I used to have this beautiful Venn diagram on my office wall.
Three overlapping circles: Freedom, Purpose, and Profit.
Right in the middle – where all three circles met – I’d written “The Dream Life” in my neatest handwriting.
Every morning, I’d look at it while sipping my coffee, mentally checking where I stood in each circle.
Some days I felt rich but chained to my laptop.
Other days I felt free but broke.
And sometimes I felt driven by purpose but missing everything else.
But never, not once, have I felt like I was balanced in that magical center spot.
After months of frustration, I realized something that changed everything about how I approach my business and life:
That center spot? It doesn’t exist. It’s an impossible utopia.
And chasing it was making me miserable.
♻️ Chasing a perfect life makes you miserable
I created the diagram below to represent the 3 pillars of Life by Design,
But I quickly realised it was inaccurate, and worse,
misleading.
This week on Life by Design, I’m sharing why the perfect balance is a myth and what to do instead.
There is a hidden centre that lives in the middle of this ven diagram:
“impossible utopia”
Consider Nathan Barry, founder of ConvertKit.
He built and grew his company to $1M/month in revenue, then stepped back from the company.
Despite the success, he publicly shared that he felt depressed, aimless, and unmotivated.
The problem wasn’t money or freedom—it was lack of purpose. He had hit his big goals, but hadn’t set new ones, leading to a kind of existential drift.
This is a classic example of the “arrival fallacy”—thinking you’ll be happy once you “make it,” only to feel empty when you get there.
He eventually found new meaning by re-engaging with creative work and mentoring others, writing about this experience in acclaimed blog post “enough”
In other words, he had built so much profit that he no longer needed to work, so he then had a surpluss of profit, leading to a lack of purpose.
Too much profit
Sure this is a good problem to have 😅
Some problems are better than others,
but imagine you have unlimited profit with no free time to enjoy it,
and no purpose to guide your days you’ll become depressed and no amount of money will solve this.
I know people making seven figures who are absolutely miserable.
They’ve got the fancy car. The house. The watch. The trips.
But they’re working 80 hours a week and have no idea why they’re doing it anymore.
I’ve been here too (at least once every quarter)
The harder you work, the more profit you make, and more your purpose becomes profit.
In fact, profit can often be inversely related to a sense of purpose and having free time.
The freedom trap
Money is a form of freedom too, but I’m mostly talking about time here.
but if you have as much free time time as you like,
Having no purpose to live for is just as painful as having no money to live.
The devil makes work of idle hands.
Ever wonder why so many rich debutantes are miserable and burned out, despite their perfect feed on Instagram?
It’s a cliché for a reason.
Turns out, humans need something to push against. We need challenges. We need to feel like we’re growing.
Freedom without direction is just aimless wandering.
The purpose problem
Imagine being filled with a singular purpose, a purpose you know is important,
but have no income to support your purposes, or no free time to work on your purpose.
Purpose without resources is just frustration.
Some say all forms of suffering are just forms of frustration.
You know exactly what you want to do, but you can’t actually do it.
It’s like being shown a feast when you’re starving, but your hands are tied behind your back.
Rebalancing your life
I’ve written before that I believe work-life balance is not possible or even desirable.
You will prioritize different areas at different times.
We must all do our best to live in the middle,
To adjust accordingly.
To rebalance regularly.
Like stoicism, achieving perfection in any one area impossible,
rather it’s a life-long balancing and progressing little by little.
There will be seasons of your life where profit takes priority.
Seasons where freedom is what you need most.
Seasons where purpose drives everything.
The key is recognizing which season you’re in and leaning into it – without feeling guilty about the other areas.
Here’s your permission slip to stop chasing perfect balance.
It doesn’t exist.
Instead, embrace the ebb and flow. Recognize which pillar needs your attention right now.
And most importantly, stop feeling guilty about not having it all figured out.
None of us do.
Even the people who seem to have the perfect balance of freedom, purpose, and profit are just in a temporary state that will shift.
That’s not failure. That’s life.
And honestly? It’s more interesting this way.
You can stop defining yourself by one job or one role.
- Right now, I’ve got a newborn, I’m focussing on having as much free time as possible to be a Dad.
- Six months ago? I was in the pure purpose zone, writing like a mofo, producing digital products, spending hours a day reading and learning.
- Before that? Profit season, baby. Head down, grinding, building systems that would pay off later.
The key is awareness.
When you feel yourself drifting too far toward one corner of the triangle, it’s time to course-correct.
- Feeling burned out from chasing profit? Inject some freedom into your schedule.
- Feeling aimless with too much free time? Reconnect with your purpose.
- Feeling frustrated that your purpose isn’t sustainable? Focus on profit for a bit.
The solopreneur’s hierarchy of needs
I think there are really 3 things you need for happiness.
I’m calling it the Solopreneurs hierarchy of needs.
The nice thing is that it ties up neatly with the whole reason I started my own business in the first place.
Here’s the strategy I use to guide my daily life:
I’ve drawn it as a triangle, because you will always be balancing these things,
But it’s difficult to have all x3 at the same time. In fact I find myself constantly adjusting and balancing.
But before you can balance the plates, first you have to obtain them.
in obtaining them it’s really more of a stack than a triangle.
Let’s break them down:
Money
stability \ wealth
Unless your happy living the life of a monk, you’re going to need enough money to live comfortably.
It’s difficult to pause and consider your place in life, when your chasing down invoices so you can feed your family!
But “enough” is different for everyone. It probably isn’t as much as you think.
Be sure to define your “enough” otherwise you always be chasing.
Don’t get me wrong:
Money is still important.
But there’s something far more valuable than money…
Freedom
freedom \ time
The truth that the gurus won’t tell you is…
After a certain point of comfort, money isn’t going to help you any further.
Now you have more freedom.
Freedom from financial constraints
Freedom with your time
Freedom from stress
But after hitting your goal (whether that’s 6 figures, online fame, perfect abs, the sportscar, whatever), you’ll just set a new, higher goal and keep working. This is the problem with setting monetary goals.
Once you have enough money, you don’t have to work as much,
and you’ll find that time is far more valuable than money.
Free time is great.
But having free time means you’re going to hit another problem.
A problem that few are lucky enough to have.
Once you have passed the point where you need to work to live, you’re going to get kicked right in the nuts with a painful existential crisis:
“ok what now?”
Purpose
Fulfilment / challenge.
Ok, cue eye rolling. 🙄
So it’s a nice problem to have. But it is a painful problem nonetheless.
It’s the reason why so many high fliers celebrities and high performs burn out:
They have all the money, all the free time, the height of their careers…. how could they be miserable?
If this problem is not solved it can lead to boredom, depression.
People need a reason to live and. They require meaningful work.
I find it so absurdly hilarious to have come all this way, only to come full circle back to the solution of “work as a way of life.” 🤣
I’ve written about my own journey through the x3 painful phases of freelancing, but if you’d like help figuring out where you’re at right now, and what to focus on,
run through my lifestyle design workshop:
Design your life first, then build a 6-figure lifestyle business around it.
Subscribe for instant access to my lifestyle design masterclass for creatives.
