Maybe We All Need a Little Less Balance

Voices

By BRAD STULBERG AUG. 22, 2017 of nytimes.com

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been told to strive for balance. Yet I’ve noticed something interesting: The times in my life during which I’ve felt happiest and most alive are also the times that I’ve been the most unbalanced.

Falling in love. Writing a book. Trekking in the Himalayas. Training to set a personal record in a triathlon. During these bouts of full-on living I was completely consumed by my activity. Trying to be balanced — devoting equal proportions of time and energy to other areas of my life — would have detracted from the formative experiences.

It’s not just me. Nearly all of the great performers I’ve gotten to know — from athletes to artists to computer programmers to entrepreneurs — report a direct line between being happy, fulfilled and at their best and going all-in on something. Rich Roll, a top ultra-endurance athlete, told me that “the path to fulfillment in life, to emotional satisfaction, is to find what really excites you and channel your all into it.” Dr. Michael Joyner, a top researcher at the Mayo Clinic, says, “You’ve got to be a minimalist to be a maximalist; if you want to be really good, master and thoroughly enjoy one thing, you’ve got to say no to many others.” Nic Lamb, one of the best big-wave surfers on the planet, speaking of his relentless pursuit of excellence in the water, puts it like this: “The best way to find contentment is to give it your all.”

Perhaps we could all use a little more unbalance in our lives.

In the 1990s, the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi introduced the term flow, a mental state during which people become wholly immersed in the activity they are doing and their perception of time and space is altered, their entire being filled with enjoyment. A telltale sign of these optimal experiences, of “being in the zone,” is that the outside world disappears. In such a state, flow and balance are irreconcilable. And compared to flow, balance seems, for lack of a better term, boring.

And yet there is still a cost of pursuing something full-on: all of the other things that you leave behind as a result. When you are wholly immersed in anything, it’s all too easy to let the inertia of the experience carry you forward without ever really evaluating what you’re sacrificing along the way; for example, time with friends and family, other hobbies, even simple pleasures like catching up on the latest episodes of “Game of Thrones.”

There are also risks inherent to having your identity tied up in a single activity — mainly, what happens when doing that activity is no longer an option? It’s not surprising that athletes often struggle with depression and other mental health issues when they are forced to retire. It’s as if the more you put in, the harder it is to get out.

But even so, I don’t believe that balance — which essentially asks us to never go all-in on anything — is the right solution. I think far better than striving for balance is striving for what psychologists call internal self-awareness, or the ability to see yourself clearly by assessing, monitoring and proactively managing your core values, emotions, passions, behaviors and impact on others. Put differently, internal self-awareness is about creating the time and space to know yourself; constantly check in with yourself (since your “self” changes over time); and then live your life accordingly.

Someone with keen internal self-awareness is able to separate the acute euphoria of being fully immersed in a pursuit from the long-term consequences of doing so. It’s the Olympian who chooses to retire in time to start and raise a family; the artist who realizes that setting aside some time for life outside of the studio gives rise to great works inside the studio; or the lawyer who sets a hard rule of not missing family dinners or her children’s sporting events. This type of self-awareness doesn’t come easily. Paradoxically, one of the best ways to accomplish internal self-awareness is to mentally step outside of your “self.” Psychologists call this self-distancing, and examples include pretending you’re giving advice to a friend, journaling in the third person (and then examining the emotions that arise when you read what you wrote), or reflecting on your own mortality.

Practicing internal self-awareness allows you to honestly evaluate and re-evaluate the trade-offs inherent to living an unbalanced, flow-filled life. It ensures that you are making conscious decisions about how you spend your time and energy, and thus decreases the chances that you’ll have regrets about what you did — and didn’t — do. It helps you realize when your identity may be getting too interwoven with a specific activity and that in some instances — writing a book, the first few months with a newborn baby, or trying to make an Olympic team, for example — your lack of balance may be excessive, but it can be O.K. because it’s temporary.

Studies show that those who possess strong internal self-awareness make better decisions, have better personal relationships, are more creative and have more fulfilling careers. Other research demonstrates that internal self-awareness is associated with improved mental health and general well-being.

When you put all of this together, an interesting idea starts to emerge. Maybe the good life is not about trying to achieve some sort of illusory balance. Instead, maybe it’s about pursuing your interests fully, but with enough internal self-awareness to regularly evaluate what you’re not pursuing as a result — and make changes if necessary. Living in this manner trumps balance any day.


Brad Stulberg (@Bstulberg) writes and coaches on health and the science of human performance. He is the co-author of the new book “Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive With the New Science of Success.”

How to Be an Awesome Swim Parent

by Olivier Poirier-Leroy of yourswimlog.com

The swim parent lifestyle is a soggy, herculean and often thankless one.

There are all of the early morning practices, the weekend-long swim meets, the fundraising, helping with the board, chaperoning, the fees, the carpooling, and the food, ohmagod, all the food.

And most importantly, there is the most fundamental and irreplaceable role you have as a swim parent: cheerleader and support staff to your little athlete.

I get a lot of emails from parents who want the best from their swimmers, for them to enjoy the process of improving, but are often unsure what to do. It’s an awkward two-step of wanting to encourage their kids to be better, but to be better without having to be necessarily pushed.

