Let’s face it …. Our world can be mad sometimes. It becomes hectic, pretty stressful, an emotional rollercoaster and juggling life challenges is tough!
Like so many people today, you are most likely ‘juggling’ in several areas of your life. The roles you do, who you are, how you spend your time, whether it be…parent/stepparent, partner, friend, daughter, son, sibling, business owner, employed, self-employed, co-worker, homeowner, home manager and so many more. Its frankly exhausting!
The reality is we are all ‘juggling’ all the time, no matter our age or stage of life. And as much as life brings many positives achievements, laughter, happiness and fun, it also has its share of stresses, frustrations, pain and tedium! Juggling is about managing and coping with all the parts of our life and combining everything in a useful, meaningful way, to hopefully be who we want to be, achieve what we need and want to do, share time with those we want and get as much out of life as we can. ……….The reality check here is for the most part achieving absolutely all this is probably unrealistic.
And even if you think your greatest ‘A’ lister hero has succeeded where you think you have failed, I’m betting they haven’t achieved everything on their list, because even our hero’s and life icons have to make choices and create balance with life ‘s ups and down, activities and commitments, somehow. So, what we can do is to try to manage what we are doing in a useful, productive and effective way in order to be our best self and live our best life possible.
Between being a business owner, joint director of a business, other work projects and family commitments on the go, I know that attending to all the ‘to do’s in life is difficult to manage and confusing because our priorities are not always easy to judge.
Attending to all the responsibilities we have in life is hard ie supporting others, family, holding a job, building a business or career and lots more. With all this going on it’s really no surprise we feel like we are juggling a bunch of balls in the air. If you try to juggle all the balls, you are going to drop something eventually. How we decide which ones we can afford to drop is critical to our life and to our ongoing wellbeing. So I would like to share some thoughts that will help you get a bit clearer and more focused on your own life and how to juggle for yourself.
This concept is based on the words offered by Brian Dyson the former CEO of Coca-Cola in a well-documented speech from 1996. So, I don’t quote directly, and many have used this analogy before, but I use this concept more as a guiding life principle and expand on it. If you want to read more there is a reference at the end.
Brian offered an analogy about the concept of people juggling 5 balls that relate to important aspects of their life. In principle it’s about how if you look at those areas of your life you are trying to give your time and energy to it’s like juggling balls in the air and you are the Juggler!
| Fun fact! In 2017, a juggler named Alex Barron broke a record when he tossed 14 balls into the air and caught each once. Juggling any more than 14 balls at once may be physically almost impossible. (Ref: Mental Floss) |
When it comes to juggling your life, I would go further and say that the more stuff in your life the more balls you are juggling, and as more and more balls get added, things start to get more hectic and blur and you lose track of which ball is more important to keep up in the air; and you begin to drop some balls. Juggling life can be intense, challenging and exhausting physically, mentally and emotionally.
Now consider that some of these balls are made of different materials. Some are made of glass; some are made of rubber, and some are made of paper mâché.
Balls made of glass are precious, delicate, and unblemished so you cannot afford to drop a glass ball because glass balls really matter to you. When you drop a glass ball it is damaged, cracked even smashed. You cannot replace it. They won’t bounce back if dropped; they are not resilient and not replaceable. These aspects of your life are likely to be family, friends, health, relationships, wellbeing.
Rubber balls are however more robust. They do matter to you of course, but they are also more resilient to being dropped. They won’t break and you can pick them back up later and recover them. These are balls that we often consider to be glass when in reality they aren’t. Balls like this might be your work, career, finances. Please understand, I’m not saying they aren’t important, but when it really counts, you can afford to at times put them lower in the priority list of your life!
And some balls are made of Paper mâché. They are lighter, more colourful and draw your attention more. They are made of lots of ‘stuff’ ‘that takes up your time, space and energy to juggle. They may be more fun or a diversion, but they aren’t really important and aren’t a big priority for you. They are just another ball in the air using up your limited energy and attention. You can afford to drop them and not really miss them regardless of what they do when they hit the ground.
Examples of GLASS balls:
Examples of RUBBER balls:
Examples of PAPER MÂCHÉ balls:
Here are some reflection questions or activities to help you:
| GLASS | RUBBER | PAPER MÂCHÉ |
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. . . |
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Reference: JUGGLING THE BALLS IN LIFE BY BRIAN G. DYSON, An analogy during his speech at the Georgia Tech 172nd Commencement Address Sept. 6, 1996 UTube clip 0.37 secs
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