Remember with this concept: “Correct proportions.”

In his book, “The One Thing”, prolific author Gary Keller proposes that a balanced life is a myth, that there is no such thing and that it may be counter intuitive to try and achieve equal emphasis on all parts of life (agreed, but we’ll get to this in a minute). In context, Keller proposes that we should separate life into two categories: work and life, and prioritize from there by counterbalancing.

Is not counterbalancing the act of pursuing balance?

When we start to split our life into silos, the end result can only be fragmentation. At level 1 life, we recognize the six focus factors as areas that require daily discipline: faith, family, food, fitness, finance, fun. That doesn’t mean, however, that we are constantly shifting from one to the other throughout the day in a manic state of counterbalancing (think: balancing spinning plates in the air on poles). No, what it means is that each piece feeds the whole, but they are all interdependent. In one word: It’s Synergy.

Our food fuels our fitness. Out fitness enables us to maintain healthy, present relationships with our family. Our family supports us in our financial endevours, and our finances enable us to travel, dine out, and have fun. Our faith gives us a guide by which to principled decisions in every aspect of life. They are all related, they are all synergistic, our job is to define how these factors express our representational map in “correct proportions.”

In this way, a level 1 life is lived horizontally, vertically, sideways, upside down, in harmony and in balance. Although perfect balance may never be achievable, the quest to pursue it is what defines the level 1 life.