Shawn Healey | Dragon KOI project Day 27 of 365: A BALANCED LIFE
How often do you hear the phrase "I need more balance in my life". Most people think that if they can find "balance" they will be happy, settled, calm, more appreciative, etc. I was reading this morning from Gary Keller's The ONE Thing and this topic came up. Much of this is paraphrased from his book. At the end of the day, a balanced life is a lie. The concept of a work-life balance has actually skyrocketed in the last 20 years. The term work-life balance was actually coined in the mie-1980's when more than half of all married women joined the workforce. Being "out of balance would be considered to be "away from the middle". The problem with living in the middle is that it prevents you from making extraordinary time commitments to anything. In your effort to attend to all things, everything gets shortchanged and nothing gets its due.
The problem... magic happens at the extremes. Really what we want is "counterbalance". Counterbalancing or moving back and forth toward and back from extremes gives the illusion of balance. To achieve an extraordinary result you muyst choose what matters most and give it all the time it demands. This requires getting extremely out of balance in relation to all other work issues. When you act on your priority, you'll automatically go out of balance, giving more time to one thing over another. Being clear about your work priorities separately from your home priorities if in effect the way we can maintain being happy and healthy. The challenge doesn't come from not going out of balance. The challenge becomes how long you stay on your priority. When you're supposed to be working, work. When you're supposed to be playing, play.
All too often I see business owners fall into the trap of not separating these two "buckets". I fell into this trap. Deep. Thank God for things that fall apart. It allowed things to beautifully fall together for me. To be able to see clearly how to separate my buckets is a beautiful thing.
Are yours separated?
Until tomorrow...
#shawnhealey #dragonkoiproject #focusforward #counterbalance#abalancedlifeisalie