Balance is An Illusion by Lisa H. Thomas
I was spending time with my goddaughter, Madison; a 5 year old precocious little girl full of tenacity and perseverance who rarely finds defeat in anything. As she played about the house, I hadn’t seen her in a while when all of a sudden I heard the sound of one hand clapping! Nothing! Yes, nothing! That could only mean that she must be up to something. Where is she?
Madison was quietly in the office and I could see her little feet dangling from the chair. I knew she had to be doing something, so I called her name “Madison!” With a milk mustache and cookie crumbs around her mouth, she turned around while typing on the computer and replied “I can’t talk right now Mama Leelee, I’m working”. I looked at her and thought “oh my god, we’ve created a monster.”
Madison is already learning the importance of work and that you might even have to work through your milk and cookies break. **sigh**
For the wo(man) who has a full life, balance is the buzzword these days and you’re probably working through your own version of the milk and cookies break. You’ll hear the phrase “work-life balance”, or “I need to create a more balanced life” going around. I’ve had that come up in my own life, a time or two. I mean it’s pretty full.
I have many roles to play. I’m a partner, friend, CEO of a training and development company, President of a women’s organization, a daughter who’s responsible for keeping a close eye on aging parents, a godmother, a sister and an auntie who travels extensively with my career.
When I think of balance, I think of what the word really means – generally defined as an equal distribution of weight.
Now, if I just take a typical day, I wake up at 4:30/4:45 am and head to the gym. I then commute back by around 6:45 am, go through the morning routine and be in the office no later than 8:45 am. I work till 6:30 pm or so. Prepare dinner, eat, spend time chatting with family which brings me to around 8:30 pm to prepare for the next day. I take time to wind down, prepare for bed and fall into a coma-like sleep around 10:00 pm to repeat the cycle the next day. Think about it, if we spend a large chunk of time at work, say 8+ hours which we all do, and another chunk getting ready for work, commuting, and spending quality time with kids, partners and significant others, there isn’t a lot of time left.
Can there really be an equal distribution of weight? Is it possible to attain balance? Some believe it is, however I’d say attaining balance, by its definition, is almost impossible for the business owner who’s building and creating a successful business or a top executive who’s at the helm and accountable for the success of a multi-million or billion dollar enterprise. Good luck finding equal time for all things on your plate. It’s an inevitable failure'; a false idea or belief.
Balance is an illusion lingering in thought; that all are attempting yet failing to master.
How exhausting! What’s more effective and perhaps even more liberating is alignment.
Alignment is about bringing all things into harmonious synergistic arrangement/ flow.
To begin, you must answer the question “what do I really want” to promote alignment.
When I look at my life and consider my strongest desires, I can think of a few wants. I really want to be sure my parents have a great quality of life for their remaining years. I want Madison and my other kids to have a wonderful experience as a children and grow into amazing women. I want the businesses I’m involved in to thrive and be successful, to provide exceptional service for years to come, and develop profound long lasting relationships.
As I examine my wish list of desires and consider my personal blueprint for success, I consider questions like:
Do I want quantity or quality?
Does what I want require my physical presence?
Can I leverage other talent to get the results that I want?
I then examine the P3 Circles of Life™ (spiritual, emotional, physical) as it relates to what I want to have.
In the first circle is the Spiritual self, where vision and purpose are housed. Deeply in the spirit of who I am, I unveil the vision for the important areas of life. For example, the vision for my dad is that he experiences a high level of worth and value, in spite of his sometimes less than cooperative body. He had a stroke several years ago that has over time rendered him slow moving in getting to where he wants to go.
In the second circle is the Emotional self, where self-imposed limitations hinder my ability to successfully resolve obstacles that block what I want. So I ask myself:
What internal thoughts do I have about what I want?
Are they consistent with having what I want or are they sabotaging my results?
How do I change my paradigm/mindset to be more synergistic with my desires?
With regards to my dad, I transformed a few old patterns of thought about how he could be supported in having the quality of life he wanted
In the third circle of life is the Physical self, where vision meets reality. I ask myself:
Where is the breakdown in my skill set that derail my results?
How can I manage my time in a way that allows the ultimate result to be produced?
With my dad, I knew I didn’t have the capacity to produce results I wanted, but someone else did! Ah-ha! The awareness gained in answering pivotal questions had me leap into action. The end result? My dad, and mom, had a community of support around them as he meandered throughout the community…AND I had peace of mind and joy that he was so dearly cared for - synergistic flow at it’s finest.
Here are a few additional steps to having your alignment blueprint work efficiently and effectively:
First, write down what you want – you must be crystal clear about what you want and have the ability to articulate it clearly.
Next, write down the things you are doing – everything you are doing currently. Yes, everything!
Compare the list against what you want and eliminate things that are not in alignment with what you want. Be brutally honest about what needs to go, without over-analyzing. Simply mark off what is not a fit for what YOU want.
Add things that you do want without hesitation.
Finally go to work on your mind. Think about the list of all your wants and desires – you may need to re-frame, redefine or transform your thoughts about the list. Remember to tickle your intellect and shake up how you’ve been thinking.
Then apply the 4 principles of time management:
Do only the things that you can do – be careful here. This is tough.
Leverage your resources – take a look at your pool of resources to determine what and/or who can be leveraged to aid in having what you want.
Delegate tasks to those who are willing to do that task. Be sure they are skilled, competent, have the capacity, and passion for the responsibility of it all.
Manage the results.
If you take this on, you’ll have a clear blueprint for alignment and balance will no longer be a part of your vocabulary. You’ll discover you are enjoying life and not trying to balance your milk and cookies break against your business work life, family, friends, community and well being. Go live! Life is too dang short!
****This article was inspired by P3 course work and a riveting speech Lisa delivered in 2014 to a group of seasoned business owners. Versions of the article has been published in Array Magazine and on LinkedIn in 2015 and 2016 respectively. The P3 Circles of Life™ and Alignment are taught within the suite of P3 services. If you’re ready to align your business with who you are take the P3 Leap!