Life and Business Balance Part 1
September 26th, 2019 // 1:24 pm @ Scott Manning
The term “balance” is very much misunderstood. By the nature of it, you would think that it means you should have equal time to work and play (or other areas of your life that deserve time). We can include family, health, faith, sports, reading, watching tv, visiting with friends, education or anything within a person’s daily or weekly routine.
Before we talk about business, which is usually the focal point of this particular newsletter in addition to success practices which applies to life and business – I want to set the record straight about balance.
Striving for ‘balance’ by anyone from the outside perspective will surely drive you into a state of frustration, fatigue, self-doubt, and insecurity as to whether you should be doing more of some things or less of other things. In the end, you never really know what you should be doing.
The great Zig Ziglar use to say that the biggest challenge with most people’s lives is that when they are at home their mind is really at work and when they are at work their mind is really at home. They aren’t ever really where they are supposed to be.
That, my friend, is being OUT OF BALANCE.
You see, balance to me is first and foremost a decided thing. Are you doing what you say you want to be doing?
If you like reading, did you get a chance for 10 minutes, an hour, some interval of time to do it – daily or weekly? If you wanted to do it and it happened; sounds pretty balanced to me.
If you want to work out, did you go the gym or did you stay too long at the office? Did you sit down to watch the game but your mind was too distracted to pay attention?
Balance is about following your preferred routine and being present while doing so.
Being where (physically and mentally) you are when you are supposed to be there – because everything has a time, a place, and an energy allocated to it when it’s necessary.
Balance is not a scale where opposing options are of even weight. It’s not about equality – a “balanced” diet isn’t eating 20% of five different food groups each (or however many there are or aren’t these days). Some people’s ‘balanced diet’ is one or two food groups.
It is about a decision and then allocation of time, energy, effort, presence, and follow-through in proportion to the requirements necessary to bring the decision to life.
Read that again.
What you do in your life and business should be about bringing your decisions to life.
What I’m really saying here is that the formula for balance in a person’s life and business changes over time at different stages of life or even at different seasons throughout the year based on what the desired objectives are.
If you are working up to run a marathon, you are going to appear out of balance to others on some things that will have to be compromised or sacrificed. For this particular goal to be reached, you have to dedicate more time to running; which means less time for other activities. Yet, you remain in balance based on your decisions.
Decision equals time allocation and therefore perhaps out of balance compared to another time or another goal, but not out of balance with this one.
This is no different than a Doctor learning a new clinical skill or bringing new procedures into their practice. There is no way to keep everything exactly the same as it was and add something new into it. For a time, the balance will shift. Not in an unhealthy or uncontrolled way but in a decisive way because the focus and objective requires it in order to accomplish the goal.
I can’t possibly think of a better book on this philosophy than The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I love this book. It, for me, will always be a staple for my life.
Without going into the specifics of every habit, what I would say to you is in every single area of your life, if you ask yourself what is my goal, what does improvement look like, how can I be a more significant contributor and/or achiever in “this area” – that is ‘beginning with the end in mind’ – and therefore based on that decision what actions do I need to commit to and how can I incorporate them into MY Balanced Approached to Living so that ALL AREAS are getting what they need for me to realize and achieve what I want.
Balance is not about equality or perfect harmony or easy or comfortable. Balance is personal, it is decided, it is ever changing, and it is what your life looks like when it’s the way YOU want it. You are experiencing all the areas, people, and things that you feel are important to you.
Now, for business… well, that’s an interesting topic unto itself and we’ll go there in great depth next week.
If I were you, I’d be playing the game of a Balanced Life and set it up to be WON on your own terms. That’s true happiness.
Category : Blog
