeavors your opportunity cost of missing out is lowered.
- You don’t feel stressed out.Your brain isn’t screaming at you to produce 120% effort at one specific thing, lowering your demands.
- To carryover from number two, your expectations are now lowered.Maybe it’s the expectations from yourself or from others but either way you don’t feel like you’re letting anyone down.
The cons of #balance:
- You aren’t fully committed to anything. You work half-heartedly at certain things but never fully take the time to develop them.
- You might end up living in a state of mediocrity because of this we invest half or a fourth of our time into our goals and dreams.
- Your current goals simply don’t mean enough. This will take a moment of introspection, but do we crave balance because we really aren’t passionate about what we’re working towards? If that’s the case maybe we need to redirect and reconstruct.
These are just my thoughts splattered on virtual paper, but questions I ask myself a lot. I’ve come to the conclusion that balance is hard and can be more difficult the more you narrow it down into certain niches. I’ll give a first hand example with dieting, probably a relatable topic to most.
Two scenarios here: First scenario is extreme dieting for a bodybuilding competition and the 2nd scenario is dieting for lifestyle/health purposes. In my opinion, the first one requires an extremeness to be the best. It was never intended for halfhearted effort and or sticking to your diet some of the time, it’s meant for the extreme and the strong minded. There is a huge opportunity cost in what you gain but also what you miss out on. Dieting for lifestyle purposes is meant to help one establish a good routine, educate on food, achieve short term and long term goals, but also promote enjoying oneself and learning how to enjoy the moment when necessary. Here’s a great example of the same topic, but two totally different scenarios.
I also think that having balance comes and goes. If you have goals that are important and meaningful, you are going to have to dive all in for a period of time because sometimes we must do what’s necessary to allow for more freedom in the future. Maybe the next few months are crunch time for you and you decide to get to work early and stay way too late. You’re building the brand, making the money, establishing great client rapport, but you don’t go out to eat as much or travel as often as you’d like…and that’s okay. There’s a season in life for everything, and that season’s duration is entirely up to you.
At the end of the day, maybe the word ‘balance’ should be replaced with the word peace; a feeling of contentment and deep certainty that we’re living our best life. Isn’t that what we’re all striving for anyways? I don’t know, just a guess!
Until next time my balanced babes,
-Lauren