Many of my clientele are either business owners or high end management/executives in their companies. What does this mean? It means they are drivers and achievers. They push themselves hard to reach a goal.
The problem is that they often end up in my office totally tanked. They have fatigue, sleep issues, depression, and chronic pain as a result. They get to the point that the energy they do have gets put towards job performance and the home life suffers. Their body is finding rest since they aren’t doing it actively.
In our conversations, they are often the ones to bring up that their work-life balance is tipping over. The problem is that many feel they have to choose one or the other. They feel they have to put their energy into work or they have to put their energy into life. This just isn’t so. Yes you can sit on a fence post and technically be balanced but that’s amazingly uncomfortable and not very sustainable.
Balance isn’t an either-or scenario. Balance is an organization of everything life demands while making everything that life demands interconnected. I think balance is more like sitting on a bicycle seat. If you’re sitting on a bicycle seat and want to create comfort, you have to create motion. You start pedaling. As you gain speed and momentum, you can afford to back off on the pedals and coast and still maintain balance.
Yes, there will be valleys to climb out of and you may have to pump the brakes down some mountains but as long as you keep in motion, balance is maintained. Trust me, I was that guy trying to balance my bike at the intersection waiting for the red light to turn green. It’s great until you can’t get your clip out of your pedal. Instantly, you become the guy laying on your side, feet stuck in the pedals, wearing spandex, in a small town that hate cyclists.