I think if you look at the history of any great achievement there is often a clear relationship between imbalance and the level of achievement. If you want to climb to great heights you naturally have to be out of balance and going upwards.

To use a basketball analogy — Jordan is potentially the greatest of all time with no balance at all during his career, 100% focus, competitive drive and work. Ditto Kobe, ditto LeBron. Its no coincidence that the best of all time were also the hardest workers. Partying the least, having the least amount of ‘balance’ in their lives. And the greatest of all time are not always the most naturally talented, to be the greatest you almost certainly have to firstly be the hardest worker, and then be exceptionally talented naturally to boot.

I think you need to be out of balance to climb and then when you decide you are in a place that you are happy, you can choose to balance it out there. In the meantime, decide how ‘out of balance’ you are prepared to go on your journey and work your ass off in the time you allow yourself to work!

Good luck on your journey, remember its a long game! If your work/life/family goals all line up, you’ll have an easier time staying the course and managing your energy. You have plenty of time in each day, in each week and each year, and you have a lot of great years ahead of you! So one thing at a time and you might not notice the imbalance so much as you make small adjustments regularly and just plug away at it!

Cheers — Josh