Social media will have us believe we can have it all, 'if we just work hard enough'.
It's not true.
Our training, careers, families, relationships and everything else we care about is a continual risk / reward calculation.
Which means by prioritising something, we normally have to de-prioritise something else.
As athletes, we often talk about trying to find balance.
But is that really helping us?
How often have you felt “balanced”?
We try to balance work, sport, friends, and family to create stability.
And stability is good.
But more often than not, stability comes from being flexible.
The tallest trees and skyscrapers don’t stand rigid—they’ve evolved and are designed to move.
There’s built-in flexibility.
Wiggle room.
The problem with balance is the assumption that there’s a perfect distribution of our time, energy, and attention - a precise formula that, once achieved, keeps everything steady.
But things that are intricately balanced are also easily tipped over.
Balance implies a rigid system: if you add more to one side, the other must compensate or collapse.
A seesaw only balances when both sides are equal.
Sure, we can adjust - add weight, shorten the lever - but that only makes the whole thing more fragile, more susceptible to falling apart.
I used to think that balance would be met by my diary adding up nicely.
Surely if you can fit everything into it, and it looks right, that must be 'balance'?
Productivity apps, hacks and ‘optimisation’ culture are all designed to make us feel like a minute spent thinking is a minute wasted.
But I have learnt that by chasing balance, we often set ourselves up to fail.
Because life is messy. Things change.
And our diaries can’t weight how much meaning an item has, or how much time that item actually requires for you to get full meaning from it.
Instead, building a system where there is clearer understanding of how the different aspects of life complement each other creates a more sustainable way to perform and succeed.
And it’s been proven by science.
Those who democratise their meaning, have a clearer understanding of purpose, are far more likely to sustainably perform and achieve.
It feels a bit counterintuitive, but the athletes who have more 'strings to their bow' are more often that not, the ones that win for the longest.
By prioritising adaptability and flexibility, we allow the differing elements of our lives to work more in harmony.
We must accept that things fluctuate.
Not everything needs to be balanced at all times.
Finding harmony isn’t easy - it takes effort.
But chasing balance? I think it's nearly impossible.
MY RECENT STORIES
Mindset
24th March 2025