The Imbalanced Life

Posted on January 7, 2009 12:00 AM MST by Sara Richardson

I recently had a breakthrough in my life. I decided to stop striving for balance. For years I’ve been laboring to achieve this perfect equilibrium in my life. God, family, work, friends, service, chores, etc. For some reason I thought I could make room for all of this, and do everything well all the time. But recently I decided there is no such thing as a perfectly balanced life. It doesn’t exist. Instead of pursuing it and failing, I have started to embrace the fact that I have an imbalanced life. That maybe for a certain season of life I’ll put more into my family and much less into work. That for a time I won’t be able to read a full book of the Bible every day because … well … I just have too much to do. 

I can’t take full credit for this discovery. I’ve been reading the book Find Your Strongest Life, by researcher Marcus Buckingham. Normally I really dislike self-help books (for some reason they never seem to work for me), but this one is different. It’s all about living out of your strengths so you can make an impact on the world around you. I love it because it’s based on research, which fascinates me, and it’s all about dispelling the myths surrounding successful women. Anyway, in the book, Buckingham recommends that we all stop striving for balance. He presents it this way: if you achieve perfect balance it will force you into a stationary position. (I’m paraphrasing here.) Think about how you have to stand when you’re balancing a book on your head. If you try to move at all, the book will come crashing down. Similarly, if you feel your life is perfectly balanced, you won’t move forward and you most definitely won’t try anything new, because you’ll be too afraid to upset the equilibrium you’ve achieved. Instead, Buckingham recommends shifting your balance to create more room for your strengths. Instead of obsessing about keeping your house spotless, spend more time pursuing your passions. In other words, stop focusing on your weaker areas and start focusing on your gifts. Not that any of us can quit doing the things we dislike, but we can learn to put more energy into the things that inspire and motivate us. Then we’ll have more tolerance for the mundane tasks that maybe don’t come so easily to all of us. 

I can’t tell you what this has meant in my life. Embracing my strengths has made me a better mother, wife, and friend. What about you? Are you embracing your strengths? Are you living an imbalanced life? 

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