Balance vs. Agility

Balance is all the rage. Gotta have balance. Work-life balance, balance between muscle groups when weight-lifting, a balanced diet.

Balance is about having just the right amounts of all the things necessary for health and happiness.

Balance is a great goal, but it’s not the end goal. Why? Because change is the constant. Balance is about homeostasis, and homeostasis is fleeting. Much like the pendulum of a clock passes through dead center on every swing, homeostasis is a pass-through point on the journey between extremes.

Agility is the MetaSkill for a rapidly changing world.

Agility is the ability to access and apply a variety of skills to meet changing life conditions.

• You may have a chiseled physique, but lack of flexibility will take you down.
• You may have a balanced diet, but having enough carbs or protein at the right time is what will get you to the finish line.
• You may have grit, but sometimes changing course is the only way you will survive.
• You may have a beautiful balance sheet, but if you can’t quickly move resources to capitalize on opportunity, you will fail.

Agility requires much more than a suite of well-developed tools. It requires

• Presence; being tuned in to yourself and those around you.
• Being able to rapidly assess not only what’s going on, but how people are doing in the moment.
• Decision-making and judgment skills to select the right action in the moment.
• Ability to learn from failure and adjust your approach accordingly.
• Open-mindedness and perspective to see beyond your own filters and prejudices.
• Clarity about what’s non-negotiable vs. what’s open for compromise.
• Recognition that balance is a process, not an end state.

Balance is great, and its potential is realized through agility. I’ve seen plenty of people so rigid about balance that they can’t deal with anything unexpected. I’ve seen imbalanced but flexible people find a way to succeed over those with much more skill and preparation.

Balance is about skills and abilities. Agility is a meta-skill for maximizing skills and abilities. Balance is about content, agility is about process.

If you’ve been pursuing balance and recognize there’s more to life, we invite you to give us a call and experience our tools for agility, the new metaskill for a rapidly changing world.

Copyright Next Element Consulting, LLC, 2017