Balance is sometimes described like something that has to be fulfilled at every moment of the day.
Whether work-life balance or “work hard, play hard”, I think it’s impossible to answer every need and want in every moment. Since we can only occupy the present moment, saying “yes” to one thing does mean saying “no” to to another. With only one physical body and mind, we cannot be in two places at once. You are either there, or you are not.
What makes more sense is looking at life, and balance, with a longer timeline. A day, a week, a month, a year, things can be balanced out when you have more time. Take food, for example. Breakfast might be a rush of cereal or eggs. Lunch might be a mix of salad and meat and potatoes. Dinner might be the time when you can properly sit down, and round off the day with whatever nutritional component is lacking, whether that’s more vegetables, more protein, some fruit, and even some potato chips or cake or ice cream. It’s not always possible to have a fully-balanced meal every single time you eat, but it is possible to feed both your body and your senses when you allow for a whole day, or a week.
Name your goals and your timeframes.
Once you see that having a timeframe (of an entire day) helps us succeed at the goal (of balanced nutrition), you stop looking at time as a deadline and demand, and start looking at time as flexibility. Without it, we’d be pressured to achieve every single goal at every moment — an impossibility — and with it, we’re able to balance the numerous demands of life and the numerous goals we’d also like to achieve.
To every goal that you have (name them, if you haven’t already), add your timeframe, the period in which you have the flexibility to answer all that life asks. Balanced meals, in a week. Exercise and play, in a month. Cleaning the house, over a few days. Many of these things are life-long demands, and while we shouldn’t spread out the balance of our meals over an entire lifetime, because you don’t really know when life will change, we can spread them out a little longer than “right now, every single day”. As for the goals that are about work and achievement, timeframes are helpful too. A promotion, in three years. A product or service launch, in nine months. A book project, in six months. Some of these might need to have stages in between, and those timeframes work too. A book draft, in one month. A confirmed manuscript, in two weeks… You get the idea.
The same way a day-long timeframe lets you pick highs and lows during each meal, a week-long timeframe lets you pick what to clean each day, and a month-long timeframe lets you plan for different weeks. Timeframes that last longer need the smaller steps to keep things on track, otherwise you might find yourself relaxing at the start and rushing at the end (which works if it works for you).
Name your season.
Taking an even longer-term view, you might want to look at the season you are in, and how your goals fit in. The seasons may not be literal three-month periods. Getting higher education, starting a business, becoming a parent, these are goals that last for years, decades, and sometimes a lifetime. Sometimes, a change in your situation changes your season. Getting married, moving out, migrating, for example. These decisions cause ripple effects across your life, and can change your past plans.
Sometimes we are in new seasons, and we do not realise them. Take a moment and check-in with your present day reality. Even if nothing seems to have changed, you are older, wiser, more experienced, and you always have a choice to change. Name your current season, and check whether your goals and timeframes sit well with it, or if they need to be changed because they’re causing pressure, friction, tension. Perhaps a timeframe needs to be longer, perhaps a goal needs to be postponed, or perhaps you realise a goal no longer matters as much as you think it did, and a new one can take its place.
Figure out what you really want, when, and why.
From goals, to timeframes, to seasons — to life — we’ve gone from the smallest questions to the biggest: “why?” Why do you want that goal? Why do you want it in that timeframe? Why are you in this season? Why haven’t you changed? Why are you making that change? These are the questions that come up either in a session of intentional goal-setting, especially when interally-motivated, or when it’s 1:23 am in the morning like it is now for me.
All goals have a reason. We want things because they bring us joy, peace, reassurance, and/or they bring us away from pain, hardship, stress. All timeframes have a reason, from juggling multiple demands to managing our internal sense of self-worth, self-confidence, self-belief. All seasons have a reason, and though sometimes we do not get to choose the what, we get to choose the meaning it has. And life has a reason, because you believe something, somehow, somewhere. It could be divinity, pleasure, exploration, to make meaning, to leave the world changed… Everyone has a philosophy, even if you haven’t put it into words before.
Becoming aware of the reason gives you the chance to look at it and say, “yeah, that makes sense” keep going at it, or “what?” and change course. We are abolutely incredible people, capable of brilliant pinnacles and crippling self-sabotage. Try to go after a goal for the wrong reasons and you will find yourself successful, by your own measure, and unhappy, or unable to keep any success for long. The external journey in the world mirrors your internal journey of the self. You can explore the world and find shallow success if you don’t explore your heart, mind, soul. You can also keep trying to walk on the inside and have nothing to show on the outside because you never took a step with your body. Like any relationship, you need both sides to be healthy to make a partnership that’s strong. Both your internal self and your external environment can work together, reflecting each other and sparking growth.
Balance and achievement, internally and externally, goals and dreams.
When the goals you have are the goals that you want, and the timeframe fits your season, balance and achievement aren’t impossible dreams. You’re allowing yourself the flexibility to meet life’s demands, choosing when and what to prioritise, knowing that you have a timeframe that works with present-day reality. By understanding yourself and moving with the world, you’re giving yourself the best chance of reaching brilliance, and in a field you’re motivated to be in.
All of this, of course, is wonderful as a theory. As the inside reflects the outside, shall we put it into practise? Name your goals, and your timeframe. Name your season. Figure out your why, your philosophy, and see if you still agree. Does everything fit? Do things need to change? And what do you need to do next, to match the external environment to the journey within?