The Illusion of Balance: When the Rocks Just Won’t Stack

We’re often told that life is about balance — that with the right strategies, priorities, and time management, we can get all the pieces of our lives to neatly align. For a long time, I believed that too. I visualized my life like an Inuksuk: different stones representing work, family, purpose, rest, spirituality — all stacked one on top of the other. If I could just arrange them perfectly, I thought, I’d find peace.

But here’s the thing: one of the rocks refused to balance.

No matter how I rearranged the others, how much mindfulness I brought into my day, or how tightly I clung to the morning rituals meant to keep me grounded, the same rock — my job — made the entire structure crumble.

It took me a long time to stop blaming myself. I thought I just wasn’t meditating enough. That I needed better boundaries, stronger discipline, more gratitude. But eventually, I realized something far more liberating: you can’t balance what isn’t meant to be there.

The truth is, my work was fundamentally out of alignment with who I am and what I value. I kept trying to build my life around something that was toxic, draining, and disempowering. The more I tried to find harmony within an environment that was harming me, the more exhausted I became.

The breakthrough didn’t come with a perfect plan or a polished coaching tool. It came with surrender.

Letting go of the need to “make it work” gave me space to imagine something new — something true. Once I stopped trying to balance the unbalanceable, I found a different kind of flow. The peace didn’t come from perfect alignment; it came from finally putting down what never belonged in the first place.

Balance isn’t always about doing more — or even doing less. Sometimes, it’s about doing differently. And sometimes, the bravest thing we can do is acknowledge that what we’re trying to balance was never truly ours to carry.

• What parts of your life feel like they just won’t balance, no matter how hard you try?

• Is there a “rock” in your life that you’re trying to work around, but maybe it just doesn’t belong?

• What might shift if you gave yourself permission to stop forcing harmony with things that are hurting you?