Hello again! Obviously I have not yet met my original goal of posting monthly. After my original post, business and family life both picked up and I ended up caught in a whirlwind for a couple of months. Add to that the holidays and the chaos that comes with them, and I have had to let a few things slide in order to maintain my sanity. One of these things has been my blog and keeping up with social media for my business.
This had me reflecting on goals, life, and the chaos that we all experience. A while ago I was speaking with a client about balance and I said something that has stuck with me ever since:
For me, these words made sense of something that has never really resonated with me about the conversations I have about balance in my personal and professional circles. So often, I hear people talk about achieving balance, but I have always thought of this as unachievable — and have often become discouraged when trying to find this in my own life. When I reframed it as doing balance this feeling immediately dissipates. There are certainly moments (maybe minutes, days, or even weeks) when I feel like I have balance in my life and am in a good groove. However, life inevitably happens and I have to shift to compensate – just like someone trying to stand on a balance beam (or insert your favourite balance related activity here).
If you look at someone who is balancing, what do you see? I like analogies, so I’m going run with this one.
They are quite focused. I have done gymnastics, dance, cheerleading, yoga, mountain biking, and rock climbing and in most of these sports I was taught to focus on a specific stationary spot. Let’s think of this as your goals or where you want to be.
The athlete is not stationary, they are actively engaging their core muscles as well as pretty much every muscle in their body. Their muscles often move to correct any minor imbalance. This is where the balance as action concept comes into play.
The athlete will be using their body to counter-balance their weight and the distribution of that weight will vary depending on exactly which position or movement they are doing. Our priorities from moment to moment, and from day to day, will naturally shift.
Eventually that athlete will also rest. The routine/performance/game has a time limit. Sometimes we need to put things down and let ourselves rest. Rest is an important part of balance because without it, the body gets tired and the muscles will falter.
Practice! Regardless of the sport or activity being done. The athletes who demonstrate exceptional balance will be the ones who spend time working those muscles and providing their bodies with everything needed to have the stamina and strength to perform balance.
Even if that athlete happens to fall, have a tough day, or even gets a bad injury, they are going to persevere and use their support system to help them get back at it.
So, what is my point in all of this? To quote Kristina Kuzmic, “It’s about…choosing which plates I’m gonna carry, and which ones I’m gonna have to put down for a couple hours”. Check out her video “Screw Balance” HERE. It is okay if you don’t feel perfectly balanced all the time — I don’t know a single person who does. You, yes you, are a rock star at handling all the wobbles.