A friend recently told me she couldn't relate to the mantra I have adopted for both my business and my life -- balance -- because it felt to her like trying not to fall off of a precipice, trying to get a teeter totter perfectly level (ah, perfectionism!), or constantly walking along a balance beam. She was viewing it through the lens of fight-flight. I was so grateful for her perspective, because that had not occurred to me.
What I mean when I talk about balance is something that (ideally) comes from a regulated nervous system. If the scale goes from -10 to +10, we are not trying to stay exactly at 0 (dead center) all the time. Instead, sometimes we are a bit more up (say a 3) and other times more down (maybe a -2), but on average we are generally somewhere near the center. Even when a swing is bigger, we do eventually correct and head back in the other direction.
I once heard balance described as traveling on a wide, sun-dappled path. There is plenty of space to walk around that muddy patch that blocks our way, or to move further to our own side to give way to someone riding a horse. Trying to walk straight down the middle, like we're walking a tightrope, will ultimately prove impossible because eventually we will encounter an obstacle.
Yes, running a business is sometimes a balancing act, but it can be easier to handle what comes at us when we know we have the entire width of the path to work with rather than just a 4-inch wide balance beam.
What do you think of balance?
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