Scales, Stress, and Why Aiming for Balance is the Wrong Target
If you haven’t read Jim Collins’s books, you’re missing out on some world class wisdom on how to improve not just how you personally think, but how you can understand the world of business.
I was first introduced to Collin’s work in an interview he had on one of my top 5 podcasts I recommend – The Knowledge Project. One of the key concepts Collins introduces is the “Flywheel Effect” indicating that all good businesses seem to set up a perpetual cycle of actions that feed the next action, and so on and so forth. Here’s a common one that Collin’s references so that you have a sense of what’s being described:
Company: Amazon
Lower prices → attract more customers.
More customers → increase sales volume.
Higher sales volume → gives Amazon leverage to negotiate better deals with suppliers and invest in more efficient operations.
Better efficiency and supplier terms → enables even lower prices.
This week, we’re taking that same concept of the flywheel and applying it as a counterexample to the scale. The “scale” is what we metaphorically are referring to when someone says their life is more “in balance” lately, or that they are aiming for balance. The only problem is that, well, life isn’t ever balanced.
WHY SCALES ARE FLAWED
The concept of the scale implies that you are borrowing from one side and adding to another. Therein lies the primary challenge when speaking about balance – you must borrow from one part of your life to apply it to another.
Not feeling balanced in your home life? Guess you'll need to borrow some time away from work.
Not feeling balanced in your physical activity? Guess you’ll need to sacrifice more time at home.
Not feeling balanced at work? Guess you’ll need to find more time in the day.
Not only does it frame the challenge as needing to borrow from one thing to apply to another, but as a result, it becomes a zero- sum challenge. You’re always losing on one side.
WHY FLYWHEELS ARE BETTER AIMS
Rather than aim for “balance”, I’d propose that we move towards a non-zero sum system, the kind that a flywheel can offer us. Think about it as a single action that improves all following actions. Something that when you repeat, it continues to improve all other systems. We’re aiming for a compound effect, something that improves each time it happens.
For starters, let’s map out an example of an ineffective flywheel – a situation where someone might say they are “out of balance”:
Go out for Happy Hour with coworkers on Friday → sleep in on Saturday, get poor sleep.
Go to bed late on Saturday → sleep in on Sunday to try and recover.
Wake up Monday groggy and undermotivated → perform stressed at work all week.
Destress with coworkers at Happy Hour on Friday.
You’ll feel out of balance here, and will rationalize that sleeping in and going out with co-workers is the only way to bring “balance” to your crappy stressful job life. You’ll never borrow from that side of the scale, because to you, it’s what keeps your lousy job in check. You’re now caught in a zero-sum game.
Here’s how we’d apply the flywheel:
Feel stressed at work → go to bed early on Friday, skip Happy Hour.
Wake up Saturday on time, as if it’s a work day → have time to get a workout in.
Go to bed at normal time on Saturday, tired from a productive day → wake up Sunday refreshed and energized to spend time with family.
Wake up Monday ready for work → handle a stressful work week (maybe look for a new job).
So, this week, try and be mindful of using the word “balance” to describe your life. The reality is we’re never really in balance, but we are aiming, or at least should be aiming, to improve the cycle that allows us to show up in the best way possible. Try this:
Friend: “Are you feeling balanced these days?”
You: “I’m working on just setting up my days so each day is better than the next. That’s been my focus. To create a system of good days that turns into good weeks.”
Thanks for reading as always.
Time to win the week 🏆
See you next week :)
– J
|
|
Level Up Each Week Together
Get practical insights you can use right away — each week, I’ll send you quick, actionable insights from my work as a licensed therapist, mental performance coach, and educator.
|
