[This is part 7 in the RPG Productivity Player’s Guide series.]
Many RPG players are skilled at balancing alternate characters. They have no problem switching from one character to another—while keeping a clear goal for both (or all) characters and how to get there.
In real life, balancing our various roles is a little more difficult.
Roles
We all have multiple roles: I’m a mom for instance, but also a wife, a friend, a writer, a blogger, a youth leader, a sister, the caretaker of our home, and the list goes on. Your roles may be completely different, but what you and I have in common is that we try to balance multiple aspects of our lives. And that’s not always easy, because our roles conflict and clash.
My role as youth leader requires me to be at the youth ministry I serve in every Wednesday afternoon for instance (I serve in an outreach after school program for middle schoolers), but that means leaving my son in after school care. My roles of youth leader and mom clash every Wednesday. And that’s just one example—I’m certain you could come up with many similar ones.
How do we find a healthy balance here?
How do we juggle all our roles and responsibilities without dropping one of the many balls we’re trying to keep in the air?
In short, we don’t.
On any given day, I will ‘score’ significantly better in one or two roles, than in the others. And I’ve learned to accept that—as long as in the bigger pictures, my roles are balanced.
Balance
Balance doesn’t even mean all roles get equal attention and weight. My roles as mom and wife come first and that’s a conscious decision I made a few years ago. A decision like that comes at a price though and you have to be aware of that—and willing to pay it. During the Summer, when my son is off from school, my writing and blogging drops to a minimum for example. I’m certain that my lack of productivity in those months costs me, but it’s worth it to me to be able to spend time with my son.
It’s the same with being the caretaker of our home—which is really a fancy way of saying I’m a housewife. I don’t mind cleaning, cooking, and all that, but this is a low priority role for me as I rank being a writer higher. That means my house isn’t perfectly clean, my garden desperately needs to be weeded, and I don’t do crafts. Ever. And I’m fine with that, because it allows me time to be a youth leader, write and blog.
To get to this point has been a real struggle for me, however. Deciding to let go of perfect standards in certain roles is a tough decision, but it’s the only way to create a healthy and doable balance between all our roles.
Prioritize
Deciding is the key here. You have to consciously decide how important each role is to you and how high a standard you want to set for yourself. My goal is to score an A+ on being a mom and a wife, an A on being a friend and a sister, an A- on writing and being a youth leader and everything else will have to be a B or lower.
The second key here is to realize that an A+ looks different for you than it does for others. The comparison game can drive us crazy; constantly comparing ourselves with others and how they live out their roles creates unrealistic standards. I have to be the best I can be in my roles, in my circumstances and context. When you allow yourself that freedom, that’s when you’ll find that balance.
Let’s make the comparison with an RPG one more time. Most of the time, players have no problem sacrificing a minor character to keep on playing with a better, more valuable one. That’s the same prioritizing we should do in real life. Maybe we need to let go of one or two roles, in order to focus fully on more important roles.
Game On
So, here’s my advice:
- Take some time to write down all the roles in your life.
- Now rank them in order of importance.
- Next, choose what activities you can do in each role that would contribute to your ‘success’, giving more priority to your most important roles.
What is crucial to being successful in that role?
My 7-year old son honestly couldn’t care less if I do crafts with him, or if the floor is squeaky clean, or if his meals are creative and different every day for instance. What he wants for me is to spend time with him, tell him stories, go to the library together, watch football games with him—that’s what makes me a great mom in his eyes. Sometimes we make it so hard for ourselves, when all we have to do to succeed at being a great parent is take the time to watch a football game with our kids.
Balancing our roles is about choices—choosing to do the right things and choosing to relax about everything else. Maybe Elsa had a point when she sang: “Let it Go…”
[Video via YouTube]
Eric Dye says
In both RPGs AND life, I have a problem with trying to add XP to EVERYTHING. Not the right way to go about things…
Rachel Blom says
Yup, I know that feeling…