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This episode is personal on some level. All the advice and ideas are things that I’ve experimented my way to. Hence, they might not be applicable to your life. Have that in mind.
I’ve struggled with the concept of finding balance. Mostly because there’s been an emphasis on relaxation and that you have to DO relaxation in order to be balanced.
I think balance can be found in many different shapes and forms. As I go in to in this episode, we all have different cycles. And finding your cycle is, to me, at the core of finding balance. I hope you’ll find some inspiration to find more balance in your life.
→ Pulling from opposite ends
I’m big on extremes, going all in and finding binaries. It’s a strong tendency in me. Rather than working against that to find a more balanced middle ground, more grayscale or the 0.14393’s, I’ve found this thought to be helpful.
Balance can be found in the tension between opposite ends. It’s not the middle of a hammock that makes it balanced, it’s the tension between the ends. this is the same idea.
Find ways to really work your body, as well as you should find ways to rest intensely. Try fasting, but also try feasting. Try not sleeping, and try sleeping a lot.
What I’ve found is that the balance between these will be just about right for me.
→ We’re cyclic
This is something that I’ve spoken to quite some friends about, mainly because I’ve found a pattern that I don’t think most have. From my conversations I’ve found this: Men tend to have a cycle of a day or a week, and women tend to have bi-weekly or monthly cycles.
It really makes a lot of sense given how we’re built biologically. Yet, not a lot of people follow these cycles.
I know very few men who’ve realised they’re cyclic. And I’ve found very few women who realise they can work with their hormone cycles in terms of diet, exercise and productivity.
Finding your cycle, be it monthly, daily or 9 days long, is beneficial in terms of finding a rhythm. That in turn will get you more balanced. It’s a lot harder to do a waltz to a 4:4. It’s also really hard to dance through life of-beat.
→ The barbell strategy
I’m not going to go too deep in to this since I think Nassim Taleb does that so well in his book. I’m just going to encourage you to try to find a safe, low effort or comfortable place in an area of life.
And then I’d like you to spend some time in the complete opposite to see the growth and reward.
<aside> <img src="/icons/exclamation-mark_gray.svg" alt="/icons/exclamation-mark_gray.svg" width="40px" /> Oh, and the whole thing is edited with Descript to be able to have the subtitles. It also spares you of all my uhms and ahs, which is the reason to why it jumps every now and then.
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