Let’s know about work-life balance with four burners theory.
We want to achieve everything in this modern world. We want to be the best student, we want to be the best child of our parents, we want to be the best friend, we want to be at the top of our professional life.
Everyone wants to do that but most people can’t reach up to that level. They can’t make a perfect balance in life.
Why not?
Because a balanced life is a myth. Let’s get into this by understanding the four burners theory.
What four burners theory says?
Assume in your kitchen there’s a stove with four burners. And each burner represents your life’s one major quadrant.
The first burner represents your family
The second burner represents your health
The third burner represents your friends/social life
The fourth burner represents your career.
So now it’s important to know what this theory says.
The four burners theory says that. As the gas stove takes power from the cylinder and burns to their full flame, that’s how each quadrant of your life takes energy from you in order to be successful.
So to be successful in one quadrant, you’ve to invest your energy more in that quadrant. So when you invest your energy more in one quadrant of life, the other three quadrants will not reach up to the success of one quadrant who’s taking more energy.
In a more easy way.
Suppose you’ve your 100%. To have a balanced life we need to give 25% each. But you want to be richer and want a super successful career. So you’ve to give 50% to only a career. Hence all the other three quadrants have to compromise. They’ll definitely get affected.
Now you want to be more successful in career and family both. You need to give more energy to both career and family more. So very little energy will be left for social life and health.
Do you understand what four burners theory says?
It’s kind of trade-off. If you want to excel in one thing you’ve compromised in your other things.
Of course, if you’re somewhere near perfect. You can equally divide your energy in each quadrant but you need to remember one thing it’s really hard. Remember You can’t reach up to your full potential in your choice of the field like this. You can never be able to maximize your potential with limited time and resources.
If you want to excel in your choice of area, you definitely have to compromise. You’ll be imbalanced then.
The four burners theory only mentioned four regions. But there are other reasons too. Depending upon person to person.
Time also plays a different role in the four burners theory.
You don’t have to fuel one burner in all your life. Nothing is permanent so are our priorities.
You’ve different priories in all your phases of life. And that’s natural. So according to the phases and priorities, your burners change their power.
When you’re a kid your family is your everything. So your family burner is at its highest power.
When you go to school and college, you’re growing and your social burner and health burner is at its highest flame.
Now you’ll enter your professional life so your career burner is at its full power.
When you get married and having kids, your family burner is at its highest power.
So it’s just an example to show you how burners work with different powers in different phases of life. They burn differently when you change your priorities.
Is balanced life a myth?
Well honestly saying balanced life is achievable but with some price.
If you’re thinking I can do everything with my full potential and full energy, can make the perfect balance in everything – this a myth. Until you’re a superhuman.
So Four Burners Theory says that if you want to excel in something you’ve to underperform in something else. Basically, you need to compromise with your choices. Because every Choice has a Cost.
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