I want to talk to you a little bit about balance.
Years ago, one of my mentors sat down in front of a whole group of us and drew a circle with a bunch of pie slices. Each pie slice represented something important in your life. She said, “assign each slice an area, say, work, hobbies, travel, family”. Then she said, “now, fill in the pie slice for as much of that as you’re getting in your life.” So, if work is taking up all of your time, it gets a really big portion of the pie slice, color it all in. If you’re not getting to travel as much as you would like, it gets a smaller portion of the pie slice, you just color in the tip.
So, we got done doing all of this and we had this really cattywampus sort of pie slices, right. Some were really big, some were really small; and she said, “Okay. Now when you have good balance in your life, every part of the pie slice should be filled in about the same amount and what you end up with is a wheel that goes around and around and around, and this is how you know your life is in balance.”
Well, I believed her, and for years, I got frustrated because my pie was never in balance, my wheel was never round. No matter how much I tried, no matter how happy I was, no matter how successful I was…
the wheel was never round, ever.
what i discovered
…after many years, and many different mentors, is that balance does not mean equal.
Think about nature. When you have an ecosystem that’s in proper balance, you don’t have the same number of squirrels as you have coyotes; you don’t have the same number of trees as you have butterflies. What you have is harmony. You have fewer apex predators at the top and many more herbivores that feed the predators. You have a lot more plains of grass than you have herbivores because everything is in proportion, and that’s what makes it work.
It doesn’t mean equal. What it means is you have found something that works for that ecosystem. There are not the same number of sharks in the forest as there are in the ocean, just like your ecosystem balance will not be the same as someone else’s — right?
it's unique to you.
passion
Once you understand that balance does not mean equal, and equality does not mean sameness, you also realize something else really important:
Our growth and our excellence comes from overdoing in an area we’re super passionate about.
So, an area of your life that has the biggest part of the pie slice should be an area of your life you’re super passionate about and driven to be successful in.
so, take a look at your pie
If you’re doing this exercise, think about the parts of your life where you’re spending the most time. If those are parts of your life that you would rather be spending less time in, or you’re spending more time than you need to, those parts of your life may be out of balance. If you have areas of your life that you truly want to devote yourself to but you’re not, those areas may be out of balance. So, when we talk about balance, we’re not talking about being equal across all fronts. We’re not talking about a round wheel.
What we’re talking about is shifting the weight in our ecosystem so that the balance is weighted toward the things that we really, really love about our lives, and away from the things that we really don’t enjoy and are not very good at.
Balance is not something you find, it's something you create.
And so, that’s what I want for anyone I work with — faculty, practitioners, students. It’s not about creating the perfect wheel. It’s about how to shift the balance so that you’re putting the most time, energy, and emphasis in your life on the things you really love.