Living well, living fully: the balancing act
About this same time last year, I felt like I couldn’t handle much more. I had just started grad school, was assigned newer, more challenging responsibilities at work, started programming my own training and nutrition in preparation for my obstacle course races and Kilimanjaro climb, and was going through a personal dark time where I felt alone, like I was not enough. I wanted to be strong, but I felt weak compared to everyone I saw on Instagram; I wanted to be free and travel, but I felt consistently drowning in unfinished work and no energy to go anywhere; I wanted to change my future, but I had no idea what to do about it.
I tried to recreate the feelings of mental liberty I feel when I solo travel. I took a few months off from social media to focus inwards, to read and ponder about my situation, identify the sources of stress and feelings of inadequacy, and try to develop action plans to work on those mental weaknesses. I wrote a lot, went on my first backpacking solo trip to the Canadian Rockies (one of the highlights of my 2017), answered some of the questions I posed myself and wrote down many more. I was peeling the onion slowly, intentionally.
I learned one very important lesson during this time of self-reflection.
Physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, we are meant to grow from stages of intermittent stress and recovery. In the hectic pursuit of achievement, however, many people lose sight of this to adopt the hardcore “rest is for the weak” philosophy, where time is the driver of life; usually they sacrifice their emotional, spiritual, and social selves to improve on their physical or mental well-being. These are the people that work 16 hour days to stay ahead of their co-workers, work out 3 hours a day, 6 to 7 days a week chasing gains or pounds shredded, the student that is ALWAYS studying, the person that spends hours in line waiting to buy a discounted TV on Black Friday.
What happens is that this produces great gains in one particular area of their life at the expense of becoming severely dysfunctional in others. Eventually, it hurts their relationships (or their ability to even start relationships), their productivity, and in the end, their sense of purpose. That’s because balance is a gift and a virtue, and we must learn to cultivate it and personify it to live a truly meaningful life. If you're consistently engaging in comparisons, over-working yourself to meet or exceed those comparisons, brewing jealousy, feeding the imposter syndrome monster, you will never be in a balanced state.
We need to unlearn the harsh ways we view productivity with time as the sole focus of our output and instead, aim to channel our energy as efficiently as possible to optimize our performance, health, and happiness. By doing so, we can learn when our mind and body needs to retrieve to recharge and recover (I mean, simply put, if you're not focusing your energy, you're wasting your time and screwing up your success plans). For me, that Canada solo trip was a life-changing experience. After so many months of restless self-indicted pressure and feeling like garbage, I gave my soul some time to rest... and now, a year later, I can say I'm in a much better place.
If you’re ever feeling drained or lacking at a physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual level, ask yourself the following questions:
What is the true source of this unhappiness or feeling of incompetence/inadequacy?
Why do I feel like I need to hold myself to X or Y standard?
What can I gain from disconnecting myself from the answers to Question 1? What would I lose?
Who or what are people/things that help me feel balanced?
Where in my daily activities can I find moments where I'm wasting my time because I don't have the right energy to perform?
How can I best restructure my life so that I can live more balanced?
How will I keep myself accountable to a balanced life?
If you want to learn more about this philosophy, I highly suggest reading the book The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loer and Tony Schwartz.