Continuously leading a well-balanced life is a recipe for mediocrity. The key to success, however you measure it, is unbalanced, singular focus at specific points in time with an aim for overall life balance on average, over time.
Ambitious people tend to over-invest in their education and careers and under-invest in their most personal relationships. For a lot of us, it is surprisingly easy to work hard and surprisingly difficult to take it easy.
Sometimes, we will need to burn the midnight oil. Some seasons, when the sun shines, we make hay. But this is only successful if you can also allow yourself and your team to ease up when times are less opportunistic. In other words, you can sprint, but not for long. Nor should you. Nor should your team.
Balance on Average
You can achieve balance on any five-year average (if you choose) but it’s unlikely your life will balance at any given moment. Work moves and jumps in spurts. When it hops, you work hard to capture the advantage of pouncing on opportunities as they arise, knowing your team is ready because they just came off a rejuvenating slower pace.
Building Breaks
Build breaks into your work flow. Allow for some seasonal team recovery. Full-steam-ahead all the time leads to burnout and missed opportunities because your organization is not taking time to thoughtfully consider fundamental changes in the marketplace nor planning how to react. Besides, no one will have the bandwidth to address these changes as they unfold.
So, be balanced… but only on average.
Now get back to work.
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