The Myth of Balance

I often talk about how I don’t believe in the idea of women having balanced lives. As progressive as we are in many areas, there are still outdated thoughts that continue to take up space in our life patterns. I work with many women who operate under the misconception that there is something wrong with them if they don’t have this elusive balance in their lives.

Having now give my position on balance, I also want to say that I’ve been rethinking the concept lately (or at least as how we normally think of balance).
See, I when I think of balance, all I think of is some impossible juggling task (like juggling chainsaws and personally, I juggle about as well as I do calculus…yikes, ‘nuff said).

The myth of balance as having enough time, effort, and energy to be able to spend equal amounts of time on everything that is important to you is ridiculous. Quite frankly, those life wheels that are used in the personal development industry drive me crazy. That model just does not fit the demands on women in today’s society. There is always going to be an imbalance on your life. Your life pie is not going to cut into neat little equal slices and guess what…that’s OK!

To me, all I ever feel when I do one of those life wheels is how inadequate I am and how I’m not measuring up (yet again!) to what society says I should be doing.
So now that I’ve clarified again how much I dislike the idea of what society says is balance, you may be asking yourself what exactly have I been rethinking…and here it is:

The idea of balance can really be boiled down to 2 things:

BEING+DOING=BALANCE

Essentially that is what life balance is. All the other ‘stuff’ on the wheel is important, but when you can find your balance (again giant emphasis on the YOUR part) on the being and doing part of it, you are much more able to blend all of those other pieces.

The phrase BE, DO, HAVE is a popular concept in self growth and it’s no surprise that the BE and DO are the first ones in the lineup. When we are “be”ing and “do”ing, we find that our focus may be more heavily centered on a certain area in our life for a period of time. Knowing that that is ok, is the first step in achieving your version of the balance that is right for you.