Some recent research on elite athletes have shown that top performers have parents (and coaches) who are supportive, but who still allow the young athletes to own their sport and subsequent performances.

With that in mind, here are some ideas on how to be an awesome swim parent:

1. Encourage accountability.

At the end of the day you want swimming to be your swimmer’s sport. Theirthing.

Let them take ownership of the sport by letting them have their own goals, and encourage them to evaluate and track their workouts to further instill a sense of control of their swimming.

If they have their own reasons for swimming and showing up every day to work hard they are going to be more intrinsically motivated to stay (and succeed) in the sport.

2. Avoid over-identifying with your swimmer’s performance.

How they swim isn’t a reflection of you.

Don’t fall down the over-identification trap where your child’s swim performance is a reflection of you, leading you to ignore how they feel about the sport and focusing on your feelings. Taking the burden for their swimming also removes accountability on your swimmer’s part.

The more likely it’s their thing, the more likely they are to be successful.

3. It’s the process.

If they are getting better, and learning the process of mastering something they are learning and benefiting far more than just having a win-at-all-costs attitude.

It’s what they do every day—mastering the process of becoming a better swimmer—that matters more than what they do at meet-time.

A swimmer who is able to master the grind will always outperform an athlete who magically shows up at meet time.

4. Set the standard for how they should react.

I cringe when I see a parent who lacks emotional control at swim meets. You can see the discomfort of those nearby as well, as in, “Jeez buddy, it’s just a swim race.”

These parents not only tend to end up bumping and spitting all over nearby parents and swimmers, but also provide a classic example of poor sportsmanship and set a low standard of self-control for their own swimmer to emulate.

It is contradictory and confusing for children to be told to have self-control, to stay calm and focused in moments of high pressure when their parent is screaming at the coach and losing their chlorinated mind from the stands.

At the end of the day you are your swimmer’s strongest role model. Not the swimmer on the Wheaties box.

5. Don’t mistake sacrifice for investment.

Swim parents are absolutely unbelievable in terms of sacrifice.

They spend a metric ton of time, energy and money in helping the sport go round. From all of the time spent organizing fundraisers, driving back and forth to the pool, countless swim meets, hotel rooms, flights, and more we sacrifice a lot for our swimmers.

And so it’s tempting to have this sacrifice sometimes blur into a sense of investment, causing parents to expect measurable dividends of some sort (college scholarship, sponsorships, etc).

Swimming (and sport in general) isn’t something that can and should be measured in terms of dollars and cents. The time spent in the pool now shouldn’t come with a balance sheet later. The gold medals they don’t win today still translate into healthy lifestyle choices they carry with them for life.

6. When issues come up with coach, address them privately and directly.

There will be times where as a swim parent we have questions or concerns regarding our kid’s swimming. Over the course of a swim career this is unavoidable.

Maybe your swimmer hasn’t improved at all in a couple months and we’d like to know more about why this is. Or perhaps she is being held back a group. Or you have questions about the plan for the team.

Too often when a parent has an issue with coach they will sit in the stands gossiping and complaining to other parents, which does nothing but create a divisive environment for all involved.

Set a time to meet with the coach that you can talk distraction-free (blindsiding them on the way to their car after practice doesn’t count).

Undermining the coach, whether it’s giving contradictory technique and training instruction out of the water, only serves to confuse and put your little swimmer in a place where they have to choose between listening to you or coach when they are at practice. In ideal situations, parents parent, and coaches coach.

7. Let them unplug outside of the pool.

Swimming isn’t and shouldn’t be the only thing in anybody’s life.

Once they leave the aquatic center in the morning or at night-time they should be able to leave it behind. Constantly having to rehash practice or meets in the car, at home, and over the dinner table is mentally exhausting.

Have some perspective about where swimming truly ranks in the scheme of things. Being a great swimmer is cool, but being a young person with enough perspective to realize that its just a race or just one practice is even better.

8. The facilities don’t make the athlete.

It’s natural to want the absolute best for our swimmers. The best coaches, the best facilities, the best of everything.

But removing all obstacles in their talent development ends up having an unintended consequence: an inability to deal with adversity later on in their careers.

After all, having been robbed of the lessons, humility and resiliency that comes from adversity means that when it does finally happen these athletes have a hard time adjusting.

Being on a star-studded team doesn’t guarantee success. Just like how training out of a dark, cramped 22-yard pool doesn’t promote failure. The lessons and skills can be and are picked up in different environments and if anything, the “less than” athlete is going to be at an advantage when it comes to dealing with hardship.

9. Just be there for them.

More than anything, your little swimmer just wants you to be there for them.

To be a shoulder to cry on and to provide a moment of levity when they add time to their PB. To whisper words of encouragement when they are injured. To share the moment when they finally do succeed.

Win or lose, all they really want to know is that their swimming, and by extension their identity, isn’t a prerequisite for you being there for them. Don’t make your love conditional on how they swim. All they want to know and feel is that first or last, whether they are world record holder or local sharks-and-minnows champ, that you will love ’em.

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