Permission to drop some balls

In a conversation about resilience the other day, the topic of balancing priorities came up again, and I was reminded of the metaphor shared by Bryan Dyson, erstwhile President and CEO of Coca-Cola Enterprises…

“Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them – work, family, health, friends, and spirit – and you’re keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls – family, health, friends, and spirit – are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged, or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for balance in your life.”

John Reh offers some food for thought when he points out that aiming for balance is tricky, since what I would consider a fair balance of work and life in my life, might be very different to what you would consider a balance between work and life. And aiming for balance often adds more strain without really solving the problem. You see, the deeper problem is not a lack of balance, it’s a lack of clarity about our values and what’s most important to us. When we don’t know what we value most, we don’t know how to balance the things in our lives.

I love that Dyson singles out what is most important in life. Few would disagree with the things that Dyson singled out as important – work, family, health, friends and spirit However, there is the danger of misconstruing his words to mean that work is not important, because he describes work as a rubber ball.

For some people work is their most important ball. Work IS their glass ball, because their work gives them meaning, it contributes to something larger than themselves, it is the legacy they are creating. Or it’s keeping their family alive, since they are the only breadwinner.

What I would rather invite you to do with Dyson’s observation, is to take the time to identify YOUR glass balls, whatever they may be. You might agree with Dyson that family, friends, health, and spirit are most important. Or you might have a different set of glass balls. It doesn’t matter which areas of your life you assign to glass ball status. What matters more is that you recognise that not all areas of your life can be elevated to glass ball status. You must choose. You must choose your priorities in life if you are to live your life with intention and purpose.

There are 168 hours in a week. We all only get 168 hours, no more, no less. What you do with those 168 hours in a week determines the quality of the life that you live. So, there is value in choosing with intention and with our hearts and minds focused on who we want to become and what type of life we want to create.

The life you are currently living is a culmination of the balls you chose to focus on in the past. Your thoughts, choices and actions have created the life you are living now. And what you choose to prioritise moving forward, will create the life you will live in the future. So, choose your glass balls wisely.

How to determine if the balls you are juggling are rubber or glass

Scott Eblin provides a set of questions you can consider in helping you distinguish your glass balls from your rubber balls.

What’s the long-term impact of this decision, activity, event, commitment?

This question gets to the root of how much the ball you’re juggling really matters. Another way of asking the question is to ask: will this matter a week from now, a month from now, a year from now, ten years from now? Something that increases in importance over time usually points to a glass ball; whereas something that won’t matter a week from now, might be worth dropping completely.

Our physical health will matter ten years from now, in fact as we age, taking care of our health becomes more and more important for us to sustain our energy levels and remain active and productive in our lives. Relationships that feed us, support us, and sustain us, might matter enough to consider them glass balls. Take note however, that not all relationships are of equal importance. Some are glass balls for sure. Others are rubber balls. That’s perhaps why Dyson identifies family and friendships as glass balls. These relationships usually outrank collegial relationships, or the effort required to maintain a network of acquaintances and yet, often people spend more time cultivating their network of acquaintances than they do on nurturing their relationships with family and friends…

Who else cares about this?

This question will help you identify social obligations and commitments. Some decisions and commitments we make affect others in our lives. Sometimes people have certain expectations of us. If the activity or commitment is something someone else cares about, then the next question is, does the person who cares about this matter to you? And does the specific relationship matter to you?

You see, sometimes the glass ball is a specific relationship that you cherish, and consequently you commit to activities that you would not consider all that important, but that matter to the person that you value. It’s important to clarify that the glass ball then is the person. You get to decide what boundaries you would like to put in place around your time, and what you want to commit to. If the person or relationship matters, and you want to commit to them, then recognise that you choose the commitment.

If you feel like you should do it, because someone else expects it of you, then notice that you are seeing the activity or commitment as an obligation, which means that you might feel resentful towards the person who expects it, or your commitment to the activity might wane over time, since your motivation for doing it, is to please someone else.

