The Problem With Work Life Balance
Work-life balance. You’ve heard the term a million times before. How do you achieve it? Is it even possible? And will life be wonderful, perfect, and simple if you do?
Contrary to popular belief, the answer to that last question is no. Don’t worry—we’re not suggesting that you put your personal life on the backburner.
What we are suggesting is letting go of achieving a perfectly balanced life, because this can lead to problems of its own.
Why? Because balance can be equivalent to dullness, restlessness, boredom, stagnation, and a lack of excitement. What’s more, you can’t control whether or not things are balanced—and when you’re unable to change something that upsets you, you feel defeated.
Whether you’re looking for balance in your career, love life, friendships, or family, the drawbacks of constantly seeking balance can leave you feeling low and unhappy.
Let’s explore the problems with balance now, and look at ways to retrain your brain so that you can experience better things than balance, like excitement, passion, and resilience.
The stillness of balance
Balance, when taken to the extreme, can lead to a stagnant and inert life. Imagine a seesaw perfectly balanced in the middle: nothing is happening, and there's no movement, no action, no excitement.
However, when a seesaw is going up and down and is imbalanced, it’s fun, engaging, exciting, and leads to great memories with others. By constantly choosing to prioritize balance, you lose out on the dynamism and energy that makes life truly fulfilling.
Instead of yearning for balance, consider how pursuing the following might help you lead a stronger, richer life.
Engagement over balance
Rather than fixating on achieving perfect balance, strive for engagement. Are you engaged in your current life, or are you driving on autopilot? Engagement implies active involvement in various aspects of life, allowing for ups and downs that contribute to a more vibrant and exhilarating experience.
Taking in the thrills of highs and lows
Life's ups and downs bring depth and richness to our experiences. Embracing the unpredictability of life can lead to a more adventurous and exciting journey filled with challenges and triumphs that contribute to your own personal growth. Even the bad lows are helpful—after all, what kind of people would we be if we never had to struggle, fight, and defend what’s valuable to us?
Striving for passion
A life driven by passion allows for the exploration of diverse interests and the pursuit of goals that truly matter. By contrast, a life centered around balance involves never stepping too far out of your comfort zone.
Sure, you could take that trip to Italy… but it might throw your sleep schedule out of balance. You might start your own business… but a risk like that could leave your checkbook unbalanced. And maybe you want to pursue a relationship with the person you met at the coffee shop last week… but wouldn’t a more balanced approach involve waiting for them to reach out first?
Balance can be your own happiness blocker, if you let it. On the other hand, passion can push you toward things you’ve never tried before—and it’s the new feelings, spaces, and places that make us feel alive, happy, and purposeful.
Thriving through the chaos
Sometimes life can be chaotic. We may wish it were different, but attempting to force it into a perfectly balanced mold leads to frustration and dissatisfaction. Focus on the things you can control, instead of the things you can’t.
If you can’t control whether or not your life is balanced, then you can at least control how you respond to its many ups and downs. Looking for the bright spots in moments of unpredictability allows you to open yourself up to happiness, peace, and ease… even when life isn’t balanced.
What life can look like instead
We see work-life balance content EVERYWHERE: on self-help blogs, online chat forums, social media feeds, at work, at home, and beyond.
But what is our obsession with balance doing to our ability to live vibrant, bright, and meaningful lives?
In trying to cast a predetermined mold for our own lives, what gets lost—and what do we have to gain from strapping into a life full of highs and lows, ups and downs, setbacks and successes?
