Work-Life Satisfaction: Why It Should Matter More to You Than Balance
Work-Life Balance has misled you.
Life seemed pretty straightforward when we were kids.
Play.
Do chores.
Go to school.
Hang out with friends.
But when we’re out of school and creating a life all our own, we’re quick to realize how complicated the dancing act really is.
Creative professionals yearn to create things, share them with the world, and make it a better place. Turns out we also enjoy all the other parts of our lives too—family, hobbies, friends, and so on.
Life becomes a balancing act.
But “Balance” is the wrong way to think about our relationship with life. And there may be a better one right under your nose.
Satisfaction.
Let’s break down why “Satisfaction” may ultimately be a better framework for your complicated life than “Balance.”
First, we need to understand why Balance is misleading.
Why Balance is a Broken Metric
The term “Work-Life Balance” isn’t a new idea.
In fact, it’s been passed down from one disgruntled generation of workers to the next since the 1970s. From then on Work-Life Balance has been how we’ve collectively articulated the boundary line between our jobs and everything else.
But in an always-on, always-connected world, that line is eroding.
—
When people today say they’re trying to find “work-life balance,” what they actually mean is they’re unhappy about how their life is structured right now.
“Work-Life Balance” is what Matthew Kelly describes in his book “Off Balance” as a “catch-all phrase” to describe our general dissatisfaction with certain areas of our lives.
—
Balance doesn't accurately capture the complexity of our needs and desires.
Our priorities change as we do.
Our lives shift as we make more choices
Our expectations of life evolve with experience.
Kelly goes on to challenge the conventional wisdom surrounding work/life balance and proposes a different approach to life: Ditch balance and seek satisfaction instead.
Next, we’ll look at why Satisfaction is so powerful.
Why Satisfaction May Be a Better Metric Than Balance
As I’ve grown up, I’ve been searching for something.
When I was in college, it was knowledge.
When I started working, it was advancement and accolades.
When I got more experience, it was world domination.
(Ok, not quite. But you get the idea)
—
Ambition got the best of me and I took on too much.
I was out of balance.
I had burned out.
When I started to turn things around, I focused on who I wanted to be as a well-rounded human.
I focused on fitness.
I focused on relationships.
I focused on being creative with boundaries.
I focused on mentoring and developing my management skills.
My goal was no longer to become the absolute best in my field. It was to be a better version of myself.
—
For me, work and life weren’t balanced at 50/50.
And they didn’t have to be.
I was slowly gaining a different kind of framework in both my personal and professional pieces of my life—satisfaction.
My life’s pieces moved within and around each other.
As I wanted to pursue a creative project, I put energy into that.
As I wanted to develop my friendships with others, I put energy into that.
As I wanted to dive deeper into a design problem at work, I put energy into that.
Personally, I don’t believe Work-Life Balance exists.
I hadn’t considered the term “satisfaction” until I read Matthew Kelly’s book. Then something clicked.
Trying to find balance in a modern world is like trying to find a needle in a stack of needles.
And what does that even mean when you have “balance”?
How do you know when your life is balanced or not?
Do you win a prize when it is?
On the opposite end, there’s satisfaction.
When you’re satisfied with something, you just know. It’s a feeling from deep within you, an intuition.
Balance isn’t achievable. But satisfaction is.
5 Key Takeaways from “Off Balance” about Satisfaction
Matthew Kelly’s book Off Balance is a compelling and thought-provoking read and highly recommend it for any creative professional struggling to balance their life.
Here are five key takeaways from the book that expand upon the importance of satisfaction and how to find it:
Satisfaction should be the goal, not balance. Instead of striving for a balance between work and life, we should aim to achieve satisfaction in all areas of our lives. This means taking a holistic approach to our personal and professional lives and focusing on what truly brings us joy and fulfillment.
Energy is key. Kelly argues that our energy levels are key to achieving satisfaction in our lives. We need to be mindful of how we use our energy and make sure we're investing it in the things that matter most to us.
Systems drive behaviors. Kelly emphasizes the importance of creating systems to support our desired behaviors. By establishing habits and routines that align with our goals, we can make it easier to achieve the satisfaction we're seeking.
Build a Personal and Professional Satisfaction System. Kelly offers a framework for achieving satisfaction in all areas of our lives, which includes an assessment of our current state, identifying our priorities, establishing core habits, and conducting regular strategy sessions and reviews.
Take responsibility for your life. Kelly argues that we are personally responsible for our own satisfaction and the speed at which we live our lives. By taking responsibility and making intentional choices, we can design a life that is both personally and professionally satisfying.
A Tale of Two Architects—Satisfaction in Practice
A clear indication to me that Kelly is on to something with satisfaction over balance is a friend of mine, Jeremiah Russell.
Jeremiah is an architect, an entrepreneur, a father, a husband, a community leader, a soccer fan, and so much more. His life in some ways is quite similar to mine. We’re like two sides of the same coin. But it’s also clear how differently Jeremiah prioritizes key aspects that make his life uniquely his.
