We can start by examining the so called Four Burners Theory, it’s origin is unknown but I have read about it when I was trying to find the answer to the very same question I have for the title. Is work life balance just a myth? or are there ways to actually make it work optimally.
Imagine a four burner stove, and each burner represents a major area of your life it can be anything that you deem important, in this example, im using Health, Family, Work and Friends.
From my understanding the theory states that in order to be successful you need to make one burner top burn the most, and in order to be really successful you have to cut off two.
I often ask myself what if I try and bypass things and make all four burners work? will I succeed? I wondered.
What If I divide my 24 hrs a day into parts where I can focus on one burner will it work? If I combine two burners will it be smart? soon I realized that I was just inventing these hacks, I was juggling things all at ones and no matter how I try and incorporate hacks and workarounds, I only have two hands, with this in my mind I can only hold on to two things at a time and the other burners are being tossed in the air temporarily. One can only juggle 3 or 4 or 5 things consistently before one breaks. At the very least this is my opinion.
Based on my experience, most of my major personal achievements came with negative trade-offs, and in order for me to accomplish my goals I have had to sacrifice major areas of my life.
The prerequisite for sacrifice is something that most people overlook or sometimes disregard, to become an elite practitioner or performer in any field, one requires high volume of hours and effort on a daily basis. The reality is, life is full of tradeoffs and the life we live is mostly the result of the decisions we make every second.
If you want to be healthy and succeed as a professional then you might be forced to cease partying and going out with your friends or in some cases family, ofcourse you are always free to divide your time equally among four of your burners, but the caveat is that you will never attain full potential in any of the given area.
So now, you would ask yourself, would you rather live a balanced life but someone who never maximizes potential or an unbalanced lifestyle but performing at very high level in a certain area?
I don’t claim to have this figured out, but I am still trying to, there must be a way or an alternative approach to achieve work life balance.
XERGIUS 