When Balance Is Really Self-Protection.

What if the thing that looks like a commitment problem is actually self-protection?

I've been thinking about balance. It is a word I hear often when people are trying to make changes, particularly around weight, health and the habits that support them.

"I don't want to do too much."

"It needs to be balanced."

"I've still got to live my life."

I understand that. I believe in balance too. I certainly don't believe that lasting change comes from making our lives miserable, striving for perfection or putting everything else that matters to us on hold but I have started to wonder whether sometimes, when we talk about balance, we are actually talking about something else. Sometimes we may not be trying to pull ourselves back from doing too much at all. We may be frightened of what it would mean to fully commit. When commitment feels risky. For those of us who have struggled with our weight, this can be particularly complicated. Perhaps you've tried before. Maybe lots of times.

You've started with enthusiasm, made changes, seen some success and then, somewhere along the way, life happened. The habits slipped. Weight came back on. You found yourself wondering how you had ended up back somewhere you promised yourself you would never be again. Those experiences teach us things. Not necessarily consciously. Part of us remembers the disappointment. It remembers how it felt to hope. It remembers telling people that this time things were going to be different. So when the next opportunity for change comes along, perhaps there is a little voice saying: "Steady." "Don't get carried away." "You still need to live your life." "It needs to be balanced."

Perhaps that voice isn't trying to sabotage you at all. Perhaps it is trying to protect you, because there can be safety in not quite giving something everything you've got. If I half-commit and it doesn't work, I have an explanation. I wasn't really trying properly anyway.

But what happens if I throw myself into it? What happens if I really hope? What happens if I give it the best of me... and it still doesn't work? That feels much more vulnerable. So perhaps what looks from the outside like a lack of commitment isn't a willpower problem at all. Perhaps it is self-protection. Trying harder isn't always the answer

This is why I struggle with messages that simply tell us to try harder, be more disciplined or do better. If trying harder were the answer, most of us would have cracked whatever we've been struggling with years ago. We don't necessarily need another person telling us that we should be more committed. We might need someone to help us become curious about why commitment feels difficult in the first place.

What is that hesitation protecting? What have previous experiences taught us to expect? What are we afraid might happen if we really allow ourselves to believe that things could be different?

Those are very different questions from: "Why can't I just stick to it?" The answers can take us somewhere very different too.

What if balance doesn't mean keeping everything level?

There is another part of this that I've been reflecting on. We seem to be remarkably accepting of temporary imbalance when it takes us away from the things we say we want. Christmas comes along. Or a holiday. Or summer. Perhaps there are more meals out, routines change, activity drops, planning disappears and some of the habits that normally support us quietly fall away.

We tell ourselves: "It's Christmas." "I'm on holiday." "It's only for a few weeks." "I'll get back to it afterwards."

Sometimes that is absolutely fine. Life is there to be lived, but isn't it interesting how comfortable we can be with a season of being off-kilter in that direction? What if we became equally comfortable with a season of being more committed? Not forever. Not obsessively. Not at the expense of everything and everyone else that matters. Just for a season.

What could happen if, for one month, you deliberately turned the dial up? What could six weeks of giving something greater attention create? What might happen if you chose one change and decided: For now, this deserves the best of me. A season doesn't have to last forever.

I know something about this from my own life. There was a point when I made a very deliberate decision to invest a year in myself. I didn't know where that year would lead. I couldn't see the outcome before I started. There was no guarantee that if I gave myself that time, energy and commitment, everything would somehow fall neatly into place. I had to make the commitment before I had the evidence that it would work. I've recently been revisiting that period of my life because I've just finished writing a chapter for a collaborative book to be published in November. Even writing the chapter has reminded me of something about commitment.

There have been plenty of other things requiring my attention. Work hasn't disappeared. Life hasn't stopped. There are always jobs that could be done, people I could contact and another thing waiting on a list somewhere. For a short period, though, I decided that the chapter deserved more of me. Some other things got good enough. The chapter got the best of me.

I read it. Changed it. Questioned it. Scribbled on it. Read it again. Eventually, I reached the point where I could hand it over to other people to read. That intensity wasn't supposed to last forever. It didn't need to. It needed to last long enough to move something important forward and perhaps that's another way of thinking about balance.

Balance across a life doesn't necessarily mean giving everything an equal amount of ourselves every day. Sometimes balance across a life might require deliberate imbalance for a season. What deserves the best of you right now? This doesn't have to be about weight. Perhaps you're building a business. Studying for something. Trying to improve your health. Saving money. Changing a relationship with food. Writing something. Building your fitness. Creating a new routine.

Maybe one thing in your life would benefit enormously from getting a little more of you for a while.

The question isn't necessarily: "How can I do everything better?"

It might be: "What deserves the best of me right now?"

Trying to change everything at once can leave us spreading our attention so thinly that nothing gets enough of it to really shift. Sometimes one carefully chosen change can create a ripple. You feel something change. You begin to hear yourself differently. Then you start to see the effect somewhere you weren't even expecting. One change influences another. Confidence grows. A promise kept to yourself makes the next promise feel a little more possible. And suddenly that one thing wasn't one thing at all.

What if success isn't the outcome you think it is? There is one final thought I keep coming back to.

If fear of failure is making wholehearted commitment feel unsafe, perhaps we need to reconsider what success looks like.

What if the experiment isn't: "Can I finally lose the weight?"

Or: "Can I completely change my life in six weeks?"

What if it is simply: "What happens when, for a defined period of time, I give this change the best of me?"

Then perhaps success isn't only measured by a number. Maybe success is discovering that you can keep a promise to yourself. Maybe it is learning what helps you and what doesn't. Maybe it is understanding yourself a little better. Maybe it is hearing the voice that says "I need balance" and becoming curious rather than automatically obeying it. You don't have to silence that voice. It may have been doing a really useful job. You can acknowledge why it is there and still ask whether you want it making today's decision. Maybe you don't need more willpower.

If you've recognised yourself somewhere in this, I wouldn't tell you to try harder. I wouldn't tell you that you need more discipline and I certainly wouldn't tell you that you have failed because you haven't wanted it enough.

I'd be curious. What has made fully committing feel risky? What is the hesitation protecting you from? What have your previous experiences taught you to expect? What might feel safe enough to explore differently this time?

Those are exactly the kinds of conversations I have through my coaching work. Not telling you what you should do, but creating the space to understand what's really going on underneath the thing you've been trying so hard to change because sometimes what looks like a commitment problem is actually self-protection.

Understanding that might change the question completely.

So perhaps don't ask yourself to try harder today. Ask yourself: What deserves the best of me right now? Not forever. Perhaps for a month. Perhaps for six weeks. Perhaps simply for a season.

And then ask: What might happen if I gave it that?

Sometimes the greatest investment we make isn't doing more of everything.

It's deciding what matters enough, right now, to receive more of us.