That said, if you want to take on the commitment, you get to reframe the commitment by seeing it as a choice and not as an obligation. And also notice that you can renegotiate the terms of the relationship if you feel like you are juggling balls that aren’t yours to juggle, or that don’t really honour the specific relationship in the best way.

What are the benefits or disadvantages of this decision, activity, event, commitment?

When you’re juggling a lot of balls, it’s easy to start looking at all of them as equal burdens. That’s usually not the case. One way to differentiate between the ones that are more or less important is to consider the benefits of each. What are the good things that could result from choosing to keep this ball in the air? What would you gain from investing in this activity? What could you learn? How would you grow?

Alternatively, what are the disadvantages of holding on to this ball? What other balls would you drop if you keep juggling this one? What are you giving up, to keep juggling this ball? And is it worth the sacrifice to keep juggling this ball?

If I dropped this ball, could I recover?

We’ve all had setbacks in life. Most of the time, we can recover from a setback. In fact, some of the setbacks you’ve had in your life, you’ve probably forgotten about soon after they happened, because they were minor or insignificant. Others were bigger deals and took longer to recover from, but you did.

Eblin believes that your ability to recover quickly from a setback, is an indication that the specific activity or event is a rubber ball and not a glass ball. He also reasons that most setbacks are recoverable. Only a few are glass balls. Glass balls crack, break, or shatter when they are dropped, so recovering from a glass ball setback is often difficult and sometimes impossible.

Should I even be juggling this ball?

Sometimes we realise that we are juggling balls that aren’t ours to juggle, because they belong to someone else. It’s possible, indeed it’s likely, that you’re juggling some balls that really aren’t yours to juggle.  Or at minimum the responsibility for the ball should be shared with someone else. Other times the timing of the ball is not right and it’s something that can be put down and started later when you have more time, or energy, or resources, or when the specific activity becomes really necessary. And sometimes when you step back to look at the balls you are juggling, you realise that no-one should be juggling that specific ball. You won’t know unless you stop to ask the question.

Glass balls and big rocks

In a previous blog post on partnering with your calendar, I shared the most important idea around time management I’ve learnt from Stephen Covey, which is to schedule your big rocks first. Your big rocks represent those activities in your life that contribute most to your glass balls. They are the activities that will ensure the glass balls stay in the air and stay shiny and chip-free. When we don’t prioritise our big rocks, we run the risk of dropping a glass ball – sometimes in an irreversible way.

So, to effectively manage your time and take control of your life in an empowering way, where you choose which balls you want to juggle, you need to take a step back and identify your values or what’s most important to you in life. Furthermore, you need to clarify what you want to create in your life and how you would like to show up in your life. Once you are clear on your values, what you want to create and who you want to be, it becomes easier to identify your glass balls. And remember, your glass balls never number in the hundreds. Glass balls are the top three of four things in your life that you know hold the threads of your life together and represent what’s most important to you.

These glass balls are kept in the air and kept safe by prioritising the activities that represent them or that advance, feed, or nourish them. Those activities are your big rocks and need to be scheduled first. Paying attention to your big rocks means that you are focusing on keeping your glass balls in the air, and you are also willing, at times, to drop a few rubber balls – i.e. non-big rock activities – because you know you can pick those activities up again later, since they can bounce back when dropped. And since you will be focused on keeping just the three to four glass balls in the air, juggling your life activities becomes a little easier as you navigate your day-to-day life. When faced with adding another activity to the calendar, you get to ask yourself, “Will this help me keep a glass ball in the air?” and if not, “Do I need to be juggling this ball right now?” If the answer is no, then you have permission to drop the ball.

References:

1. Breytenbach, C. (2020). Partnering with you Calendar: Schedule your Big Rocks first. Available online at: https://chantalbreytenbach.com/partnering_with_your_calendar/
2. Reh, F. J. (2019). In pursuit of work and life balance. The Balance Careers. Available online at: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/work-life-balance-and-juggling-glass-and-rubber-balls-2275864
3. Eblin, S. (2017). How to determine if the balls you are juggling are rubber or glass. Available on line at: https://eblingroup.com/blog/juggling-rubber-or-glass/