“Create work / life balance, or you’ll burn out,” they say.

“No! Go all in,” others say.

“Just go monk mode and hustle all day,” say the people with no kids.

So much advice… and for what?

All this comes from wanting to help people achieve their goals and thrive in life.

But what is true?

Varying advice sounds contradictory.

Well, there are nuggets of truth in all these statements.

But I have a different perspective.

It is possible to have balance AND hustle AND go all in.

It is possible to do it all.

And it requires what I call “Savage Balance.”

High performers have been doing this for years.

And in this article, I want to teach you the mindset they use so you too can thrive in life and business.

Why Savage Balance

We grow and develop where we put intentional effort.

To thrive and be successful in all areas of our life, we must prioritize each area.

If we focus on work, then work wins.

But if we then neglect family time, our relationships suffer.

We must balance our focus and effort across the areas we value.

We can’t be passive about it.

We must be savages about our time and how we prioritize.

As alluded to above, there are two obvious aspects to savage balance:

Balance

If we literally go all in on one thing, we can neglect other areas of our life, thus decreasing overall performance.

For example, NOT prioritizing your health is a sure way to lose energy and mental focus.

Yes, yes, it is all good to focus on singular goals.

But we must acknowledge we are whole humans.

We are not just employees.

We are not just parents.

We are not just spouses.

We are more.

Each facet of our being adds to our life satisfaction.

Savage

When I say, “be a savage,” I mean, “show up intentionally and crush it.”

The adjective “savage” typically refers to being fierce, brutal, uncontrolled, and severe.

Compare “savage” to contrasting adjectives like passive, mild, tame, and gentle.

When it comes to our time and how we spend it, we cannot be passive. We cannot be soft and gentle.

We must own the moment and be intentional with how we show up.

This does not mean your demeanor should be savage-like.

But we must be savages about how we spend our time and the boundaries we place around that time.

Creating Savage Balance

Each of us has at least three main roles we all play:

1. Individual
2. Family Supporter
3. Producer

I’ve listed these in order of importance.

Each role serves as a foundation to the other roles.

Let’s look at each role and how to create savage balance around each.

Individual

You are at the center of everything.

I am not saying to be an egomaniac.

But recognize that no matter which role you play and which environment you go to, YOU are the one who attends.

How are you showing up as your best self?

What are you doing to improve yourself?

What are you learning?

How are you taking care of your health?

How are you planning and executing against your goals?

Questions, questions, questions.

If this is too much, I recommend creating time for 3 things and be a SAVAGE about guarding that time:

1. Weekly reflection

Use this time to set short- and long-term goals, as well as plans for executing tasks aligned with those goals.

30 minutes at the end of the week should be sufficient to start.

1. Workout

Dang it, get after some workouts. You are a beast and a high achiever. Don’t let all that potential go to waste just because you “don’t have time” to exercise.

Make time. You can do a lot in just 15 minutes.

1. Learn

What are you learning to improve yourself and your skills?

Make a list of the things you want to learn and then a list of resources.

Personally, I read for at least 30 minutes a day and usually get in a few educational videos from YouTube.

My learning time is sacred.

Without learning more, how are we supposed to prepare for new challenges and growth?

After you make time for yourself, it is time to step up to the next ring on the ladder of importance: your family.

Family Supporter

When you are on your deathbed, you won’t be surrounded by people you used to work with.

It will be family. Close friends. Those who CARE about you.

If you invest time into the family and friend relationships now, you will have strong connection for the rest of your life.

Relationships take time to build and strengthen.

Relationships are built, maintained, or destroyed one conversation at a time.

How are you creating time for the relationships (and conversations) in your life?

Are you distracted by work all the time? Is your phone open scrolling social media just so you can feel entertained?

These distractions compete with the time you could be using to have conversations… to build relationships.

To battle this, create boundaries and guard them like a savage.

If work wants to intrude on your date-night, you should be personally pissed and offended.

Work can wait.

If you can’t attend your kid’s soccer game because you need another late night of work, you are sacrificing the relationship for your career.

I have been guilty of this. So please don’t think I am acting high and mighty. This is a legit struggle.

However, high performers create boundaries and stick to them.

Family and relationship goals are just as important as career and personal goals.

Block off time for family, and show up as the best dad, mom, or spouse you can be.

The payoff may not come for years.

But the payoff is immense.

Producer

You are also a producer.

You are a leader, a follower, an employee, and a creator.

In the modern world of career-driven competition, it can be tempting and easy to prioritize career over everything else.

However, there is another downside to this.

While extra time spent on your work will come at the expense of your health and / or relationships, it also does a number on your focus.

Working all the time is mentally exhausting. Your brain can fire on all cylinders for a while, but then needs time to recharge.

There are many productivity techniques to enhance your work focus and performance.

For this article I want to focus on just one (to match the theme of our topic): create time blocks.

Figure out the top 3 things you need to get done for the day.

Then set a number of 30 to 60-minute time blocks for each. Do not move on to the second thing until the first is completed.

Be a savage about this.

Do one thing at a time.

No multitasking aloud.

With intense focus you can achieve much.

So, focus, achieve, complete your task, then recharge and address the next task.

The Wrap Up

You are more than an employee (producer).

You are also an individual who has relationships.

Any focus on one will naturally compete for time with the others.

Make time.

Make time for yourself to improve.

Make time for your conversations and relationships.

Guard that time.

Focus on one thing.

And achieve more.

If you found this article helpful, feel free to forward it to a friend (alliteration is unintentional).

I hope you crush it today!

Clark