The Myth of a Balanced Life

“The only way to be happy and fulfilled is to create a balanced life.” WHAT? Every proponent of a balanced life instructs that you must allocate your time and effort across the different areas of your life and constantly re-allocate them to keep things in balance.

Think about the idea of balance. When you Google “work-life balance” the first dozen or so images that come up are variations of ‘scales of justice.’ You know them: a center column with arms coming out and two pans which would be perfectly aligned if they are in balance.

Scales of justice presume that even weighting is the right goal. Is everything in your life equally deserving of the same amount of time and attention, energy and commitment? No.

The other popular visuals for work-life balance are circles that are divided up into segments, each one neatly labeled for one part of your life. These segments are called dimensions, or roles, or categories. This presumes that you can neatly categorize your life and that each segment is separate from the others. That doesn’t reflect my life and I suspect it doesn’t reflect yours either.

January 2009: I moved my horse Joey from one trainer’s facility to another’s. At the time I was seeking relief from a demoralizing and abusive trainer who had made me and Joey believe we were the worst of the worst. I was thinking that I should give up riding and find him a new owner, but fortunately one wise friend encouraged me to make the move and give the new trainer a few months before I gave up.

Within a few weeks I was sitting straighter in the saddle — and I noticed that I felt stronger and more confident when talking with business clients and associates. A few more months and I was able to feel my body and my horse in greater depth and detail than I had ever done — and I knew that when I smiled at a business associate, the smile was actually reaching my eyes. As the summer progressed I moved from being needy for my riding instructor’s safety net to needing her excellent training — and I found my clients embracing my recommendations and coaching with more enthusiasm and appreciation than ever.

What happened? I know that my consulting and coaching methods and foundational principles did not change. My writing and my marketing, my social media, blogging and speaking were keeping pace with the world but not substantially different in content and value.

I believe that what happened was that my life became unified. No longer did I separate the business side from the personal side. For so long I thought no one within my business life would know the pain I was going through in my personal riding life with the former abusive trainer. Riding is my hobby and I hardly ever talked about it with my clients and business associates.

Yet as I gained confidence in riding and was able to fully embrace my wonderful horse instead of thinking with great sadness that he was a significant part of the problem, the way I walked and talked and looked and smiled and thought and spoke changed too.

I am not living a balanced life in which I keep the different segments separate and equal. I am living a unified life, where all that I love and care about is one and interconnected. When I speak to business audiences I tell stories about how riding has its ups and downs just like life does; I ask the audience to reflect about successes and disappointments across their own lives –family, friends, sports, hobbies–that reflect the same kinds of successes and failures everyone one has in their business or work environment. I urge them to connect all their life pieces into one whole and live a unified life. If you’re unhappy at home, you’ll be unhappy at work. And if you’re unhappy at work, you’ll be unhappy at home.

How will you intertwine the pieces of your life and live unified?