Life balance

There’s a lot of talk in the media about the benefits of maintaining a balanced lifestyle. But how will this more relaxed approach to work affect your performance outcomes? The answer to this question might surprise you.

Many of us in Western society feel that time is our most precious resource, largely because we often feel so short of it. It’s hard to juggle the competing demands of work, health, family, and friends, let alone to find time for hobbies or leisure interests.

Yet, the medical evidence is clear. We need to slow down and find time to maintain our physical health. We need to exercise regularly, eat healthy food, and get 8 hours sleep a night. For most of us, this doesn’t just happen as a natural consequence of being alive. It requires time, planning, and conscious effort to make these health choices a part of our lives.

The psychological evidence is clear on the topic of life balance too. We need to slow down and enjoy ourselves. Relax. And nurture the relationships that are dear to us. People who make this a priority are happier, psychologically healthier, more optimistic, and more likely to find meaning and purpose in their lives.

But how does life balance affect our performance outcomes? Will we pay a price for life balance, sacrificing some of our potential in order to achieve it?

Not so long ago, people believed that if you wanted to achieve superior outcomes, you’d have to devote your entire life to the pursuit of your goals. Some people still believe this.

Yet it’s not true. There’s a growing body of evidence which shows that people who maintain life balance perform better than people who work 24/7.

I probably should add a caveat here: I’m not suggesting that lounge lizards outperform hard workers. Working towards your goals is still the surest method of achieving the outcomes that are important to you. The comparison is between committed, hard working people who live a balanced lifestyle and committed, hard working people who do not. We’re not comparing the outcomes of committed, hard working people with the outcomes of people who prefer an idle lifestyle. The difference in performance outcomes in this latter case is self-evident.

So, given that you’re someone who’s committed to achieving your goals, and you’re working hard in support of your ambition, why should you add life balance to your strategic approach?

There are many reasons why life balance can improve your outcomes. Here are a few of them:

1. Working towards goals usually requires sustained effort. It’s more like running a marathon than running a sprint. If you want to last the distance you’ll need to pace yourself, and life balance is a brilliant pacing strategy.
2. High achievement requires you to manage your energy as well as your time. If you continually make withdrawals from your energy account, then your energy supplies won’t last you very long. You need to make regular deposits into your energy account too. Laughing, loving and having fun are great ways to make energy deposits.
3. If you single-mindedly pursue your goals, cutting all extraneous things out of your life, you’re creating a psychological pressure cooker. People who do this end up caring too much about their outcomes, and this often leads to anxiety and poor decision making. Living a balanced life helps you to keep things in perspective.
4. A balanced lifestyle increases your psychological resilience. This is partly because you have many different compartments active in your life at any given time. If one compartment is going badly, it’s not psychologically overwhelming because you’ll still have other compartments in your life that are going well. This can make all the difference during hard times.
5. No one achieves in a vacuum. From the professional support people who help you achieve your goals to the loved ones who pick you up when you fall, relationships matter. Taking time to foster positive, supportive relationships is a time investment that can improve your performance outcomes as well as your life.
6. Achieving a balanced lifestyle requires good self-management skills, and the more of these skills you have, the more likely you are to achieve your goals.
7. Thoughts and feelings have a direct effect on your behaviour, and your behaviour drives your outcomes. A balanced lifestyle leads to more positive thoughts and feelings, creating a positive feedback loop that delivers superior outcomes over time.
8. A balanced lifestyle helps you maintain motivation and enthusiasm for your work.

It’s not easy to achieve a balanced lifestyle in today’s world, but the benefits make it worth the effort. And the good news is that it’s not a zero sum game. When you add balance, you add performance potential too. Could you benefit from a more balanced life?