What Are You Optimizing For? Balancing Life and Money

Are you pursuing a good day-to-day life or simply just chasing money?

To keep myself in check, this is a question I ask myself just about every week. I find that if I don't, I default back to a money-chasing mentality that doesn't serve me, my loved ones, or my clients.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with having the desire to accumulate money. In business or in our career, it can be one of our key motivators. I know it is for me. In fact, it's my consistent focus on making money that has helped the business grow each year.

However, as I've learned, money alone does not translate into a great life. It can fuel a better life for us and our family, but only if we know how to use the fuel appropriately—and only if we create a business or choose a job that optimizes our ideal lifestyle (and not the other way around).

One concept I think about often comes from the book, The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. I'll paraphrase:

Frannie makes $140K a year and works 80 hours per week, while Freddie makes $80K a year and works 40 hours per week. Who's richer?

The answer to this question comes down to priorities. If your priority is to make more money without concern for your time and lifestyle, then you might say Frannie is richer. But, if we are to factor in time, then we can see that Freddie makes more per hour and has time to toss back into his life outside of work. Assuming he makes enough to afford his lifestyle, Freddie is richer.

Whenever I find myself trending more towards Frannie than Freddie, I try to take a moment to pause and reflect. I take out a piece of paper and answer three questions:

Question #1: Are you pursuing a good day-to-day life or simply just chasing money?

Question #2: What in your life do you want to optimize for? (Ex: freedom, money, time, creativity, family, fame, wealth)

Question #3: How can you use money as fuel for optimizing your ideal lifestyle?

Through this simple exercise, I'm able to reprioritize what's important and create a plan for how to correct my behavior moving forward so that I'm using money to fuel my desired lifestyle rather than just chasing money for money's sake.

If you find that you also get caught up in the chase for money and wealth without having a clear picture for how that translates into a better day-to-day life, perhaps this exercise will help you too.

The next time you find yourself getting lost in the pursuit of wealth, ask yourself:

What am I optimizing for?

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