‘Balance is an illusion.’
A coach said that to me once when I was complaining about how much I had worked that week. I was feeling badly about time away from my kids, the things I hadn’t gotten around to completing, and how much I had on my plate.
I remember slightly resenting him when he said it. We all strive to have a balance between work and our personal lives. We want time to complete our work successfully. We want to be good parents, good spouses, and good friends. Surely there is a way to create a sense of balance, right?
Yet real estate is a business not always limited by 9 to 5, Monday thru Friday. I’m good at creating schedules. I color code my schedule using Google Calendar (which I LOVE). Yet even with the best of intentions, sometimes I find myself thinking things are way out of balance.
Sunday night I looked at my calendar from the preceding week and understood my exhaustion. Lots of green (client time), some red (business support), and very little blue (personal time). Clearly out of balance.
The Pendulum Swings Back
The real gift from the coach that day was something that has helped me everyday since. Balance in the short term may be an illusion but the desire for it, the desire for a sense equilibrium, is what allows you to take stock and allow the pendulum to swing back the other direction. It’s the very consciousness of it that allows one to accomplish it over the long run.
This week, you may find that I will be slightly hard to reach on Thursday and Friday. If you see me at the beach, with a good looking guy and 3 kids, come say hi. Let’s just not talk about biz – it will be a Blue Day.
