Years ago, while waiting in a dentist’s office, I read an article that stayed with me. It told the story of a high-profile marketing executive who, burned out and exhausted, retreated to New Zealand in search of work-life balance. When one of the indigenous staff members picked him up, he asked what had brought him there.
“I need to find some work-life balance,” the executive admitted.
The retreat worker smiled knowingly. “There is no such thing as work-life balance,” he said. “Only flow.”
At the time, I was struggling with the same idea—trying to balance the demands of being a single-parent family and a full time employee while feeling like I was playing a role at work, zipping up a clown suit each day and acting the part. I could sustain it for 10 -12 weeks tops – at a time – before exhaustion hit. I felt like a ridiculous failure, a problem- and I was treated as such.
Tearful, drained, and barely holding it together, I was once pulled into a manager’s office and told to “pull myself together,” “give my head a shake,” and “stop wearing my heart on my sleeve.” In other words—suppress, pretend, and push through.
To me, work-life balance felt like holding two magnets together—the closer I got to one, the more the other repelled me. Work demanded performance, resilience, and detachment, while life longed for presence, emotion, and authenticity. No matter how hard I tried, they wouldn’t click together.
Mornings were the hardest. Dragging myself out of bed felt like wading through treacle, every step heavy with resistance. I’d push myself through the motions, exhausted before the day even began. Love Inc.’s ‘You’re a Superstar’ would be blasting from my CD player on the way to work, a desperate attempt to drag my nervous system out of collapse—forcing myself into some kind of functioning state.
But what if balance isn’t something we achieve—what if it’s something we become when we’re in flow?
“You don’t have to push the river; it flows by itself.” – Unknown
Flow isn’t about measuring time or effort to create a perfect balance. It’s about alignment—where what we do, how we feel, and who we are move together effortlessly, like a river finding its course.
We don’t find balance by splitting time between work and life like a mathematical equation. We find balance through purpose—doing what we love, what excites us, what makes us want to get up in the morning. The kind of work (paid or unpaid) that makes us feel alive, rather than drained.
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes flow as a state of deep immersion—where time disappears, effort feels effortless, and we’re energized rather than exhausted. It’s the feeling of being fully alive in the present moment.
Flow isn’t something we force. It happens when we stop resisting ourselves—when we stop doing what we think we should do and start following what truly lights us up.
– Instead of forcing ourselves to perform, we align with what feels true.
– Instead of separating “work” and “life” like opposing forces, we integrate them naturally.
– Instead of suppressing emotions, we acknowledge them and move with them rather than against them.
– Instead of chasing balance, we follow purpose—and balance finds us.
When we stop fighting ourselves, life flows more easily. Energy returns. Joy sneaks back in. And we realise that balance was never the goal—harmony was.
“Balance is not something you find, it’s something you create.” — Jana Kingsford