by Scott Arney
Chief Executive Officer
National Police Federal Credit Unio
Let’s pick up where we left off regarding the role of competition and its effect on your balance.
If you are competing, you are playing to win. Ideally, that competition drives you to challenge yourself in new ways and to grow as a result. Your preparation for that competition will go a long way toward your ability to win. That preparation, coupled with your ability to make changes and adapt your plan during the competition, will take you most of the rest of the way to victory.
The last component is simply your will. How important is victory to you? How much does it mean to you and how relevant is it to your broader life goals?
All of the components of balance add up to creating a position of strength from which you are able to move toward the achievement of your desired success, but that success is not assured until you are able to apply your will to a stronger degree than that of your competition.
Your will is a product of your sense of purpose, and your sense of purpose is derived from your ability to give meaningful thought to who you are, why you are here, and what you need to do to live your life deliberately and on a path toward fulfillment. Your sense of balance is the foundation on which your will is built and refined.
I find that I am often driven more by my hatred of losing than my love of winning. You may be motivated in the complete opposite direction. How your will is defined and what drives you isn’t nearly as important as your understanding of your balance, how to apply it, and what you expect to achieve when you do.
Balance helps ensure that you do not continually end up in a place that you don’t want to be with an undesirable outcome and no connection between what you need and want and what you actually have.
If you find that you are continually in a situation in which the downside far outweighs the upside, balance is missing from your decision-making.
If you find that you often invest more of yourself, your time, and your energy than you had planned and are still falling short of your desired goals, balance needs to play a larger role in your preparation and evaluation process and in the reasoning behind the actions you are taking or not taking.
Your sense of balance can also play a valuable role in offsetting or mitigating your flaws or weaknesses. Balance can help you to ensure you pause and reflect before taking action if you are prone to rash or irrational behavior. Balance can also nudge you forward if you tend to act too cautiously or on too small a scale.
If you get distracted easily, balance will ensure that you are able to regain your needed focus. If you are a procrastinator, balance will help you move forward sooner.
Balance helps you to extract positive results from an otherwise losing effort. I have found that I have learned the most and earned the most valuable lessons when I have faced adversity or experienced challenges that I needed to meet. Conversely, it is difficult to gain experience when everything goes exactly according to plan. Although that can also be a strong indicator of exceptional planning, it is more likely a sign that you are not pushing yourself hard enough or setting your goals high enough.
I am not a risk taker. I sometimes have to remind myself of that when I am evaluating a win or an achievement and thinking about how it would look on a grander scale. You may be a risk taker and willing to put more on the line in pursuit of your goals. Either way, each of us has to ensure that the results we are achieving are correlative to our relative risk and in line with our respective expectations.
Amongst all of the points surrounding strong and consistent decision-making and the importance of balance, I don’t want to forget about fun and enjoyment, or rest and relaxation.
I have noticed a direct correlation between the proliferation of social media and a decreasing amount of fun and enjoyment, especially among younger people. I think that the increased, almost hyper-awareness of everything going on around you at all times does not co-exist on friendly terms with peace of mind or a balanced perspective.
I can be pretty intense at times and as causes and situations dictate. I am able to produce that intensity, in part, because I make it a point to set aside downtime and to get the most out of it. Part of my sense of balance guides me back to having fun and taking time to enjoy aspects of my life that mean the most to me. I am better equipped to get the most out of those moments when I narrow my focus to that moment and who or what is next to or directly in front of me.
I am also a big believer that comparison is the thief of joy. I don’t know who to attribute that adage to, but I think it is spot on and it is another reason that ubiquitous social media and connection to it aren’t conducive to unobstructed peace of mind. Awareness is a great trait, and I will take it over ignorance or deliberate oblivion all day every day, but like anything else, too much of a good thing can turn into a big negative in a hurry.
Awareness of red flags, negative factors, and areas of concern is crucial to your own sense of balance and that awareness will always help you make stronger decisions. Placing your focus solely on the negatives surrounding you will have the opposite effect. While it may sound like a cop out, especially with the proliferation of Artificial Intelligence, remember that we are human. For all our individual and collective flaws and shortcomings, we are human beings who need and deserve love, happiness, and fulfillment.
Seeking, maintaining, and continually re-establishing balance is a direct connection to living a purposeful life and experiencing as much love, happiness, and fulfillment as is humanly possible.
