I can recall my boss once saying to me “you’re always lurching from one extreme to another”….
Geez, these wonderful feedback moments really stick with you don’t they?
Luckily that same leader told the CEO that ‘pound for pound I was the most valuable player we have in HR’.
So ON BALANCE I’m ok with his feedback.
But it does make me wonder if the concept of balance is a bit of a con.
Humans don’t balance. We do not move by hovering along on an invisible skateboard, perfectly balanced, zen-like.
We walk – the very act of which is transferring weight from one leg to another. That isn’t balancing – it’s lurching from one foot to the other.
And while I didn’t love that feedback, he was right! I do ‘lurch from one extreme to another’ – one day I’m full-throttle with a group challenging, dynamic leaders and ‘jazz hands’ energy and the next day I’m ‘in the cave’ thinking, reading, planning and not speaking to another soul.
He lurched too – from negative feedback to positive feedback. There was nothing balanced about it.
So, ok I don’t love the image of being a Lurch. Let’s think of it more as a pendulum in perpetual motion – as long as it’s swinging rhythmically then all is well. We might call this motion ‘balance’, but really it’s controlled lurching.
Newton’s 3rd law states for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. That doesn’t just apply to physics – it applies to society, politics and economics too.
That’s why we have cycles – and the further back you stand from these issues, the more predictable these cycles appear. That’s because the pendulum has been there before.
Being the pendulum gives us momentum. Perfect balance is only achieved when the pendulum has stopped moving and hangs motionless in the centre. Perfect balance means we have lost momentum.
Don’t hang motionless in the centre! Have momentum!
If that means you have to lurch once in a while, lurch away I say.
And bonus points if you can learn to lurch deliberately – shifting from one state to another – even better. It’s how we learned to walk, after all.
My deliberate lurching involves:
ENERGY
- never more than 2 consecutive ‘jazz hands day’ where I’m with others all day
- never more than 2 consecutive ‘in the cave’ days when I’m alone all day
As a recovering ambivert, I have learned to try to make sure I’m balancing this deliberately.
TIME
- take 1 day off a week – entirely
- have 1 slow day a week (bare minimum Monday is often celebrated at BoldHR)
I used to kid myself that my weekends were sacred – they weren’t. I’d be checking my phone all weekend, and planning the week ahead from 4pm each Sunday. So rather than pretend otherwise, I embrace it.
EXERCISE
- PT every other day and smashing all my activity goals on those days
- less than 3000 steps on the days in between
Yes I know this is officially very, very poor practice and I am not advocating for it.
Be a Lurch. Or be a pendulum. Don’t aim for balance, aim for momentum instead. Be perfectly out of balance in fact – and don’t stop moving.
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Rebecca is Australia’s pre-eminent advocate for B-suite leadership – the expert in developing hi-impact B-Suite leadership at both a team and individual level.
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You can reach her on rebecca@boldhr.com
