“Work-life balance” is one of those phrases that stirs up both hope and frustration. We all want it, but few of us have truly achieved it — and even fewer have been able to sustain it. When I ask clients or friends what balance means to them, the answers are vague and inconsistent. Many describe having achieved it “once,” but somehow it slipped away.
Part of the problem is the metaphor itself. We tend to imagine life and work as being on opposite ends of a see-saw: when one goes up, the other must go down. But trying to balance them evenly is a rigid and ultimately unrealistic standard — one that sets us up for guilt and dissatisfaction.
If we take balance literally, we might imagine a perfect 24-hour split: 8 hours for sleep, 8 for work, and 8 for everything else. But that rarely aligns with real life. Our lives are not segmented cleanly — especially when we’re entrepreneurs, caregivers, or navigating the unpredictable demands of modern work. Our sleep, leisure, relationships, and mental health often lose out.
Why? Because the structure — and our expectation of control over it — is flawed from the start.
Even if we could cut off digital distractions, we can’t simply shut off one part of our brain and switch on another. Our attention bleeds across categories. From a psychological perspective, this is known as role spillover — where stress or preoccupation from one domain (like work) intrudes on another (like family or personal time). And the more rigid our expectations around separation, the more distress we feel when those boundaries blur.
Many of us are working at least 40+ hours per week, and even when we’re “off”, our minds are still processing unresolved tasks, decisions, and worries. In a 2019 interview with The Atlantic, Brigid Schulte, author of Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time, shared that “many workers still feel like they’re failing both at work and at home.” This chronic sense of falling short contributes to burnout, disconnection, and shame.
So, what can we do?
Start by honestly examining your priorities. If your “priorities” list includes 15 things… they’re not priorities — they’re a to-do list. And chances are, that list is more a reflection of external pressure and internalized “shoulds” than your actual values.
Try this: over the course of a few days, take note of how you spend your time — work, errands, screen time, interactions, rest, creativity. Don’t judge, just observe. Then ask: What activities give me energy? What feels obligatory? What feels empty or performative?
You’ll likely find that much of your time is taken up by the Should-Trap — the tasks, habits, and social pressures we take on out of obligation rather than alignment. This leads to chronic busyness without much actual fulfillment — a state sometimes referred to in psychology as behavioural activation without reinforcement, which contributes to emotional fatigue.
To help assess what stays and what goes, I use a mental filter borrowed from the classic, old-school keyboard reset: CTRL + ALT + DEL
CTRL / Control – Can I control this?
ALT / Alter – Can I change it?
DEL / Delete – Can I let it go or delegate it?
Your answers will be different from mine — and that’s the point. Your version of “balance” has to reflect your own values and lived experience, not someone else’s highlight reel.
Often, the stress we carry comes not from the work itself, but from our expectations — expectations of what productivity should look like, how others will respond, and what it means to be successful. In counselling, this is where cognitive restructuring comes in — the process of identifying and challenging unhelpful thought patterns that contribute to guilt, anxiety, or low self-worth.
So maybe instead of striving for perfect balance, we embrace the ebb and flow. Some days the lines between work and life will blur. Some weeks we’ll be called to stretch into longer work hours. Other times, we’ll rest and restore. The key is to allow flexibility without shame — to soften the structure rather than collapse under it.
Because maybe balance isn’t about symmetry. Maybe it’s about sustainability.
Reflection + Journal Prompt:
Where in your day or week are you chasing a version of “balance” that doesn’t actually reflect your values? What would change if you redefined balance on your own terms — softer, more flexible, and aligned with what truly matters to you?
Sources
Give Up on Work-Life Balance by Olga Khazan, The Atlantic (2019)
Photo by Colton Sturgeon on Unsplash
