Stop Chasing Work Life Balance. It Was Never Meant to Work.
We hear the phrase “ Work Life Balance” all the time. It is literally everywhere.
A catchy phrase that HR love to use. It’s one of those ideas that sounds sensible and responsible. All you need to do is balance things properly, and everything will settle into place, right? Work on one side. Life on the other. Keep the scales even. Simple.
Except, it rarely feels simple in real life.
Most of the leaders I speak with, specifically women, feel as though they’re constantly falling short. Work demands more time and energy and suddenly family life feels neglected. Step back to take care of family, health, or simply to breathe for a moment, and you feel like you are failing at work, and letting things slip! It feels like you are always letting one side down.
For years, Indigo Brave has worked with many businesses using our model’s to give you a different perspective, so you can see that the issue isn’t that people are failing to achieve that perfect “Work Life balance”. But that the idea that this wonderful catchy HR phrase, simply doesn’t reflect how life actually works.
Your work is shaped by your health, your relationships, your sense of purpose, your creativity, and your emotional state. At the same time, work influences your identity, your financial security, the people you meet, and how you spend a large portion of your time.
Work and life, aren’t separate things, separate sides of the scales, that need to be balance, they are deeply intertwined.
The Life of Pie.
At Indigo Brave, we instead refer to it as The Life of Pie. In an attempt to find a different way to help people look at life. It’s time to start looking at the whole picture.
So instead of two competing sides, we imagine a circle, or a pie! (Feel free to pick whichever is your favourite flavour to help visualise!)
Within that pie (circle) sits many slices, representing the different aspects of your life. Work of course takes a slice, but also relationships, health, rest, learning, creativity, community, and contribution. The things that make a life feel full and meaningful. Each one matters. But they don’t all take up the same amount of space all the time.
At certain points, work quite naturally takes centre stage. A new role, a growing business, a demanding project. These periods happen and often they are exciting and purposeful, and they should be a large portion of pie. It’s important.
But then you might need to repriorities. It could be a health issue perhaps. Family. Or sometimes, it is that simply you need to slow down, rest (enjoy a holiday!) and think about what comes next.
The circle stays whole. But the size of the slices shift. And when you start to look at life this way, it begins to feel much more realistic.
Nature offers a better metaphor for how life unfolds.
Think of the seasons. There are periods in nature of growth and activity (Spring/Summer), and periods of rest and renewal (Autumn/Winter). The seasons change without asking permission from our calendars. It just happens.
The March Equinox is a good reminder of this. The days start to get brighter, the darkness recedes, there is new growth and buds on the trees, fresh shoots in the ground. The earth keeps moving and the seasons continue and so does life. There will be times when work asks more of us, and other moments when something else quite rightly needs to come forward.
You absolutely do not need to try and keep everything perfectly balanced all the time, it’s exhausting.
So here’s a Reflection
In business, for Leaders especially, this shift in perspective can be surprisingly freeing. Instead of asking “How do I keep everything balanced?” Instead ask:
What is asking for my attention right now?
And perhaps just as importantly:
What have I been neglecting for a little too long?
Leadership isn’t only about guiding organisations and teams. It’s about noticing where you are channelling your energy and making conscious choices about it. But also looking at your teams to help them make conscious choices too. Sometimes that means leaning fully into work. Sometimes it means allowing them to step back to give another part of their life the attention it deserves in that moment.
Obviously, work is still important. But it sits within a wider circle that includes the relationships, wellbeing, and the ability to allow us to show up well in the first place.
The real question isn’t how we balance work and life, it’s simply this:
How do we stay connected to the whole circle of our lives, and make thoughtful choices about where our energy belongs when circumstances or situations change things?
That feels like a far more human way to live and lead.