The last few weeks have been a lot. A demanding internship, content, deadlines stacked on top of eachother. For the first time in my life my body is actually telling me that I'm doing too much. Bad sleep, migraines, low energy. And the weird part is, these have also been some of the most successfull weeks I've ever had. Both things are true at the same time and that's kind of what made me want to write about this.
Because it's not sustainable forever. Nobody can really keep this pace indefinitely and I don't think the answer is to pretend you can.
Most of the advice around balance assumes a daily or weekly structure. Work hard Monday to Friday, switch off on the weekend, gym every morning, eight hours of sleep, repeat. That works for some people, but real life doesn't always fit into a this perfect 7 day schedule. Sometimes the work in front of you (an internship, an exam, a season of your life) just demands more than that, and pretending otherwise is how you end up doing none of it well. Often times balance is really only achievable on a monthly basis, not a weekly one.
And I think that's still fine. Sometimes you just have to put your head down and endure the hard part to make the progress you actually want. The sacrifice itself isn't the problem. The problem is finishing the sprint and immediately starting the next one without ever giving yourself the calm phase you earned.
For me that calm phase is already on the calendar. After my internship wraps I'm spending a month in China. Less output pressure, more space to focus on the part I actually love (making content), and just enough distance from everything to calm down a bit. That's the deal I made with myself for pushing this hard right now.
So if you're in a hard phase right now, internship, exams, a project that's eating you alive, it's okay. You're not failing at balance. Just don't let the sprint roll into the next sprint without ever cashing in the recovery.
💡 My Recommendation of the week
The Trading Game by Gary Stevenson. Just started reading it and so far it's really good. Completely unrelated to this week's topic haha, but if you're into finance / markets / a wild personal story, give it a shot.
Have a great week,
Chris