I’m calling BS on the kinda trendy saying that “Balance is a myth”.
I get the idea — balance? *Yawn*. Try PASSION. Be all in when you’re in, and all out when you’re out.
I love passion. I love going all in, but..
I think clinging to the notion that ‘balance it’s a myth’ is a good excuse to be a workaholic and/or hermit.
I know this because I used it as my default mindset when I’d be working 60-hour weeks and wasn’t ‘allowed’ to escape for weekends in the mountains with my friends.
I think balance is totally attainable, healthy, and an admirable pursuit. It may not look like 6 hours of work + 1 hour of exercise + 3 wholesome meals a day, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t prioritize the modernized version of it.
The danger in writing balance off as a myth is that you forget to prioritize it.
You have to MAKE balance happen sometimes.
When you find something you really love.. that you can eat, sleep, and breathe, you almost never want to take a break from it.
But you must! Because.. life!
Prioritizing balance might mean…
- turning on an autoresponder and escaping for a week
- clocking out early to savor summertime for one more evening
- turning off your damn phone!
- asking yourself if you even really want to grow your business
- choosing must and going all in on your dreams
- reading…. fiction
How I operate in balance
I live fully in each season and mood. When I’m feeling the flow, I go all in. But to me, balance = sanity. I literally need to block out time to NOT think about my business. Just because I’m an entrepreneur doesn’t mean I want to be in biz creation mode all the time.
Many have written about the idea that ‘work-life’ balance assumes that work and life are separate. Well, yah. They are.
And some have even gone so far as to say that if you view them as such, you’re ‘probably not cut out for entrepreneurship’.
Bull shit.
I think about my business a looooooot. About what I’m going to write next week. How to add more value to the course I’m launching next month. What to make my next vlog about. How to use social media in a more fun and creative way.
But I can’t get over THIS idea :: I am more than all of that. We all are more than our work. Life is more than our ideas, more than our contributions, more than our stuff, more than the money.
Your work is you, but you are so much more. [tweet]