Finding Balance Through Imbalance

A big WELCOME to Dana who is guest writing for us today! She shares her thoughts and insights about finding balance, and as a work-at-home mom with a young son, she has a lot of experience. We are excited to have her with us today, and look forward to learning more from her in the future.

Photo by Anywayzzz

While I was desperately trying to find time to write this piece last month, it occurred to me that I did not appear to be a poster child for balance. In fact, my life probably looked pretty out of whack. By the end of the month, I was exhausted, my house was a wreck, my to-do list was running off the page, and I was behind on my work.

Every weekend in October saw me rushing around, hurriedly preparing for and entertaining houseguests – cleaning, planning a menu, stocking the pantry, cooking homemade meals, arranging for interesting outings, and so on. The parade of visitors meant little downtime to recharge or take care of mundane but necessary life tasks that seem only to accumulate. Further, I work from home while caring for my young son, and I often work on the weekends. With the weekends consumed by family and friends, I found myself working nights and still getting behind both on sleep and my assignments. I nevertheless stubbornly refused to put down my book before bed or to give up my 5 a.m. run in the interest of getting sufficient rest.

None of that seems very balanced, and yet I would argue that periods of imbalance are necessary to achieving balance overall in our lives. Balance is not a state you reach and maintain – it is a dynamic and ongoing process. Sometimes temporary imbalances are necessary to promoting balance across time. Being out of balance can also illustrate for us where we need to make changes in order to promote long-term wellbeing. It’s a matter of knowing your priorities and making day to day decisions that are aligned with your big-picture goals. It also means keeping a positive attitude when you have to make tradeoffs. The key to balance – to everything, it sometimes seems – is in awareness. In knowing what is important to you, and in being present enough in your moments to chose actions that support those things, even when the choice paradoxically promotes temporary imbalance.

As a family, it is important to us to spend time with our loved ones. Though realizing that priority meant last month was a bit hectic, in the grand scheme of things, accepting a little craziness allowed us to see the people we care about the most – which is far more important than tackling a few chores or scratching off a couple of tasks on a never-ending to-do list. I also highly value the little bit of “me time” that I get these days. In the short term I was willing to sacrifice a few hours of sleep to ensure I got that time. I have learned the hard way that I am more recharged by some discretionary time than I am by an extra hour of sleep. I also knew that this period of imbalance would end, and I would find myself caught up on work and sleep and missing the hubbub of a house full of friends and family, which helped me stay positive when I was tired or feeling overwhelmed.

As a work-at-home mom, the need to constantly balance two of my life roles is ever-present. It can be overwhelming at times to try to focus on the needs of a toddler when I can hear my work line ringing or see an email that seems to require an immediate response. This physical juxtaposition of work and family makes salient to me the universal need to be present in the moment so that you can make an intuitive judgment about which activity is truly important or urgent and should therefore take priority. Sometimes it will be work, and sometimes it will be the baby – sometimes it will be sleep, other times the morning run. Maybe for others it means sacrificing a vacation day to pursue volunteer work, or turning down a job transfer to be closer to an aging parent. Balance doesn’t mean equal time spent in our different roles or activities – it means allocating our resources in a way that makes us happier, better people.

Engaging in this ongoing balancing act requires awareness – not just in the moment, but in how those moments accumulate. At the end of the day, week, or month, what did you prioritize most often? Were those choices in alignment with your big-picture priorities and goals? If not, what can you do differently next time?