You don't need to "find" balance — you need to stop waiting for it

Tip: There's a perfect podcast match to this post: episode #260 of the Joy Lab podcast.

How many times have you said some version of this to yourself: "Once I get my life in balance, I'll start taking care of myself." Or exercising. Or resting. Or finally doing the thing you keep putting off.

If that sounds familiar, you're not alone — and you're also not lazy. You've just been working with an impossible definition of balance.

On a recent episode of the Joy Lab Podcast, Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr. Aimee Prasek tackle the biggest myth about balance head-on: the idea that it's a fixed state, a destination you arrive at once the conditions are just right. It isn't. And understanding why that myth is so persistently sneaky is the first step toward actually cultivating equanimity.

Think of balance not as an island you swim to and build a perfect life on, but as a boat on the ocean. There are waves, storms, narwhals, the occasional shark. The practice of navigating all of it — that's balance. Not the calm water. The navigation.

Henry offers another image that sticks: the Equinox. Twice a year, day and night reach perfect equilibrium — and the moment lasts exactly that. A moment. Nature doesn't fight what comes next. It just flows into the next phase. Our lives work the same way, and the sooner we stop resisting that rhythm, the less exhausted we become trying to hold still something that was never meant to be still.

So what actually helps? Henry and Aimee offer two strategies that are refreshingly free of gadgets and productivity hacks.

The first is releasing perfectionism. Our imagined version of balance — smooth relationships, a spotless home, kids who listen — is a fantasy, and it causes us to delay the very self-care that would help us feel more balanced right now. Noticing where you're holding impossible expectations is, as Aimee puts it, an invitation to give yourself grace.

The second strategy might be the most counterintuitive thing you hear this week: do less. Not as a productivity trick, but as a practice of outer stillness that creates inner stillness. Your body already knows when you've overloaded — that tight stomach, that low-grade sense of pressure and rush. That's your nervous system's navigation app telling you to change course. The hard part, Henry admits, is learning to say no. The good part: there's nothing to add to your to-do list to get started.

We are balanced creatures when we allow ourselves to be. The wobble isn't failure — it's the balancing.