Is work-life balance a reasonable goal in today’s competitive world? originally appeared on Quora, the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus.

The world has always been competitive, and historically, that competition has been much more brutal than it is today.

While modern life is full of new stressors, we should appreciate the tremendous progress we have made, and the amount of free time we can now enjoy to pursue meaningful relationships, learning, adventure or other interests. Many of our great-great-great grandparents worked from before dawn until after sunset, just to eke out a subsistence living. By contrast, we live in a world where it’s often too many resources, not too few, that are the problem (consider that obesity today is a larger health problem globally than starvation).

Why am I saying that in the context of work-life balance? Because it’s important to put the competitive environment today in perspective. And that perspective should go both ways, too: there are many people who have to work multiple jobs just to get by and feed their families. The world isn’t some utopia, and I don’t want to construe it as such. But if you are asking the question the way you are, then I assume that you’re not struggling to get by—what you’re struggling to do is figure out how to fit it all in.

I believe it's important to establish what a successful modern life looks like, and that's a personal choice for each of us. If it's purely to make more money than our peers, it's all-too-easy to lose perspective, become a work-a-holic, and live an unbalanced life. I believe this is a sub-optimal strategy on multiple fronts. Not only do you risk your health and performance as burn out sets in, but an overworked mind becomes less creative and less productive - and hence, less competitive in the skills that matter most in the world today.

Consider a different definition of success. If we view it as finding work that fulfills our need to create while also leaving space to focus on building relationships with friends and family and pursuing personal growth, I believe balance isn't just achievable, but imperative.

There’s another reason why this matters: the most lucrative careers today are not based on hours of work grinding away at repetitive tasks, but rather on creative problem solving (e.g., engineering, entrepreneurship) and relationship building (sales, deal-making, management/leadership, etc.). Success in those endeavors demands that you find your balance and avoid burn out.

One analogy I like to use on this subject is Olympic athletes. These athletes achieve the pinnacle of success in some of the most grueling of physical challenges. Importantly, they don't overtrain. Yes, Olympic athletes train extremely hard—but they also take recovery very seriously. They plan it out, meticulously managing both their training regimes and their recovery regimes. This is the way they reach peak performance.

I believe the human brain is no different - optimal performance is not attained through continuously overstressing the organ. If you want to achieve your greatest competitiveness, then work-life balance is a pre-requisite, not a luxury. This should look like periods of high-intensity work, working long hours with the occasional all-nighters... followed by recovery periods to rest and reset. I think the concept of 'balance' is critical here... if you can't remember the last time you burned the midnight oil, you probably aren't pushing yourself hard enough. But, if you feel isolated from friends and family and you constantly miss important life moments because you are always working, you are also out of balance and your performance will ultimately suffer.

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