The Balance Myth
For many years now, there’s been a myth of work/life balance. I’ve been seduced by the idea, too. It’s the equivalent of the myth that women of my mother’s generation believed. That somehow, a rich prince would magically appear, and life would be transformed into glamour. You would be saved.
These ideas are fed to us when we are little girls. They are reinforced through the images we see and the toys we play with. Barbie was both stylish and powerful, and she came with a tiny plastic hairbrush and a Corvette. The Disney fairy tales didn’t help either. They stitched into us the idea that if we just waited long enough, stayed beautiful, remained kind and gentle, someone would come along and recognize our worth.
Then you graduate. Fast forward to your twenties, and work is work. When you are a gifted, creative talent with a solid education, your potential doesn’t just knock on the door. It pounds. For better or worse, it insists on being realized.
I think about Emma Grede* co-founder of SKIMS, and her conversation with Steven Bartlett on The Diary of a CEO. It’s a long podcast, full of ideas, but there was one moment that gripped me. Steven asked her what red-flag questions she hears in interviews. Without hesitation, she said, “Work-life balance. If someone asks me about that, I know something’s wrong.” She wasn’t being cruel. She was being honest. She followed with, “Work-life balance is your problem. That’s yours to figure out.” Then she added, “Extraordinary results take extraordinary effort. If it’s possible to be incredibly successful and have weekends and evenings free, tell me who she is and I’ll show you a liar.”
I talked about this in class the very next day. Not because I wanted to convince my students that burnout was a badge of honor, but because I wanted to help them wake up to the terms of the game they were entering. In the first four or five years out of school, a talented creative professional’s life will feel daunting and exhausting. It will also be exhilarating. We are creating in unpredictable and fast-paced times. That level of change can wear you down, but it also brings the kind of thrill that reminds you you’re alive.
What most designers don’t realize is that they are in an asymmetric relationship with their employers and their clients. It is transactional. The sooner you understand the actual value you bring to the relationship, the less you’ll struggle with resentment. It may sound cold, but part of our job is to make clients look good. Really good. They bring the money that allows us to continue creating. For years, I attended panels and speeches hosted by the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), where designers argued that clients owed us more. We convinced ourselves that because we were brilliant, our clients should recognize our work as a vessel for our art. I don’t believe that anymore.
I hear complaints all the time about soul-sucking jobs. I have to wonder, is it the work that’s the problem? Or is it that we are promoting soul-sucking lives? If the rest of your life were filled with delight, connection, and genuine pleasure, I might believe that your job is the culprit. Too often, the non-work hours are filled with scrolling, comparing, and complaining. Then come the thumbs-up reactions that momentarily convince us we’re right and everyone else is wrong.
Real balance has very little to do with time. It has everything to do with integrity. Understanding who you are, your needs, and what you are willing to give or withhold. I’ve come to believe that a real relationship is one in which my needs are met not out of obligation, but because someone wants to meet them from the heart. Like most of us, I’ve looked to work, partners, and even flawed family systems to give me that sense of buoyancy. Balance doesn't arrive from the outside. It begins with the ecosystem inside.
You alone are responsible for harmonizing your inner landscape. If you want emotional, mental, and creative health, you have to design for it. Yes, eat well. Move your body. Do the things that restore your clarity.
My deepest aspiration for you is not just that you get to do meaningful work with kind people. I want you to experience awe. I want you to connect with something beyond yourself. I want you to travel to places that remind you of your insignificance and your brilliance at the same time. I want you to know the magnificence this earth holds and that you are one small, sacred part of it.
* Emma Grede is the founding partner behind the globally successful brands SKIMS, Good American, and Safely, all launched with the Kardashian family. She is also Chairwoman of The Fifteen Percent Pledge, is a board member at Baby2Baby, and was named one of Forbes ‘Richest Self-Made Women in America’.