Ditch Balance, Say YES to Flow

This quote popped up on Lisa’s phone the other day from the Headspace app and it got us thinking about balance. There are many places we want balance in our lives. We want balance in yoga, in our hormones and sometimes we like to see inspirational quotes about “balance in all things” on our Instagram feed (insert eye-roll here). One place we no longer want to strive for balance is in the work-life relationship.

We’ve been talking about work-life balance for years but this was before we held jobs without punch cards. Now, the division between our lives and our work is squishy. For those of us who see ourselves in our work or don’t even leave our house to go to the office, “balance” is a tired concept and an unattainable goal. Instead, we have taken a page out of Cali Williams Yost’s book, Work + Life to start talking about work-life flow and work-life fit.

These two concepts allow us to be out of balance sometimes. This means that those days when you find that flow state and barely say ‘hi’ to your spouse are OK as long as you also allow your life to flow into those times when there is space on your calendar.

Cali says in her work, that we can think about Work-life fit as a verb, not a noun, which means that we are constantly navigating finding the right fit for us in any given moment. Integrated leaders see all the parts of their lives as interrelated. In this framework, flow and fit are much more useful constructs than balance.

How do you fit your work with your life and your life with your work? Do you have a sense of the ebbs and flows within your work and life?

You officially have our permission to get your flow on and stop stressing about achieving perfect balance.