The 3 States of Balance

As a former ice skater, I’ve always been fascinated with balance, after all, it is pretty critical when you’re relying on a blade to prevent you from hitting frozen water!

I was always taught that balance was in balance or out of balance. On the ice, you’re upright or flat on your backside. The origin of the word “balance” even derives from the Late Latin for ‘having two’.

I certainly grew up with the notion of work / life balance as if you had one one OR the other. But for the past 5 years I’ve become somewhat obsessed with this and had a eureka moment when I remembered cooking with my Grandma as a child.

When pouring flour into the old fashion weighing pans of her scales, there were 3 states not 2. As you were starting to pour, you have insufficient. Then you hit the perfect moment of balance! but then with a slip you pour a little too much and you have surplus. This is true with everything including ice skating, we can be balanced, imbalanced under or imbalanced over - the 3 states of balance.

When I recall the feeling on the ice, we very often flip from under to over as we overcompensate; again this is true in life. The feeling of being stuck and then overcompensating and being manic is incredibly common. Most of use spend our lives like a pinball machine flipping through the 3 states of balance!

This is an essential methodology within the GLAS framework. Everything and everyone exists on a sliding and constantly moving scale of imbalance under to over and back again.

You can take the GLAS Understanding Assessment to see how you’re doing.