Work/Life Balance is a Fallacy

Last week we conducted a poll in our Three Action Thursday Facebook Group about which 3AT tenet we felt we most fully embraced. Building Authentic Relationships won out over Personal Finance and Personal/Professional Development pretty handily. I thought this piece would be perfect to help stretch your proficiency even further.

In my life, if I had five dollars for every time I heard someone say to me, “Work/life balance is so important to me” or “This year, I am going to have a better work/life balance,” I would have a spare million dollars in the bank.

Two things aren’t truly in balance unless they are PERFECTLY balanced. Work/life balance is perfection and perfection is NOT possible. Striving for this only ends in significant disappointment and aggravation.   

Work/life balance is a complete and utter fallacy.

When Ryan Holiday wrote the book The Obstacle Is the Way he was invited to see the Seattle Seahawks training camp. Between book promotions and touring he had far less time with his wife than he would have liked. At the time the two had just been married. So Holiday asked Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll how he manages to make a personal life work with such insane work hours. Carroll, who has been married for over 40 years, told Holiday, “You have to find the moments between moments.”

I found this quite profound. Instead of trying to subtract from work and adding to life, or vice versa, what if we just focused on the moments between the moments?

An example from my personal life is when I’m driving my children to events or activities. Sure, at times I feel like an Uber driver trying to earn a 5-star rating for my parental driving… But honestly, it’s a special opportunity. Some of my deepest conversations with my children have occurred while driving from place to place. You can view these “moments between moments” as menial acts or you can treat them like gold nuggets with the ability to restore some balance back into your life.  

Utilizing ”moments between moments” is key in building authentic relationships and feeling fulfilled in life. You can practice this at home as well as in the workplace. Rather than attempting to balance one’s work/life by planning more vacations or better organizing your work responsibilities, consider instead putting aside the fallacy of balance and focus on consistently managing the moments between moments. This will serve us better than striving for perfect – and elusive – balance.

**Action:

1. Take a second and reflect: where in your day are the moments between moments? Are you rushing through them, wishing them away, or truly valuing them?
2. Which person or relationship could benefit the most by leveraging these moments between moments?
3. If you haven’t yet, make a point today to join our Three Action Thursday Facebook Group for further discussions.**