Mindset
In my life as a performance coach I’ve watched Olympic and professional athletes and many executive athletes I’ve supported toil with the concept of life balance.
We are often advised that creating a balanced life is important in establishing good health and well-being.
I believe a lot of the frustration in trying to attain “balance” is in the interpretation of the word.
The term balance conjures a perception of a scale with equal amounts of weight on either side. The word balance is often interpreted in the sense of equality amongst all the competing interests and demands of our lives.
Many may advocate against such a concept, for the notion that we might somehow be able to truly create an equal effort in every area of responsibility in our lives would seem daunting, if not impossible.
Maybe functionally when we speak of balance the perception and expression of the term should be more like the concept of how music is composed.
In music balance is a weighting of the various frequencies of sound or the instrumental arrangement. Certain elements are more pronounced at different times throughout the arrangement, and certain frequencies are more dominant.
There is always a “foundation” or baseline of sound frequency, each element being a part of the overall sound, however for a true piece of music with melody and flow to be expressed, there must be constant change, otherwise we would just have sound, or worse, maybe just noise.
In a video created by David Lindberg presenting the thoughts of Alan Watts, Alan described why your life is not a journey, he describes life using the analogy of a musical arrangement.
“No piece of music is created to arrive at a completion, unlike travel, where one is trying to get somewhere, in music one does not make the end of the composition the point of the composition. If that were the case the best conductors would be the ones who played the fastest, there would be composers who wrote only finales.”
Music is an analogy for life.
The marriage between flow and structure in music is really how we should consider balance in life. There need to be consistent relative structures, and there need to be various elements that ebb and flow.
Sometimes in our lives, we will stay close to the original arrangement, and follow our composition, and sometimes we will define a new arrangement or direction based on what we want to achieve. There should be no guilt about the expression or composition of our lives, and certainly no final destination in mind.
There are so many different types of music, each establishes a different mood, energy, or intention. In just the same manner, our life requires a different mood, energy, or intention given what we wish to accomplish in the moment, and in the future.
The feeling of being out of balance is just like walking into a booming rave in the middle of the afternoon on a Tuesday morning when you expect to be working on a project, but instead, your head is pounding with the massive weight of the bass vibration. It’s the wrong music, for the wrong moment, and the desired intention.
The idea of life balance is to modify the music of life just like we modify the music for mood. Don’t play the same music day after day, situation after situation. Play the music that meets the mark. Being balanced is playing with the “frequencies” in your life, and ensuring that you are playing the right music at the right time, exploring the full spectrum of what’s possible.
Don’t try to live a balanced life, instead try to better recognize the time for variation, change, and revision. Reflect more often on where you are, where you have been, and where you wish to go, just like a beautiful piece of music that takes you on a wonderful momentary ride.
Think of balance like a mixing board, and find the frequencies that work to make you stronger, better, and more fulfilled each day.
