01 Dec (Un)balanced
By Daniel Dalenberg
I don’t think I have read a job ad that didn’t mention how great the company culture is and how wonderful the work/life balance is. Scroll through LinkedIn or any business related media for that matter and I am positive that you will find an article about the importance of balance.
[wa-wps]
The same is true in the rest of life. Balance your hobbies with the rest of your life; balance your relationships, your work, your family and so on, the never ending search for some semblance of balance.
I think it’s mostly bullshit, in the traditional sense at least. When I hear about balance I think the author is typically referring to how you balance out your 7 day week.
Professionally
I really love my job. Right now, a huge part of my role is managing and facilitating design research, product innovation, and human centered design. I find it fascinating and energizing. My career is on a really great path, with my desired next steps becoming more and clearer the better I learn my role. I finally know what I want to be when I grow up.
I’ve lost pretty much all balance with this. I’m writing this article on a plane, between emails and en-route to visit Stryker Limerick in Limerick, Ireland, the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I travel a couple times a month, I am constantly reading about project management and human centered design best practices. It is rare that I am not available in my professional life; my director and I have a bad habit of trading emails or texts at midnight (he lost balance a long time ago).
I’m passionate about my work. I derive a lot of satisfaction from it and measure success via salary and title. I want to be great at my career; I want to be in charge, have power and call the shots. Putting in the standard 9-5 and just working within my job description isn’t going to take me to the level that I want to be. I’m foregoing balance to be exceptional at what I do.
Training
I put a lot of effort into planning my training. Some of the team has seen a few of my fully baked spreadsheets. The amount of detail that goes into this planning might be a bit over kill. This amount of planning and the method behind it has proven worthwhile. I have pro totals both raw and equipped in 3 weight classes and no serious injuries. I’ve made continuous forward progress year after year as a result of attempting to take a more cerebral approach to my training, whether it is my own writing or from Brian’s help. I’ll never be a “f##k it” lifter and go in with reckless abandon. Watching me train is about as intense as paint drying.
I’ve worked very hard to get where I am. I gave up a lot of Friday nights and mornings sleeping in to do this. I want to be great at it. Rolling into the gym without a plan and irregularly will never get me there. Many years ago, I threw balance out the window and developed an obsession.
There’s a time for balance
There is certainly a time for balance. For me it is the off season, it’s during holidays; its Saturday afternoons spent at the lake. This is the time to unwind, relax, and shift the focus away from work and strength pursuits. Really in this way, I find myself unbalanced in the other direction, completely focused on doing nothing productive.
To truly be great at something, whatever that endeavor might be I tend to believe that you can’t be balanced. The 40 hour work week or casual hobby does not make for a great performer. The great performer is unbalanced most of the time, obsessed and focused. In lieu of mediocrity, I chose to be unbalanced.
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Daniel Dalenberg
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