Every founder and senior leader I work with struggles with balance. It’s the elephant in every coaching session, the guilt that colours every decision, the nagging voice that whispers “you’re doing it wrong” at 11 PM on a Tuesday.
But here’s what I’ve noticed after years of coaching leaders through their toughest transitions: the wise ones stopped chasing balance altogether.
The Problem With How We Think About Balance
We’ve been sold a lie about work-life balance. We measure it in days, hours, and minutes, as if life should be perfectly portioned every single week. Open any productivity blog and you’ll see the same pie charts – neat, symmetrical slices representing work, family, health, hobbies, all perfectly equal.
But that’s not how seasons work. And it’s definitely not how we work either.
Think about nature for a moment. Spring doesn’t apologise for being different from autumn. Winter doesn’t feel guilty for not producing the same abundance as summer. Each season has its purpose, its rhythm, its unique contribution to the whole.
Yet somehow, we expect ourselves to maintain the same balance through wildly different chapters of our lives and businesses. We beat ourselves up on Thursday because we didn’t achieve Tuesday’s equilibrium. We feel inadequate in March because January felt more “balanced.”
It’s exhausting. And more importantly, it’s completely unnecessary.
What Thriving Leaders Actually Do Differently
I’ve noticed something fascinating working with founders and leaders who genuinely thrive rather than just survive. They understand that balance is a macro game, not a micro one. They know that different chapters demand different choices, and they’ve made peace with that reality.
Let me share what this actually looks like in practice.
The Early-Stage Founder’s Reality
You’re building something from nothing. Your startup is consuming your thoughts at 6 AM and keeping you awake at midnight. The to-do list never ends, and there’s always one more critical thing that needs your attention.
During this season, balance might genuinely look like 90% business, 10% everything else. And you know what? That’s not just acceptable – it’s often necessary.
I’ve worked with founders who tortured themselves trying to maintain “balance” during those crucial first years. They’d force themselves to clock off at 5 PM, then spend their evenings distracted and anxious about what wasn’t getting done. They weren’t present with their families because mentally they were still at work, and they weren’t fully engaged with their work because they felt guilty about their families.
The ones who thrived made a different choice. They acknowledged the season they were in, communicated honestly with their loved ones, and went all-in for a defined period. They didn’t pretend the pie chart was equal when it simply wasn’t.
The Scaling Phase Shift
But here’s where it gets interesting. That same approach that worked when you were a team of three becomes toxic when you’re a team of thirty.
As you scale, balance starts to shift. It’s no longer about how many hours you can work – it’s about structure, clarity, and learning to let go. It’s about building systems that don’t require your constant presence. It’s about developing your team so they can make decisions without you.
This season demands a different kind of intensity. You’re not working more hours necessarily, but you’re learning to delegate, to trust, to step back. For many founders, this feels harder than the 80-hour weeks because it requires them to change their fundamental relationship with the business.
The balance here isn’t about hours at all. It’s about shifting from doing everything yourself to enabling others to do it. That’s a completely different skill set and a completely different distribution of energy.
The Established Business Evolution
When your business is established and you’ve built a solid team, balance transforms again. Now it becomes about depth over breadth, quality over quantity, impact over activity.
This is when saying ‘no’ becomes your most powerful tool. You’re protecting what matters most – whether that’s strategic thinking time, key relationships, your health, or the ability to be truly present with your family.
I’ve coached successful founders through this transition, and many struggle with it intensely. After years of saying yes to everything, of being the person who makes it all happen, learning to create deliberate boundaries feels almost wrong.
But this is where sustainable success actually lives.
Beyond Business: Life’s Seasons
The same principle applies to the personal seasons of life, and this is where many founders feel the most conflict.
Becoming a new parent? Balance tilts dramatically toward family. Those first months (or years) might mean your business takes a back seat. And that’s not failure – that’s being human and honouring what matters most during that particular chapter.
Learning a critical new skill? Balance tilts toward growth and development. Maybe you’re learning to code, studying leadership, or developing a new capability that will transform your business. That requires focused time and energy that has to come from somewhere.
Facing a health challenge? Balance tilts toward recovery and wellbeing. Nothing else matters if you’re not around to enjoy it. I’ve worked with founders who nearly destroyed their health chasing a vision of success that required them to be healthy to achieve.
Each season has its own rhythm, its own priorities, its own version of what “enough” looks like.
Where the Guilt Really Comes From
The guilt comes when we judge Tuesday by Friday’s standards, or this month by last year’s metrics.
We compare our current reality to some imaginary ideal that exists nowhere except in our heads and those perfectly filtered social media posts. We measure ourselves against people in completely different seasons with completely different circumstances, resources, and challenges.
It’s like beating yourself up for not producing fruit in winter. It’s madness, but we do it constantly.
A Better Framework for Sustainable Success
After working with dozens of founders through various seasons of business and life, here’s what I’ve learned actually works:
Define your current season’s values clearly. What matters most right now? Not forever, not ideally, but right now in this specific chapter. Write it down. Be honest. If building your business to sustainability is the priority, acknowledge that. If being present for your ageing parents is the focus, own that.
Make trade-offs that honour those values. Once you know what matters most this season, make decisions that align with that priority. Stop pretending you can give equal energy to everything. You can’t, and trying to do so just means you’re half-present everywhere instead of fully engaged where it counts.
Review and adjust quarterly, not daily. Seasons change, but not every day. Check in with yourself and your values every few months. Are you still in the same season? Do the same priorities still hold true? What needs to shift?
This isn’t about abandoning responsibility or neglecting important areas of life. It’s about being intentional rather than reactive, strategic rather than guilty.
The Real Definition of Balance
Here’s the truth that took me years to understand, both in my own leadership journey and in coaching others: sustainable success isn’t about perfect balance. It’s about intentional imbalance.
It’s knowing what matters most right now, making choices that honour that reality, and being at peace with those choices.
The pie chart changes throughout your life and career. It should change. A pie chart that looks the same at 25 and 45, during startup phase and established business, before children and after, isn’t balance – it’s stagnation.
Moving Forward
So if you’re reading this whilst feeling guilty about your current distribution of time and energy, I want you to ask yourself these questions:
- What season am I actually in right now?
- What does this season require of me?
- Am I judging my current reality by someone else’s standards?
- What would it look like to make peace with my current priorities?
The founders I’ve seen thrive aren’t the ones who achieved perfect balance. They’re the ones who gave themselves permission to be fully in whatever season they were in, who made conscious choices about their priorities, and who trusted that other seasons would come.
Your pie chart will look different next year. That’s not something to fear or feel guilty about. That’s exactly how it should be.
Because balance isn’t a destination you arrive at and maintain forever. It’s a dynamic, evolving practice of aligning your choices with your current reality and values.
And that’s far more sustainable than chasing some perfect equilibrium that doesn’t actually exist.
What season are you in right now? I’d love to hear how you’re defining balance for yourself in this chapter. The conversation matters just as much as the conclusion.
