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The following statement will ruffle some feathers, but here we go: Work-life balance is a myth. Productivity guru David Allen once said: “You can do anything, but not everything.”

If you’re in the early stages of your career, you’ll probably choose one of two paths:

1. I worked hard. You choose to focus on your career by working long hours and building as many skills, experiences, and professional connections as possible. Sometimes you will feel like you are working too hard, but we hope that this effort will pay off in the future. By working your tail off and getting some battle scars early, you’ll end up with great skills, connections, and hopefully some good money. At this point, you’ll have a wide variety of options for what you want to do next.

2. Too much has happened. You choose to take advantage of your freedom, health, and youth. You want to enjoy, pursue your passions, and gain as much life experience as possible before “settled” into career and family life. Money may be tight, but you’ll have memories for a lifetime and a strong social media feed. Great. However, this may lead to you approaching the next stage in your life/career with noticeably fewer career skills and work experience.

Which camp is the right camp? This is entirely up to you.

I know this may seem harsh, because most young people will tell you that they want a balance between paying their dues at work and enjoying life. But fast forward 10 years and they almost never find the balance they hope for. Ask any successful person who claims to have a great work-life balance; They will tell you how hard they worked as a young professional, how demanding their boss was, how many red-eye flights they endured with their flight coach, and how many challenges they faced. He had to overcome it. They have a flexibility that seems attractive because they already work hard. Now they can be rewarded for their early sacrifices. To borrow a sports analogy: You have to do the reps; If you want to make a profit, you have to do the work.

Another way to look at the overwork and overlive dilemma is to ask yourself what kind of team you want to be on at this stage of your life.

Do you want to be on a Super Bowl champion like the Kansas City Chiefs, or a fun-loving cellar dweller like the Texas State Fighting Armadillos in the 1991 movie? Required Roughness. This team was partying all the time, had no scholarship players, and relied on a 40-year-old point guard to lead them.

If you are a young person just starting your career, you are not chasing a job as much as choosing a team. Some of the “hiring” teams will highlight their culture: “We have flexible hours. Everyone is really nice. Salaries are reasonable. We eat pizza every Friday and do fun team-building exercises.” “Sure, we do some work, but it’s really about balance and having a good time,” they’ll add. Think Michael Scott and the fictional Dunder Mifflin paper company. Office.

But other teams, such as high performers, will tell you from the start that you will be working long hours, can’t commute from home, or can’t choose which days you take off. They also won’t show how stressful the job will be at times. Their expectation is that moderate stress can be a good tool to benefit from better performance.

So why do you want to join such a team?

Because those teams are at the top of their profession. Their culture is about everyone growing and pursuing excellence. It won’t be much fun on this team, but after a few years you’ll have incredible skills and experience to write your resume on, and a tremendous network of contacts that can help you throughout your career. Many members of the New England Patriots championship dynasty didn’t love playing for Coach Bill Belichick, but they sure loved the bonus money and Super Bowl trophies.

The key is this: If you don’t want to work hard, don’t care about winning games or championships, and aren’t passionate about getting better, then choose the easier, fun-loving team. There is nothing wrong with this. So, when you look back 10 years from now, which team will you wish you were on?

Really nice team with a calm, relaxing and supportive environment Expectations may not have been high, but stress levels were low and you will have made good friends there. So how many games did you win? The other team told you: “We’re here to work hard. We’re here to do great work for our favorite clients that we love to source for. They come to us because they know we’re champions.” This level of commitment comes at a price. Do some people burn out like that on a championship team? Certainly. This kind of culture is not for everyone.

There is no shortcut to success

It all depends on how much you want to grow and how fast you want to grow. book by Ben Horowitz The Difficult Thing of Difficult Things It shows that there is no shortcut to success. Anyone who tells you they “work smart, not hard” has already put their agency to work and overcome many challenges to get to where they are today. Again, there’s nothing wrong with taking a more relaxed approach to your career. Just set your goals accordingly.

If there’s one important lesson I’ve learned throughout my life and career, it’s that what’s hard is often the right thing. This is often the path to satisfaction. As author Jerzy Gregorek said, “Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.”

How did you decide which team you wanted to be on? ID I love hearing from you