making vs finding balance

How do you know if you’re balanced?

Balance is talked about as something you find. Often between work and life. As if there was this magical spot between your ‘work’ you and your ‘home’ you. 

Just like time, balance cannot be found, only made.

Balance is elusive. Partly so because it’s personal. There isn’t one right thing or action that brings it. What works for one person doesn’t work for another.  Often we try to find balance by mirroring what’s working for others or letting people tell us what we should be doing. 

What I have tried

I spent years trying to find balance. Not only was I looking for something that couldn’t be found, I was looking in all the wrong places. Here are some things I’ve done to find balance that didn’t work:

• Going out for drinks after work with colleagues (I’m an introvert and don’t like drinking)

• Training for and running a 10K race (I don’t like running, or racing, or being with thousands of people - see above: introvert)

• Joining a weekly running club (see 1 and 2)

• Taking an online daily meditation challenge (they are great AND didn’t work for me)

• Getting up at 5 am to “fit” in my self-care (try as I might, I am not a morning person)

While it may seem easier to want a coach like me to give you a playbook for balance, like all things in life, they have to come from you.

Making balance

Except for one thing, I’ve never believed in the “one size fits all” model for whole life fulfillment. In order to create balance you first need to know what it means to you, how it does and doesn’t show up in your life.

So pause, go inward, and ask yourself some more questions:

What does balance mean to you? 

What takes you out of balance?

How do you know?

When are you at your best?

I invite you to stop trying to find balance and start making it.