It’s not uncommon to see an update on Jeremiah’s social media on the weekends—thankful to be working extra hours building his firm in real-time. There’s pride in what he’s doing.
It’s not that he’s superhuman.
Jeremiah has simply found what works for him.
—
I have a different set of priorities.
I do what I reasonably can during the week and shut down. In fact, I do my best to not work on the weekends at all. I know for myself I need that harder boundary. Otherwise, I slip into work overdrive.
I write essays like these and spend my time sharing what I’ve learned on the internet with creative professionals willing to listen.
I recently completed my first half marathon and am training for another.
I spend time with my wife and our animals (dog, cats, rabbits).
I hang out online with friends and play video games.
—
It’s a comparison trap to think that Jeremiah’s life is better or worse than mine. It’s just different.
Am I less ambitious some days? Maybe.
Is he spread thinner some days? Possibly.
But then again—who cares?
If it’s working for Jeremiah to do what he’s doing, he should do it!
In a big-picture sense, Jeremiah and I have similar types of long-term goals and interests. But his life and how he finds satisfaction are very different from mine.
It’s not a competition. It’s an example of how anyone can tailor your life to whatever “satisfaction” means to you.
7 Steps to Help You Start Building Satisfaction into Your Life
Satisfaction over balance—got it. What now?
Knowing the next steps to take can make all the difference. Here are seven to get you started toward better satisfaction.
Accept the imbalance — Our lives are (and never will be) in perfect balance. Life is messy and that’s ok. The imbalance comes from focusing on the aspects of our personal and professional needs that make sense from one season of our lives to the next. Your life looks different than another person’s. Just as your life 5 years ago looks different than your life today and your life 5 years from now. Accept the imbalance and let the focus guide you.
Take responsibility — We can’t control everything in our lives. But we can control how we react to it all. We are the results of millions of decisions. Some are big. Some are small. But all of them are ours. By taking responsibility for them, we can stop blaming and start building.
Assess the situation — Before we can build forward, we need to know what place we’re starting from. Think of each area in your life: work, family, hobbies, etc.
What do you enjoy?
What gives you stress when you think about it?
What would you change if you could?
Assessing the aspects of your life can give you a rough guide to what you’re unsatisfied with in your life right now. By seeing your life for what it is, you can reinforce or completely reshape the pieces that don’t work for you.
Identify your priorities — After we’ve determined what’s working and what isn’t, we can establish the priorities to focus on first. “First” because your priorities can change over time. As an example, let’s say your priority is getting healthier. When I burned out a few years back, I was overweight, sluggish, and had high blood pressure. My top priority (above everything else) was my health for a solid 6 months. I temporarily let things go to support that priority. Priorities are only priorities when you make them so.
Establish core habits — What are the 4 or 5 things that you can do every day to move the needle forward towards better satisfaction with your life? They can (and should be) simple habits that, as Kelly describes “keep you healthy, focused, and energized.” Examples could include:
Drinking a gallon of water per day
30-45 minutes of activity, exercise, or sport
30 minutes of meditation
30min-1hour towards your creativity
8 hours of sleep
These habits are intentionally not work-related. They improve the quality of your day as a human so that you can show up as your best self
Execute consistently — Satisfaction is a slow burn. Showing up every day and maintaining the discipline to do so is half the battle. If you can show up, especially when you don’t want to, consistency will take care of everything else.
Check in and adjust — Satisfaction will look different over the course of life. What lights someone up today may not evoke the same emotion several years from now. Kelly recommends checking in once per week with yourself and once per quarter with someone you can be accountable to—a friend, a coach, or a partner. By creating accountability and then adjusting your priorities over time, you evolve as you choose to without getting stuck or left behind.
Final Thoughts
By thinking of our lives in terms of Satisfaction instead of Balance, we can better pinpoint the areas of our lives that need work or are in good standing.
It’s another way to see the world. Maybe it’s the framework you’ve been missing in your own life.
By shifting our focus from Balance to Satisfaction, and by taking a more holistic approach to our lives, we can achieve greater fulfillment and happiness.
The problem with Work-Life Balance is that it’s too rigid.
It’s Satisfaction that really lets you mold the clay of your life into something all your own.
TL; DR
Work-life balance has misled you
Satisfaction is a better metric than balance
5 key takeaways from Matthew Kelly’s book “Off Balance”
How two similar lives can find satisfaction in different ways
7 steps to help you start building satisfaction in your life
Accept the imbalance
Take responsibility
Assess the situation
Identify your priorities
Establish core habits
Execute consistently
Check in and adjust
Quote of the Week
Motivation for the days ahead of you.
“It is too easy to let another week, month, year slip by without really thinking about the life we want to live. It is too easy to just let life happen to us. We don’t sit down often enough and think about how we are living. We continue to spend more time planning our annual vacations than we spend planning our lives. This has to change if we are to enjoy immense satisfaction personally and professionally.”
— Matthew Kelly, Off Balance
That's all for now.
Stay creative, my friends—and have a great week!
