What is Actually a Balanced Life?

Once I analyzed my life and realized that my focus was only on work, and other areas of life sagged. I rushed to fix them.

Now I am good almost at everything. Despite the fact that I have shifted my focus to other areas and the workload has increased, I still work with high quality. I devote quite a lot of time to my family and friends, as much as possible in the hectic life of the metropolis. We go to cafes, cinemas and workshops together. I eat and sleep well and exercise every day. And I also study foreign languages, read a lot, travel, take advanced training courses, etc. I don’t have children yet, otherwise I would add a visit to a psychotherapist to this list. Because it's overkill.

Perhaps for some people this is normal or even a piece of cake, but for me this is the limit. I feel like I'm under constant stress. And I suddenly realized that it was probably much easier to be an obsessive maniac fixated, for example, only at work than to juggle everything and succeed everywhere. How many chairs can you sit on at the same time?

I wanted to figure out what I was doing wrong. When something is not clear to me, I immerse myself in the problem ― I go through a bunch of trainings on the topic, read books, discuss it with everyone around. Then I write articles :)

Of course, the vast majority hold to a trending opinion that you need to take care of yourself and live in a balanced way. Boundaries, priorities and all that. Sometimes it's okay to give up and go to sleep. But there are also other points of view. For example, the title of Grant Cardone's book "Be Obsessed or Be Average" speaks for itself. Like, if you have a dream, then focus on it, and do not care about the rest. There are even more extreme ways. "A successful person is successful in everything." So no pressure then! Well, what is the right way?

I think that everyone must answer this question for themselves and decide how to live. If you have a dream and would love to go all in and just make it come true, then go ahead and do it. Yes, you will be judged, and how!, but what difference does it make. This is your life. If you want a healthy balanced life, then to hell with the pressure from society that you should have a career. You owe nothing to anyone but yourself.

Long story short, I thought where I screwed up. I seem to be striving for balance. I try to move towards my goals gradually, without fanaticism, but I feel not very happy and too overwhelmed. Does it look like balance?

In fact, my indestructible inexhaustible perfectionism let me down again.

I live according to the Agile method described in the book by Katerina Lengold. It consists in planning your goals for a short period of 9 weeks. Goals for 9 weeks aren't as huge and scary as a 'life purpose' or a 'lifetime dream'. At the same time, in 9 weeks it becomes clear whether it makes sense to move further in this direction or it is worth changing the vector of development.

The author recommends setting only 3 main goals for one sprint. Even from the very beginning of using the method, I have already moved away from this recommendation and highlighted 3-4 areas of my life and set sub-goals what I want to achieve within the next 9 weeks for each area. And then I began to include all areas of my life in each sprint and each had certain sub-goals.

Another recommendation from the author is to highlight 3 main tasks for the day. It makes sense because you can achieve anything if you stop trying to do everything. Let's be honest, you won't have time to do every single thing you've planned for today. Great advice, right? But no, we're not looking for the easy way. My day consists of several dozen tasks, each of which takes from 15 minutes to 2 hours. And I really try to complete them all. And moreover, I manage to do it, but at what cost?

All in all, I overloaded myself.

So what should I do? How do I let it all go and focus only on my top 3 goals for the next 9 weeks? But what about the other 15?

Then I began to think why do I need all this. Trying to achieve balance just because it fits in with some canons is no longer balance, but a direct path to burnout.

My problem is that when I did the 'Wheel of Life' exercise, I thought that ideally all areas of life should be rated at 10 or brought to this mark. Then I will have a perfect circle. Ideal life. Yep, good luck.

In fact, the areas of life for each of us may be different. We're all different, after all. Moreover, different areas of your life require different amounts of attention at different times. So you do not need to be torn into 10-15 parts at the same time trying to succeed everywhere.

How to understand what is important to you? I wondered why I felt overwhelmed at all. Even working 12 hours a day, I never felt as exhausted as I do now. Maybe it's because of the workouts? No, I look forward to it all day and feel great after that. Well, then maybe put off learning Italian for now? Certo che no! I relax the mind when I study this language. What about this valuable side project here? But it seems to be very important. I don’t know, for some reason this project doesn’t inspire me anymore and I have to force myself every time to start it. Here it is!

After such a revision, I discovered a whole bunch of goals that I stopped wanting to achieve, but out of a sense of duty, a desire to be consistent or God knows what, I could not quit them. But you know what? This is normal and happens often.

Again, there is no right or wrong. My method may not work for you. We are all different, we have different life situations, different interests and preferences. So find what feels good for you, what makes you happy and content. You only owe yourself.